Matthews, NC
Picked up a GOT Premium a few weeks ago and have been absolutely loving this machine!! I noticed that I had 2 of the common issues with the game and thought I would share my methods for fixing them in hopes to help anyone else who might encounter the same issues.
Battering Ram - The thing was registering maybe 15% of hits, even when dead straight on. I inspected it visually with the top plastics off and there was no evidence of the screw scraping the top. I lifted the playfield and you could see definite contact wear between the metal "slider" that's screwed to the bottom of the pins and the plastic portion under the playfield. All I did here was apply some lube (Super Lube I have on hand for EM pinball work) to the metal pins coming through the playfield from the ram, the sides of the slot which the pins touch and the backside of the metal "slider" that fastens to the pins. Since doing this the ram registers at least 95% of hits. Im calling this one case closed! What a total game changer!! Has dramatically increased my average scoring.
Right Ramp to upper playfield - Any shot to that ramp was lucky to ever make it. It would either bounce off the ramp and smack the glass, make it half way up the ramp and bounce off the underside of the plastic protector and fly back down the ramp or make it up the ramp and bounce off the vertical "U-turn" part of the ramp and fly back down. It would make it to the upper playfield no more than 10% of the time. I sanded the top of the drop target with a file so smooth out the ridge in the center of the top, backed out the screws at the bottom of the ramp about a 1/3 turn to reduce the slope (saw this tip somewhere here) and then adjusted the down position height of the drop target as it was creating a slight ridge that I suspect the ball was launching off of. Since doing this, the ball now easily makes it up 90% of the time with no issues. Again - total game changer!! And I am very glad to not have the ball hitting the underside of the glass any longer.
