Big Indian doesn't appear to have any 'same player shoot again' / extra ball functionality on the playfield so I'm thinking there isn't going to be a plug adjustment for this.

The phenolic piece is linked with a roll pin. The link usually wears around the roll pin and pivot point. Changing that piece is pretty straight forward, as long as you have a pinch to drive the roll pin out.

There should be a few videos out there showing how it’s done.

The spring should be strong enough to return the flipper, but not so strong that it reduces the force the flipper exerts. It sounds like your adjustment is causing the flipper to exert most of its energy overcoming the spring tension.

Typo. Yes, punch.

You don’t need to drive the pin all the way out. Just drive it out to the point where you can remove the old link and install the new link. This way, you won’t lose the pin and won’t have to worry about starting the pin into the hole.

I would not worry too much about the spring tension until you get the rebuild kit, since you will be removing the spring anyway.

With new sleeves, springs, and coil stops, the flippers should feel balanced.

a 1/8" pilot/pin punch is ideal ... it has a nub on the end that sits inside the roll pin to keep the punch centered.

there's also a hollow punch the pin fits into to get it started if it's all the way out, but you don't really need one.

if the pin is in tight, it helps to slide a shim/washer between the link and one of the sides of the plunger when pounding in the pin. That prevents the plunger from sides from squishing together and binding the link. The link should swivel freely on the pin before you put the spring back on.

Take a resistance reading of the coils - however, I doubt changing the coils would make much difference.

There’s a thread listing the expected resistance values of coils - I want to say it’s on John’s Jukes website, but I’m not sure. I think someone cross posted it on this site, too. You will have to do a little searching.

If your coil resistance is pretty close to expected, then I would say your coils are good.

this is one place: https://www.flippers.com/coil-resistance.html

the flipper coins should be A5141's

the flippers aren't as powerful as a modern game, but they should be able to get the ball to the top of the playfield easily.

typical places to lose energy are:
- crud in the coil sleeve
- worn coil sleeve and/or mushroomed plunger
- crud in the flipper shaft
- end-of-stroke switch misadjusted and opening too early

There is no "built in" way to do this, although I have been wondering about rigging something up myself. It's a tough game and having the ability to gain an extra ball would be a big reward. You would need to rig up a relay that would skip the 'next player' sequence but still kick the ball over to the shooter lane on drain.

What you want to do is possible and has been done before using an open switch on the credit unit to stop the ball from advancing. It's more complicated than that but that's the idea. You are basically using the credit unit as an extra ball unit. But there are 2 obstacles in your way.
1.) It's usually done on single player games and this is a multi-player machine. You could possibly try something similar by opening the ball index on a Bally or Williams game except...
2.) It's a Gottlieb game so it doesn't have a ball index relay. This makes it even more complicated as you would have to deal with that Last Ball relay.

Jack In The Box, a 4 player game from the same era as Big Indian, allows a single extra ball for the current ball in play. It does this by preventing the Add Player Unit solenoid from advancing via a normally closed switch on the Extra Ball (BX) relay
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Yes, that is basically what I was imagining without having taken the time to look at the schematic and work out any details. If you could "skip" the advance player sequence, but still kick the ball over to the shooter lane, you could continue playing with the same player active. The downside (or upside depending on your point of view) is that the playfield will not reset, but the fact that the drops reset themselves during play would at least take care of that part. You'd be left with whatever B-I-G rollover activated features you had already completed. Could be interesting and would definitely mean more than a credit in an at-home freeplay setting.

Seems to me if you disconnected the hot (colored wire) from the replay step up coil, ran a extension from that wire and attach that wire to the extra ball relay, then when you get say 70,000, the wire has been disconnected from the replay unit, it would energize the extra ball relay. You would also have to turn off the match unit. Just a thought.

The hold relay engages as long as the game is on. That's why the paper is usually brown/burnt. It doesn't make any difference if you leave in the middle of a game or not. If your GI lights are on, the hold relay is energized, even in "Game Over"

on big indian, there's two hold relays.

hold relay (R) powers when you first reset the game and stays powered forever unless a lightbox tilt switch opens or the anti-cheat switch opens.

tilt hold relay (H) also powers at reset, but it will unpower if you tilt the machine.

on big indian, the H relay is the one that will cut off the lighting.

both relays should handle being on indefinitely with only the paper wrapper eventually charring and after many years the coil will fail as the insulating varnish breaks down.

both relays will be hot tho ... are you sure that's the source of the burning smell?