hi all, although this is a pretty simple and straight forward 'tune up' i thought i would post for any out there
who were not aware of ...

as a big part of the allure of the ems for me is the great sounds of bells and chimes ... awakening memories of watching pinball as a kid ... i finally got around to 'cleaning' up some of the sound units up on my wedge heads

here is my 'step by step' for anyone interested

made a call to a local door and door hardware supplier (mcgregor and thompson, shanahan's would also do...)

a very nice guy there in the sales dept. confirmed they had standard rubber door mutes ... and if i wanted he would give me as many as i needed for free ... as long as i didn't need 'a thousand' !! i think they would only be a few pennies a piece anyhow

so i got around to going and seeing him and he gave me a small bag of door mutes (i have heard there are 3 hardnesses in different rubbers, but they only carried the 'standard')

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interestingly, although he was much younger than i, when i told him they were to put in my pins - he smiled and said his dad owned many bowling alleys locally, and as they closed dad would go and put the pins in the guys room as a kid - he said he always had about 10 pins in his bedroom growing up .. lucky guy!!!

so simply remove the chime bars, and the 3 screws so the unit comes off the side of the cabinet

take off four little 'grub' screws and the front face comes away to expose the coils and rods assembly

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usually this is all gummed up with old weatherstrip in various states of decay - and bungs up the rods and their kicking action up against the chimes

pull it all away and clean up nicely, clean the rods then just pop in 3 door mutes to the holes gottlieb kindly provided for this purpose way way back when

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button it all up and listen to the pretty chimes

cheers, Ron

yes the chime rebuild kits are great - in my case i didn't really need any of the other bits ... the rods and coils were fine, as were the upper rubber grommets and 'fabric' washers and alum bars

i find the rods 'rebound' nicest off of the door mutes ...

i also recall someone mentioning, maybe on here long ago, that the door mutes were originally intended for the gottlieb chimes, hence the holes right where they need to be ... until gottlieb found it was cheaper to use a foam strip??

at any rate the door mutes don't degrade the way the foam does, and over time the foam can get 'punched' from the open bottom of the rods ...

i just find the door mutes the nicest 'clean' sound and works great for my machines - they sound much better, and consistant, than the foam that was in them before

mato, yes when i saw that first pic myself ... it looked like a huge wear area on my El Dorado playfield !!!! HORROR lol

the El Dorado is very near to pristine ... but the chimes were not sounding cleanly or consistantly, especially the 10s scoring - that is part of what got me to finally do this little exercise .. much more enjoyable now

plastic ends hit the chimes

i agree that the tightness of the nuts on top of bars can affect the tones, i like them loosish

the washers sit under the chime bars

i don't like the 'clunks' either and with the mutes and with my set up i don't have to hear those anymore

no wonder my c37 was occasionally just giving a 'snick' sound on some of the scoring contacts ... particularly the 10 point

typ foam 'wear' but in my case looked like someone had many years ago added a pencil eraser as a temp 'door mute' !!!

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Spin out - glad to hear it worked out for you! I haven’t been as active on the forum but still tinker with my pinballs and still do intend to complete a number of decal projects that Have dragged on for years ...... one of them is some custom work for the spin out playfield to cover paint wear at the kick out hole - let’s see if i can’t finally get that one done in next couple of weeks!

Cheers Ron

I’ve let others here know I’ll make the decal available

I’m sadly super slow with my projects and many have likely given up on me ! But I’ll get them done

Cheers Ron