Replace the sector gear and possibly the driving "round" gear.

Make sure on the replacements that the gear teeth align properly.

It sounds like its slipping due to worn out and rounded gear teeth.

There have been mismatches in the past.

You might examine the 3 opto board.

They arent expensive and its probably past its service life as well as all the optos in the game.

The entire mech motor, gears both the black round gear and the white harp shaped ghear ( is that the sector gear) are new. When I replaced the motor, and disassembled the gears, I wondered about the relation of the sector gear to the black gear as you can place it at any position, but ai assume it should be places so that its on the last ( or forst) totth os the white gear- Il get a pic to explain.

The opto board? Please explain

I see the board listed. Not sure how this board interacts with rudy. The motor attaches to the high driver board. The opto board impacts the jaw movement? Sorry first time working on a funhouse- just learning it. Also I was trying to explain replacing the gears are reassembly. The black gear is self explanatory, the white gear in relation to the black at reassembly would be helpful.

Observe the gears in operation during a game. Are they binding (not enough clearance)? If not, the driver board may have a problem. The capacitor next to the inductor coils...

Playing around with making a topper... this is my first go around....

funhouse topper version 1 too big (resized).jpg

So I figured 24" wide was going to be a good width but a ticket stub is a 2 to 1 ratio, so this thing being 24 X 12 is... rather large, looks like a prop from The Incredible Shrinking Woman movie. I think this will end up on a wall somewhere. I'll scale this down and give it another go.

edit.... whipped up a smaller version, 16 X 8.
funhouse tooper 2 (resized).jpg

The finest cardboard, packaging tape and hot glue construction here.
funhouse topper 3 (resized).jpg

Now to see about making the final version from sheet metal and figure out what I'll do about the lights.

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Got the metal version made last night. Need to clean it up and then I can paint it. Color changing LEDs and sockets should be in this week as well so hopefully I can complete this over the weekend.

Just going to say this is awesome.

I'm not really into toppers for games that didn't come with one from the factory... But I think I really want that animated marquee mod, but apparently I missed the boat on that.

LEDs installed on the topper:
top (resized).jpg

The LEDs are color changing LEDs and all wired up in parallel to each other and powered of GI, so pretty simple for now.

funhouse topper final (resized).jpg

I'm happy with the results. At first they are synced up but over time they are different colors. If I learn how to do some sort of marqee chaser or something I will remake the topper to be a more "solid" boxed type item instead of a single sheet of metal. But to that end, it was pretty simple make in its current form.

There is the artwork for anyone who wants to make their own:
https://app.box.com/folder/17163359180

Does anyone know if both coil stops for Rudy’s eyes ( open and close) are supposed to not actually have the metal plug stop?
I had to order parts and the coil stop they. Show has the metal stop on it. I am wondering if mine had the wrong part for one of them.

Not sure I know what you mean by metal plug stop? Got a picture of this?

Also, make sure you have a centering flange for when you put it back together. This seems to be the part that if missing, causes the most failures to the eyelids.

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/03-8486

Yes my descriptive skills are lacking. Here is the coil stop they list. But both of mine have a hole in the middle

8415F3BD-E86C-4296-B989-DC3067102B6D (resized).png

image (resized).jpg

Where the coil stop used to be and broke out and disappeared.

Note the wear on the hole.

LTG : )

When I got divorced in 2013 I did something crazy! I bought my first pinball machine. It happens to be Funhouse -Actually owned by Pat Lawler. It’s the prototype of the game and I’m the 3rd owner (Pat being the first). It might have 100-150 plays or so on it and is nearly perfect condition. All the artwork is silkscreened, the boards are red not green and it has a couple of features that the production machine doesn’t have. The only change was the bulbs were removed and LED ‘s were installed. Does anyone know what it would be worth?

one of the eyelid coils use A-14029 that you pictured the other eyelid coil uses A-13735 pictured below

detail (resized).jpg

Can someone post a pic of where this actually goes?

I don't seem to have a photo handy showing the flange installed, but I marked a photo up with an arrow indicating where it goes. And you install it between the bracket and the coil so it can't fall out.

The purpose of the centering flange is to basically keep that plunger stem extension piece from bumping into the wood edge of the head base. When it catches on the edge of the wood, it gets hung up and the eyelids don't move the way they are supposed to. Then when the coils fire again during the game, the tiny flimsy eyelids connecting arm goes up against the forces of this plunger stem stuck against the wood and it breaks. Get that plunger stem centered and you're all set.

Centering flange location (resized).jpg

I think what you’ve got pictured in your hand is the guide piece that goes on the opposite end of the coil from the stop. I believe each eye coil has one. They face each other. The stops go on the other end of each coil.

09447F65-4DEC-4C9D-9777-CC6B435A6D16 (resized).jpeg

My machine didn't have a centering flange and it eventually broke Rudy's eyelids. After the eyelids broke, I was forced to take Rudy apart to replace them and noticed the problem with the missing centering flange. After 2 or 3 years, Rudy has been 100% reliable. I'd recommend that anyone who owns a Funhouse ensure that the centering flange is in place.

I think someone had installed two guides instead of one guide and the stop.

On the rudy mouth issue, I checked all gears and they and the motor are new. Ran tests and the gears seemed tight- not sure if the tolerances on the new gears are too tight?? Also tried to measure the voltage out of the board and thats not easy to do - readings seemed to be all over the place. I did read about the driver board and the mods they made for NBA fastbreak where they took the resistor out and just placed a jumper. Should I send the board out to be tested or just jumper and remove the old resistor? What have folks done to make sure ridy always works well?

Thanks

Can’t speak to the board question, but I just installed new greats in mine a few months ago and it works perfectly.

Anybody got a line on the three switches involved in the lock. I see marco's got one, 5647-12073-42, but I don't see the others. Realize they're variations on a theme, but I sure hate trying to shape those suckers.

Screen Shot 2022-06-18 at 5.31.52 PM (resized).png

Please respect the master with correct spelling: Lawlor

I presume it was the second owner and not Pat who desecrated it with LEDs? A game with so few plays surely had bulbs that were still nice and bright, and the backbox should have several blinking bulbs.

That is, unless the LEDOCD mod was installed too, it was new back when you bought the game, but it's possible I suppose.

I didn't recall any differences beyond the extra STEPS target that a prototype would have, so I googled and found this handy guide:
http://www.hsapinball.com/HSA_PINBALL/Proto_Funhouse.html

It claims all the proto cabinets had stickers, not silkscreened art. I don't think it could have been silkscreened after assembly, so what's up with that? Maybe that one, being Pat's, got special treatment?

Also, it says that despite the DiamondPlate logo, the protos were not clearcoated at all! So maybe it's especially fortunate that it has such low plays. Hopefully it's been waxed at least.

It should also have a SYS11 sound board in it. Which if it does, it can't run the latest ROMs, which wouldn't know what to do with the second S target anyway.

As for value, that's a toughie. Having been Pat's, it's priceless in a way, but it also is not ideal for someone who wants to play it. Adding a Rudy's Nightmare mod is probably out of the question, too, if only due to that second S again.

Maybe it's worth a couple grand over what nice FHs are bringing, if you can find a buyer who likes protos and values the ownership history more than the compromises.

5647-12073-32
https://www.pinballlife.com/williamsbally-sub-microswitch-5647-12693-32.html
https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/5647-12073-37 (seems to be same specs for wire form)

5647-12073-33, I'm not finding anything.

Are you just outright missing the wireforms?

Hey thanks. I do have the wireforms, just my switches are getting flakey. I realized after posting that I can use the wireforms on new switches if they're the same kind...

Thanks for your reply and my bad on the spelling!
I’ll add some pictures in the next day or two and maybe you give more information on it.
Yes it was the second owner that installed the LED’s - the seller at the time ran a pinball convention every year in Michigan and owned over 300 machines.

Hey all, new member here! I recently bought a Funhouse that needs quite a bit of work. The playfield is quite worn, and a lot of the plastics are cracked or chipped. I had problems with the eyes and eyelids on Rudy, so I replaced the coils, plastics, and springs in him this weekend. Everything’s working great now, but once I installed the eyes they’re not centering quite right… a project for another weekend.

I love this game. I’ll probably do a pf and plastics replacement on it later this year. Still learning how to maintain pins, so I’m starting with small fixes and will work my way up to the more difficult things.

sounds like you need a centerng flange...do you recall installing that?

If you’re asking about the centering flange that goes on one of the eyelid coils, I did. I don’t see a flange on the eye coils. I think (from messing around with the mechanism) that the eyes center by flexing the rod behind the eyes, which centers the eyes when it straightens out. When I installed the new eyes, I’m guessing there’s some new friction that’s keeping them from centering.

Does your head look like this...(borrowed from the previous page btw) ie the tension bar is intact, the "roadshow" crank liner in place? rivets not broken? tension on the eyeballs is loose enough to allow them to move freely? not much to it really to keep them centered...

funhousehead (resized).jpg

In the pic you posted you can see the brass eyelets that hold the tension bar in place are worn and need replacement.

IMG_4063 (resized).JPG

Add in the little black friction clip that that was updated from road show.

https://www.marcospecialties.com/control/keywordsearch?SEARCH_STRING=01-13416

You can install it backwards or forwards.

Backwards adds a bit more pressure and the eyes snap to center rapidly if everything is worn out.

If the brass eyelets and spring rod are new, forwards gives plenty of pressure.

B31DDF33-83DE-4ABB-AE92-F206861B34EB (resized).jpeg Thanks for the help! I took this pic as I was disassembling. The eyelets didn’t appear worn to me. I bought some new ones with the other parts, but they were *way* too big, so I haven’t replaced them yet. The eye mechanism centered effortlessly until I buttoned it all back up with the new eyeballs. I assumed it was additional friction from the eyes being a tight fit in the sockets, but I could be wrong.

This is awesome! I think I’ll do this. Thanks for the suggestion.

Wear on the crank end and worn rivets causes loose tension on the tension rod.

Adding the little black clip helps with this a lot to make the eyes snap into the center position.

Hello everyone. Does anyone know where I can get a main ramp without taking on a 2nd mortgage? Thanks!

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/PR110

That's 40 bucks more than what it costs from the source:

https://www.starship-fantasy.com/ramps/Funhouse-Main-Ramp

Thanks. I'm not sure why they didn't show up in any of my searches. Thanks again.

Cheaper from the source...
https://starship-fantasy.com/ramps/Funhouse-Main-Ramp

Ball Lock Adjustment... AKA the biggest PITA thing to deal with in this game. I've got a new disc assembly from Marco (A-14151). I've put a washer under the disc to raise it up a hair (post #3574) which seems to help with the ball passing through. However, the issue I kept running into is failed ejections. About 50% of the time is would work fine, and the other 50% of the time the ball would not clear the disc upon ejecting. The ball would get trapped between the leading "point" of the disc and the metal ball guide. And it would then take a several cycles of the ball lock mech to finally clear the ball.

I've spend some time this evening getting this sorted out (under the gun, SFGE next weekend) and I think I finally got it sorted out without taking things apart.

IMHO, the issue is the amount of rotation the disc has is "just barely enough" and is really has to be "clocked" correctly. It would of helped if there was a slight pause at the end of the stroke to give the ball more time to clear, but then dual coil and EOS switch... Some one at Williams said $$$ nope.

As noted, IMHO the issue is the limit range of travel, so I carefully modified the mounting bracket:

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I bent the metal bracket away from the coil so the crank arm was extended out a bit more than normal. It didn't take too much, you can't really tell looking at it that it was tweaked on. I would say this is a "do as little as possible, but as much as needed" kind of tweak. But with this, my testing so far has been 100% ball ejection without issue, so a vast improvement.

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The angle of this photo implies the rear point of the ball guide is sticking out beyond the ball guide, but it is not, the point needs to be flush with the ball guide. If the point sticks out, when there are 2 ball in there to eject, the 2nd ball will just hang up on the point.

When the clamping nut is loosened, you can just sneak in and get something to poke the disc with:

222222222222 (resized).jpg

I took a 10" piece of Romex and used a single piece of solid copper (insulated) to make a poking tool with a tiny "hook" at the end of it. I was able to sneak in that gap and push/pull on the disc until I got it where I wanted then flipped the playfield up and carefully snug the hardware down so my adjustment wasn't altered.

If this makes my pin burn to the ground and everyone running away in terror at the show, I'll report back on that.

Hopefully this helps some one out down the road.

I have the issue with pass through all the time. Would love a tutorial on this assembly as its not listed in manual. You said there is an adjustment screw to reorient the metal dic with the cutout?

The newer verison of this is made by Marco, it has a screw on top to adjust it, the original one has done from underneath the playfield. as its welded https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/A-14151

I think the disc is keyed onto the shaft so that it can't twist with the Marco version. And adjustment to clocking would be made by loosening the hardware at the crank arm.

The good thing would be if the disc is replaced, no need to clock it again. Still got to pull the ramps. I'll let you all know how that goes in 20 years.

ah yes I think you're right on that...been a few months since I installed it...

here is the link to the video about

so pulling ramps. I have had the stairs ramp off before, how big a PIA is the one underneath that? Any sequence secrets? Seems logical to siply replace the disk as well while i am in adjusting.

If someone need this trap door send me a pm. Thank you

Sold. Thank you all.

I see the clamp underneath which holds the metal disk shaft. That can be loosened and the metal disk pushed up I assume like a flipper shaft? However, the balls are still flying through with most hard shots. the softer ones will stay. Got the left ramp off and can easily see the mech. Not sure how the marco one changes the way this plays so would appreciate a bit more guidance. From all I can see there is the entire plate mech that attaches underneath the playfield, and the disk and shaft that slide down under and are clamped. Is it the heighth of the shaft that is allowing the ball through or is it the force turning the disk itself?

Thanks

Is there a return spring on your mech? I can't imagine the ball just blowing through that area..Yes it does move up and down, but ideally you want it centered on the middle of the ball. And as others have shown it has to be positioned correctly or it won't release the ball.

I need to film what is does when i shoot it there to determine whether its simply jumping the disk or turning it and going through. There is a return spring- yes