My father bought a 1951 Genco Hits and Runs for $350.00. It works but the coil voltage is low and nothing has any "pop" to it. Backglass has some flaking. The large plastic on the left side of the playfield had melted some at one time. There are two players that spin around at the top. Are either of them original? He wants me to shop it but I'm curious as to its value as it is. According to ipdb there were 490 made and, it's a baseball theme and they're usually popular but I don't know if it's worth plugging the time in or moving it along to someone that might want it more. Located in SE Pa.

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Either of these guys original?

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Yes. I had seen a Genco repair on Clay's pinballninja site that details rerouting the ac/dc conversion with a new rectifier. And I would never get rid of the old one. I'd just mount the new one next to it.

Ok. I'm probably gonna shop it once I'm done with the King Rock. Jay from ipdb contacted me and was asking a lot of questions about the game for documentation. That kinda got me more interested in working on it. This will probably be my next project so Top Card and Liberty Bell will have to sit a little longer.

Man, before you know the York Show's gonna be here. Uh, oh. Gotta find more room in the workshop.

Well. I've started work on this puppy. Last project before I go into hibernation for the winter.
Backbox has been disassembled and cleaned with Mean Green. What was once black on the top is now yellow again. The back glass had some severe peeling but, fortunately, it was only in the red points area which will be easy to touch up. In the mean time I have sealed it with Krylon Triple Thick to prevent further issues.

They're are four stepper units in the back box. I've cleaned the credit unit which needed a new reset spring since it was gone. I retrofitted a Williams one which, in manual testing, appears to work. We'll see how it does once the game is operating. When I moved onto the 1-9 stepper I found it completely frozen. Neither arm would come off. WD-40 nor carb cleaner for that matter could dislodge either arm from their pressed shaft. Wiggling just caused the shaft to wiggle as well. Oh man, I don't want to break this! I ended up removing the assembly from the back box which involved desoldering ten wires. I needed to do this to get some leverage on the arms.

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Once removed I stuck the f*cker in the vice and soaked the joints in PB Blaster. Some pliers, screwdriver at the base, more wiggling and pulling and MORE PB Blaster and both were free with just a minimal amount of pry marks in the steel. Thank you PB Blaster!

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Reassembled...and it feels so good.

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I thought this was really cute. Genco pressed their name and part numbers onto the steel. May be useful when needing to order new parts from the company.

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Oh. One more thing. Forget about taking the brass sleeves out of the cardboard coils. They ain't budging with making a mess. Just clean and reinstall.

Edit - Just listened to an old TOPcast today and found out that the windings are actually wound around the brass sleeve. So yea, I guess they wouldn't come out without making a mess.

Hey guys. I need some advice about what to do with this severely warped plastic. I have one large plastic that's so melted that it's folded over two switch contacts. Basically the ball would hit the plastic before hitting the contact. Chris Hibler told me that plastic from this era is almost impossible to flatten. What can I do here? I'm not talented enough and don't have the equipment to scan the graphic and make a new plastic so we can forget that. Is there a way I could flatten out this one a little so it would have clearance for the ball? Or, could I use spacers of some sort and just raise the plastic a bit more off the playfield? I'm looking for some help here.

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The back box is done. Every stepper needed some kind of attention other than simply cleaning. Two of the stepper unit gears had their reset position pins that open switches broken off. I drilled out the old mounts and hammered in roll pins which seem to work pretty good without really modifying much.

The last thing I did to the back box was clean the rear drop in door panels. Just look at this panel. And that was after one cleaning with Mean Green. The whole top of this box was just as black if not blacker.P1010693.JPG

After several applications of Mean Green. Tape didn't want to come off though.
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I've removed the playfield and cleaned the inside of the cabinet. Transformer is mounted under the playfield and not much in the cabinet.

Check out this selenium rectifier mounted to the transformer. Converts AC to DC for the coils. Unfortunately it doesn't work well anymore so were gonna have to do the modern day replacement with a new bridge and bypass the old one.
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Genco marked the the AC and DC leads to and from the selenium rectifier. Yellow for the AC and Red (in the center) for the DC hot and the far left one is black for the negative. Cool huh?
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I've sealed the backglass with triple thick. The only real damage is flaking from the lower left red score area. The detail area with the title and baseball players is almost fully intact.

I hope others feel this way because it's gonna be for sale when I'm done. Keep in mind that I will only do "artistic" restoration if I feel I can make it look close to original. Anything else is cleaned, waxed and left to a future owner. Know your limitations.

Yup.

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Anybody know where this Jones Plug was supposed to go? Coin door? Couldn't find any holes for mounting the female end in the cabinet. image-162.jpg

It leads to this female plug which leads to the playfield and a small bell mounted under the front of the playfield. Is this a replay bell instead of a knocker?

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Thanks. This seems to be where the female end goes. Which is broken off. What else is missing here?

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Before I tore it apart, the game worked (sort of) but the timer never activated. It just went through its five balls and the ended. How would I manually activate it? Not something I could get to right now because the playfield is upside down on my bench at the moment.

So this game uses a timer? Why? Why not just go through the five balls and end? How does it work? Can you play five balls and it ends or do the balls keep loading till the timer is up?

The timer is set so the contacts are always closed and it's been moved so it's never activated at a start of game. However, the timer does work and it takes a LONG time before it's done running after activating. You could probably play, at least, five games before it's done running.

Since I'm missing switches and wiring to the coin door, I think I will continue with the setup that's already been done. Honestly, I don't see why you'd need a timer anymore in the home environment. I would just unplug the game when I'm done.

Check out the return spring. Velveeta. It's not just for pasta.

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This will be the extent of my repainting. Not perfect but not bad either.

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For those curious where serial numbers appear. Mine is A1283. I would guess that's #283 out of 490 produced.

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Hey guys. This game had 1 1/8" Bally Bingo sized balls installed in it when I got it. They looked right in the trough but Steve Young told me that any game from this era he's dealt with had the standard 1 1/16". Anyone out there ever had an Genco flipper game that used 1 1/8" or did a previous owner just put the wrong balls in? Thanks in advance.

Edit: Never mind. Ran the game through with both sizes today. 1 1/8" played like sh!t. Standard 1 1/16" it is.

Really? No lights in the pops? I've seen older Genco's on ipdb with lighted pop bumpers.
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Well, we'll fix that! Factory or not. Lighted bumpers just look so much better.

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Pretty much done. I'll post some thoughts and, probably, a video on the game soon but, in the mean time, here's some of my photo work. Enjoy.

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I still use an older Canon 30d DSLR. The wide shot was taken with a Sigma 10-20mm lens and the closeups were taken with a Canon 60mm Macro lens.

Thanks jr and everybody else who's commented or gave "thumbs up." I do the best I can. Other than parts I repaired this game "pro bono" for my dad just to do a Genco for the experience. Pins from this era are so...raw. I know this sounds weird but they feel even more "mechanical" than a 70's EM even though it's basically the same principal. I gotta admit. I love it when the 1-9 stepper resets. It sounds like a freaken machine gun. I spent the day helping my dad repair his 1974 Chicago Coin Showtime. I just had to laugh at how sluggish a CC game is during it's reset sequence. All I could think of was the "chugga chugga" of a train. This game from 1951 just felt so much more "tight." Not to mention that Showtime is a turd. Shhhh. Don't tell dad.

One little side story. While cleaning this game I found tons of yellowed grease on springs, brackets, coil sleeves, etc. It looked like Velveeta but smelled nothing like that wonderful product. Even though I wash my hands thoroughly I woke up one night with my hands wrapped around my pillow and in my face and I was thinking "what is that horrible smell??" Then I smelled my hands. Oh man! I can't get it off. Fortunately it eventually went away but what a horrible smell old, crusty grease is. All part of the pinball experience when someone thought Velveeta was good to use as lube.

Here's a couple pics of the added bridge rectifier. I completely credit Clay Harrell for his instructions for how to do this. One AC lead was fused with a 10A. I used wiring that I thought would be easy for someone to identify in the future. Yellow for the AC, red for the DC hot and black for the negative. Certainly not original but necessary for this baby to run again. As always, I've added a new grounded line cord as well.

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Yea. I don't see the sense in getting rid of the old rectifier. Just creating more waste and, more importantly, removing an integral part of the original game which is quite unique and just plain cool looking. It's not leaking anything sooo...why not just leave it?

Pop bumpers aren't too hard. I just use acrylic paint and a tiny brush. The pops usually have indentations on them where the lettering was pressed on so it's just fill in the space. If I go over, I just wipe off the mistake with a wet paper towel. If I get mad, I would just wash the whole bumper under some water and start again tomorrow. Now, major playfield touch up? That's another story entirely.

This is technically my father's game but added it to "my collection" just for pinside documentation purposes because he's not on here. It will be for sale soon.

Short gameplay video. What am I saying? If you can maintain a ball for sixty seconds on this game, you're amazing.

Basically, the goals are to up your batting average and your runs. As you do so, specials will light on either of the two side lanes or the kick out hole. When you score an "extra special" you are awarded three credits. This is very hard to do. The game can be quite addicting though. As you can see from the video, nudging is 75% of what you do to keep your ball in play.

It's pretty hard to do but if you nudge just right as it's being kicked out you can get the ball to rebound off the center rubbers back up into the playfield. Needless to say, I've set the tilt pendulum very liberal.

Front's all the way down. The back's up about an 1 1/4". Yea. I might lower it some. See how that works. One thing to note. I've adjusted the single flipper solenoid all the way out so the plunger travels farther giving the flippers the most amount of swing possible.

Hey guys. The game's done and is up for sale. Before I list it on ePay, I thought I'd ask around here if anyone's interested. I'm not even going to bother with a market place listing because, as far as I'm concerned, if you're interested, you've been following the thread.

Now this game is my dad's. I'm just selling it for him because I did the work and can answer questions. I'll be perfectly straight. He paid $350.00 for it and has paid me $150.00 in parts. Mostly that went to the $80.00 for a custom 21" x 41" piece of 1/4" thick tempered glass. Not the usual 21" x 43" that goes in most machines. So he's in it $500.00. Obviously he wants more than that for the game. All my time was for free because...I wanted to do it.

You've seen the photos and the worst spots are around the pops and just below the kickout hole. Playfield touch up of this magnitude is beyond my skills so I didn't even try because I didn't want to screw up such a rare game. The backglass has been sealed with some touch up. The worst is around the red scores. Any of the detailed artwork is 99% intact. The large plastic on the left has some white haze which was a result of my flattening it so it would fit properly.

The cabinet has, IMO, minor wear for this era with the exception of the coin door which has a small chunk out of it in the top right corner. There's also a little bit of wood rot underneath where the coin box would sit. Does not go all the way through. Though you don't see it in the photos, the back door is there.

I've disabled the timer since it's just not needed anymore and the switches are missing around the coin door but none of this affects gameplay. Replays are still awarded when specials are collected.

If you want to see any area in particular or have a specific question, please ask. I WILL NOT SHIP. Hits and Runs has gotta be picked up at my house just north of Reading, PA. It's in my garage so loading will be easy. Cash only.

I'm going to wait a couple days to see if anyone's interested before listing on ePay. The price? Make me an offer and I'll run it by my dad. It's his decision.

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I gotta admit. Genco had the coolest shooter assemblies. Like chrome on a classic car.

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Hey guys. Looks like eBay did not work out. Maybe it's too close to the end of the holiday season or, maybe, no one on there is really interested. Anyway, Hits and Runs is going to my dads. He told me that he has some people in mind that might be interested but none of these are "pinball people" in the slightest. He's willing to take $500.00 (which was his investment) so, if anyone is interested, just PM me. The game's going to be near Morgantown, PA, about 30 minutes south of Reading, PA. I'm just putting it out there as I'd really like to see this game go to a pin enthusiast and not just some "Joe Shmo" that wants a pinball machine in his basement to play, then ignore and let to rot with its new use as a shelf.

On a side note it just bothers me that so few are interested in these older games. My father and I have seen it in old toys too. As the ones that remember them new die off, so does their "relevance" to the new collector or hobbyist. I know this game isn't super popular like some of its Gottlieb counterparts but it's such a shame that something so rare (and not a bad game either) has so little interest anymore.

Maybe it's just the booze talking (and I have to work 12 hrs. tomorrow) but I'm just kinda bummed out about the whole thing. I don't know. I did a thread about selling my Firepower a couple days ago to someone that's probably going to let it go to shit, so, I guess it's a bunch of things.

Anyway, if ANYONE is interested and can pick this game up, just PM me. The wost I can say is "I ran it by my dad and he said no."

My dad sold the Hits and Runs yesterday. I wasn't there but, from what he said, it moved onto a good home. An older guy bought it for his baseball themed rec room. My dad told me he was really happy with it. Nice to see this game live a little longer.