Hi Segerfan , Welcome to pinside!!

Reply sent in private message

So, before you rebuilt the pop bumpers, was the machine working as it should except for the pop bumper lites were out? And now, when you start a new game, do I understand correctly that the machine completes the startup routine and then the tilt lite for player one illuminates?

If so, I suppose it is possible that one of the tilt switches is completing a circuit to the tilt relay and that perhaps you accidentally caused one of these switches to stay closed when you were working on the pop bumpers. Do you have the schematic? I’ll check mine, but usually there are a few switches that could be responsible for this.

And with regards to the pop bumper lites, the bottom one only comes on at particular bonus values (I forget which but I think it is every four steps on the bonus stepper). And then two of the top four (diagonal pairs I think) come on one pair at a time (e.g., the upper left and bottom right and then the upper right and bottom left).

I assume this is a bank reset coil. It should fire during the startup routine but not stay engaged. It would reset the tilt relays (that are part of the relay bank), but shouldn’t stay engaged. I don’t think this is your problem, but does this coil fire during the startup routine?

And raising and then lowering the playfield shouldn’t be related to your problem either.

There are four switches that can complete the circuit to the tilt relay. These are shown in the photos below. The first one is on the bottom of the playfield next to one of the bottom pop bumpers. Perhaps this one was bent while you were working on the pop bumpers....?

image (resized).jpg

image (resized).jpg

image (resized).jpg

The top pop bumpers’ lites alternate via a make break switch on the A (alternating) relay (on bottom of playfield). There are a few switches on this relay, but if the lites aren’t working at all perhaps one of the wires is not attached and simply needs to be resoldered.

image (resized).jpg

Good luck!

tfduda 's post above has pictures of the 4 tilt switches. Are any of them closed?
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/gottlieb-1956-scoreboard-stuck-on-tilt-#post-5918254

Damn, that would’ve been an easy fix... I closed one of those switches on my machine last night when I started up a game and it did as you described (that is, it started up but then the first player tilts). In your last photo it is hard to tell if the switch is making contact. Can you verify that it is not?

Otherwise, I will look at my machine and schematic again in a bit, but in the meanwhile, you said earlier that actuating a large coil by hand caused the tilt lite to turn off, but that the coil buzzed. I assume that you were actuating the relay bank reset coil. When you released the coil, did the tilt lite come back on again? If so, this suggests that your issue should still be related to the tilt relay. Can you check to see if the T relay is energizing during startup?

If you'd like to try a phone call, send me your cellphone number in a private message and I'll make a first reply with a text message.

Another culprit could be a switch on the HH relay (30V hold relay). Normally the HH relay is energized during startup. When the tilt relay engages during normal game play, it opens the circuit to the HH relay (that is the HH relay is de-energized). This would cause a make break switch on the HH relay to complete a circuit to the tilt relay of the player who is up (e.g., TB1 if player 1 is up).

If this switch is making contact even when the HH relay is energized, it would cause TB1 to energize and presumably produce the symptoms you describe. I haven’t looked in my machine, but it should be rather straightforward to see if this make break switch is adjusted properly if you watch how the switches make or break contact as you manually engage and de-engage the relay (with power off).

I see that HowardR is offering to help over the phone. He’s very knowledgeable! If you take his offer, please let us know how you solve this!

tfduda , I just got off the phone with Segerfan and the Tilt relay (T) isn't activating during startup to make it go directly to tilt. So that explains why he found that the 4 tilt switches seem to be OK.

One of the next things I want to look at is the TB1 relay (wrongly labelled T1 at 10E on the schematic) on the relay bank.
Are your relays on the bank labelled? I'd like to know whether the TB1 relay is the front or back relay on the relay bank.

Also, I grew up in Northwest Detroit and Southfield Michigan. Where are you in Metro Detroit?

I will double check, but am pretty sure that TB1 is the first front relay in the bank.

I’m not a native Michigander, but have been here for a while now and do love many aspects of the state. I live near Ann Arbor and am grateful to have a basement! I haven’t been to Boulder, but hear many nice things about it except for the general lack of lakes!

Yes, it is the front one.

D6BFB45B-DE7E-4AB4-BD4C-F93D5DE43A62 (resized).jpeg

Glad to hear things are coming along well!

Which pop bumper lites aren’t working?

One of the hold relays on my machine was also buzzing a bit too loudly and it turned out that the original relay was replaced with a different relay—installing the correct one reduced the buzzing. Otherwise, adjusting the switches on the relay (reducing tension), swapping the spring with one from another relay, and cleaning/sanding the latch plate where it contacts the relay (or swapping it with one from a different relay) may help.

Good luck!

To give some closure, what we found in our phone calls was a few wires had come loose from their solder joints. In each case, in the middle of explaining how a particular circuit was supposed to work, and just getting into my plan for alligator clip jumper wires, Segerfan noticed a loose wire.

The following photos show the right side pop bumper lite connections.

The first two photos show the upper one from the right hand side with two light colored wires (SL&WH?) connected to one socket lead D6584C83-1990-4E35-A426-40D5F601DD17 (resized).jpegand a black and white wire and the bare wire attached to the other from the left hand side.
5C417E3A-ADAC-4DDA-B4DE-8BE003D88722 (resized).jpeg
The next two photos show the lower one from the left hand side with the bare wire attached to one lead CAE46B47-06B8-4C76-9802-DD84BBF66EE8 (resized).jpegand two light colored wires (GR&WH?) attached to the other from the right hand side.1E7E2055-C3B8-41DA-9D6D-849AFE6B7FAB (resized).jpeg

Good luck!

And now that I have my machine open, I see that the HH and R hold relays are both A-3498 relays (and the schematic confirms this).