Your first picture looked like the playfield had a hole in it, then I realised it was a paper bag....... ha ha.

Nice write up. Thanks!
Who would guess that "door mutes" are what should be used.

Or buy a chime re-build kit from PBR for $7.

Curious if you think it sounds better with what you put in? I just bought the re-build kits as they are excellent value.

I saw it as a Paper bag, with the mutes in the bottom. If you do not remember that there were paper bags every were. It easy to think that the mutes are sitting on a very worn out El Dorado. LOL.

when i first saw the pic, i thought "damn, now THAT is a worn pf!!!"...

i'll try these out... quick question: do they make the plunger land "softer"? one thing that is a minor irritation when about beer seal is that i can hear the plunger "bounce and make clunks" when it lands*... it is a minor irritation, but i wouldn't mind making it go away...

one other thing on the chimes... i've found that messing around a bit with how tight you put on the nuts that hold the chime bars can also change the sound some...

* it was a BIG irritation when i spent hours figuring out where the mystery "clunk" was coming from though...

Funny how the holes were designed for the mutes. Then some one decided, "Hey we just need to stick this foam here instead". That must have saved at least 5 cents a game, back in the '70's.

yea... it proves that we should never underestimate the power of an accountant's pen...

I doubt they intended to use door mutes. The regular rubber grommets they used for knocker and bell stops also work (and already had supplies). Labor cost for laying one strip of foam versus inserting three grommets might be the reason though.

i'll buy the "labor angle"... those little grommets SUCK to put in*... someone needs to invent a hand tool to make that easier...

* especially when they are used to hold pieces together, like that light bar/score reel holder assembly thing...

I just rebuilt a chime unit with the PBR kit yesterday, wish I would have put in the old grommets instead of the foam.

The kit came with 12 small nylon washers, do these just fit
above and below each chime grommet?

The chimes still don't sound great, do the bars ever wear out and need to be replaced?
It looked like the plungers was in upside-down hitting bars with metal end of plunger.

Yep, For sure. Assembly time is something that is counted. I was not really thinking of that at the time.

The original design was to use the bell chime grommets in those holes. I just confirmed it in an untouched Flip A Card Bell chime unit (gold metal style) which still has them in place. Not taking it apart, you can tell by their loose-ness, they are the taller type as used on the bell chime bars. But normal hardware store type rubber grommets which sit snug, will work too, they are just a bit harder to install.

As to installation, the only tool I have ever needed was nothing more than a small flat head screw driver (the pocket protector size/style).

From my experience, the Beer seal results in a quieter drop of the plunger (fresh beer seal, not one with the 3 holes worn in it). You won't get the muffled "clunk" that you might get with the rubber grommet. Again, when using the original GTB-2752, they seem to be a softer rubber than normal grommets so they also do a good job muffling the drop.

Also, the beer seal places the plunger closer to the bell chime bar which shortens the stroke. This can result in two things, faster response, and a quieter strike. The faster response might come into play when replacing a Beep-boop-bop System 1 sound board with a Bell Chime assembly as "Some" Rockwell chipsets have a faster bonus count down than the earlier games which were built with Bell Chimes.

If your Bell Chime bars have a divot worn in them from the plunger tip, you can reverse / flip them around to a fresh surface. You can also cut NEW bell chime bars from standard Bar aluminum sold at your local hardware store (3 foot lengths). While you can start with the same exact length, you may need to experiment with longer or shorter lengths to actually tune the chime to sound like the original note.

Oh no, having re-built my chimes on various games and noticed one game is quieter, probably because of the new thicker beer seal.

Now I will have to get some of these mutes!

Does pbr sell bell chime grommets that cactusjack mentions?

Yes. But specify the chime grommets, as the knocker/bell grommets are different.

I am a total newbie and picked up a nice Spin Out on CL last month. However, there were no chimes to be heard... but the chime unit looked good. After a little poking around I found the rods had sort of bonded themselves into the original nasty foam strip and were simply stuck in the down position. Once I released them by scraping away the old foam with a flat head screwdriver, they worked perfectly... except you could now hear them "clunk" every time they dropped into the 42 year old disintegrated foam remnants hitting the metal. I found your post and am so grateful for this suggestion. I took the unit out, used some brasso on the chime bars and after a quick trip to the home depot ($3.47 for a 12 pack of grey door silencers) the unit looks and works like it is brand new! I can't believe how perfectly they fit and work. THANK YOU!

Welcome to the madness! Congrats on your first successful repair. You should check out ORD Pinball in Elk Grove Village sometime.

PBR sells them as GTB-986

9626809e24b40eec8d4f6792ba6edb883a55ae16 (resized).jpg

I thought those were for cushioning the reset arms on the drop targets?????

yea, they do that too. I use then for chime units, drop target banks and also the pf top bar stops. Also on manual ball lift games there is a stop there as well. Bell stops too. lots of uses.

Thanks for posting this, always something new that I want/need from PBR and can never find. I am almost positive that I asked Steve about these 6 months ago, and he said he had nothing for me. Maybe I described it wrong.

Yea if you say door mutes he'll wont know, just remeber the part no gtb 986. I have a excel spread sheet I use to build my order with, keeping lists of my prior orders, makes it fast for assembling the list and order by cutting and pasting into an email for Jimmy

pasted_image (resized).png

For reference, just in the process of going through my C37 with 89,000 (3-ball) plays and here is the state of the factory strip. Not sure if I should replace with the grommets or the strip - might try the grommets first. It makes sense that the strip may lower the volume of chimes a slight bit since shorter distance means less time for plunger acceleration. If this is the case, perhaps another reason GTB changed to strip was for this reason (slight volume reduction).

image (resized).jpeg

go with the door mutes, it is a little louder! if you dont like the chimes for late night playing pull the common wire.

Beer seal always comes out. Grommets in.

Way better!

Thank you again! Omg I read through that thread and absolutely love the work you did since I have that kikck out wear spot. Like everyone else I loved the blue, but in the end the pink you went with was the winner. I would love to get my hands on that art if you are willing to share. Thanks! Patrick

Cool! Thanks again!

Thank you!.. I may just do that - literally in my backyard! I have driven past Stern probably a 1000 times and had no idea it was there... they are in one of the largest industrial parks in the US.

Just rebuilt my #Jacks Open chimes. Originally opened this thread to get advice about how tight to set the chime bar nuts. Didn't like the muted sound with the beer seal, so I used 3 of the old chime bar grommets, and wow I'm a happy camper. This site is the best for archiving and retreiving great info!
Jim

Rebuilding chimes on my Atlantis...where can a guy get the black rubber pieces that go in the chime bar holes and under the nut?

9EBE9A27-7177-4063-ABBB-5EF121C7AC5D (resized).jpegA1C3EF6C-B1AD-42EB-A2FB-B3F9F36392A5 (resized).jpegF481A612-CCB2-4AF9-9F96-9EC18FEE4E8A (resized).jpeg

Search for Grommets at http://www.pbresource.com/bigindian.html
or see Style 4 at https://www.mcmaster.com/grommets/grommets-6/