Gottlieb's Haunted House, a classic pinball machine that broke design barriers and hails from the glorious years of the early 80's where original themes ruled the day. The art is stunning, the music is charming, the field design is unprecedented, and this theme of a spooky old home with ghostly inhabitants will always have a place in our imaginations as kids and adults. It is timeless.

I call this game The Beautiful Beast because just like it's artistic subject, the old victorian house, this eye catching marvel stands out amongst the crowd, but beneath that facade is a wide, heavy machine with it's own set of quirks to deal with, lots of moving parts, can be a handful to maintain, and features unique twists/turns in it's design and gameplay.

Like those behemoth homes with an excessive amount of entries, doors, windows, hallways, stairs, levels, etc., the game consists of (3) playfields, (8) flippers, (4) flipper buttons, (4) pop bumpers, (9) drop targets, (11) spot targets, (2) kickback targets, (3) kickout holes, (2) VUK's, (2) drop holes to the basement, (2) hidden passages to the basement, (1) ramp, and (3) different songs that change by location. Very fitting portrayal of it's real life counterpart.

The designers at Gottlieb nailed the concept. The lightning bolts are striking as they flash behind that spooky 3D backglass depicting a wondrous old house full of headless bodies, floating skulls and spirits in a vibrant green and yellow stenciled cabinet. Add to that colorful PF art, the attic, the see-through window looking down into the basement where the ball is shot back at the player in reverse, and the eerie music of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor with two other spooky tracks that hit hard as you wander through the home. The single ball play feels like you're the only living soul making your way through the halls of this eerie abode.

All are welcome here, so make yourself at home. If you own the game, looking to buy, or just love the title, we encourage your input.

Let's keep this thread going to promote the mission of saving and playing this awesome one of a kind machine. Long live the HAUNTED HOUSE!

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Hell yeah, Konghusker! Project or plug & play?

Same here Stretch. Bought mine in June, very dirty and neglected machine which sat in someone's basement for 27+ years. I got it all shiny and looking nice, now getting through the mechanical bugs and then she's ready to rock. I'm new to fixing pins, so going into it I knew it wouldn't be a quick turnaround for me. Patience is my savior right now.

Here is my thread documenting my restoration process. https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/bringing-a-haunted-house-back-to-life

Here is my game (lock down bar and glass off)...

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Nice!

Yes, one day we will play. Gearing up right now to put in a good work session on the HH tonight. Hoping to run through all connectors again with a closer eye, and I just bought a new DMM. Going to check everything with that one more time too. The one I was using didn't have audio continuity alert and was very very basic. I think I got it for free a long time ago at Ace Hardware or something.

I'm going in!!!!!!!!!

Cleaned up nice! I love when they're found in neglected situations and then get raised from the dead. Makes it that much more special.

I'm in the market for an original backglass if anyone has an extra to sell. My original BG was bubbling a little, but not too bad. Then one night I had it off when I was fixing a 6 digit display a few weeks ago, and a freak accident with my dog and some blinds that came down had hit my glass putting a small ding in a noticeable area. 100% my fault to put the glass in a potentially compromised location, regardless if I only had it off for 2 minutes. Thats all it took for lightning to strike. LESSON LEARNED.

I then tried touching it up myself and that ended horribly. This is absolutely devastating to me because I was really loving that all parts from the game I rescued was able to be used and kept. Now, I have a near mint CPR repro I bought from someone, but it's just not the same. I want an original. It just makes it more special to me. I'm still mad at myself about it and I think I've gone through all phases of emotions when someone grieves a major loss... Never happening again.

I like that!

I started a separate thread about this, in hopes that it will reach enough people and maybe, just maybe, something comes from it.

But, I'm looking for a Gottlieb Haunted House that was purchased sometime in the late 90's (I believe) from a private seller's home in Catasauqua, PA (18032 zip). I know the last name/location of the owner that sold it and can verify that connection if any leads do come about. I'm pretty confident there aren't too many HH's sold in any one small town over the years, besides your major cities where several probably change hands over the course of a single year.

This game was in the collection (basement) of a childhood friend of mine in the early 90's, whose dad was into restoring hot rods, jukeboxes, pins, etc. I remember going over there to play it as a kid, and over the years kind of forgot about it as we grew up and moved on with our lives. One day last Spring I randomly thought of the game and became obsessed with learning everything about Haunted House. I asked my friend about it and he said his dad sold it years ago. Thats all I know. I eventually bought my own HH this past summer and the rest is history. Now, I'm hooked on pins, but thats a whole different story.

It would be amazing to have someone read this, and say "hey, I think i'm the one that bought that HH your talking about in [insert date]". Even if you (or they) aren't looking to sell, it would be awesome to know where that game went, and maybe one day when the time was right, I acquired it somehow for my collection.

Wouldn't that be an epic pin hunt if I actually found it? That would be "the one" that started it all.

Can someone do me a huge favor, and at your next earliest convenience, please take a good photo of your prop-bar assembly. When I brought my game home for the first time, it was dirty all over and I stripped a lot of parts off for a deep cleaning. One of the pieces I didn't get a picture before taking it apart was the prop-bar nuts, screws, assembly in general.

Since putting it back together, my bar has been really loose, and basically falls down if I don't hold it up myself. If I recall correctly, these should be tight and need to be pushed down when not in use.

Thank you!

Ok, good to know, makes me feel better about mine. I still need a picture of someone's prop-bar parts, because I'm not confident I put the exact nuts and washers on that were originally there. I have the screw that was there, but for some reason I mixed up the washers/nuts/etc. Would love to get this back to normal.

Personally, I like incandescents for this game and don't think I'll ever go to LEDs on it. That spooky victorian mansion vibe goes much better with the warm glow of the original bulbs. It reminds me of candle light, very fitting. But, let's say I got tired of changing bulbs one day and if I were to ever go with LEDs, I might opt for these (http://silverballmuseum.com/online-store) scroll down to see them. They're the closest thing to that vintage warm glow that I can find. Kind of expensive though.

Yeah, I see that now haha. Definitely just briefly glanced through your post and see that I missed the obvious word, displays.

I need some help or advice regarding some final issues I'm trying to fix with my HH. I've spent a lot of time getting my HH project cleaned up and now just have this final hurdle to overcome to be officially finished and playing games.

FYI - I have a Pascal PI-80 installed in this game.

First, everything was working (lights, game boots up, sound, pops, flippers, kicking targets, VUK, bank resets, etc.) except for the main PF right side extra ball hole coil wouldn't fire to push the ball out of the hole. I replaced that coil and the transistor there, but haven't been able to see if that is fixed due to a current issue I will describe below.

Before I could see if that extra ball coil is now working, I was testing targets and pops by hitting them with a ball, and my kicking target #2 randomly fired rapidly if hit, then the pop bumper above it would randomly fire rapidly if target #2 was touched and on one of those rapid succession fires of the target #2 it locked on and I seen smoke come up from under there. Target #2's coil was unusually hot for a while after and eventually had to be replaced because the sleeve melted and wouldn't allow the plunger to lower. I've since replaced that coil.

Since then, none of the pops, kicking targets, upkickers, flippers, etc. will not work at all. But, Bank resets, free game knocker, coin door coil, etc. all seem to work.

I've checked all fuses (F1-F15) and nearly all coils test well for good resistance. No wires seem to be disconnected.

I did have a pin inside my A3-J4 connector that was loose and when pushed out of the connector, looked to be broken. Pictures of that below. I will replacing that pin tonight.

I ran the coil test on the pascal and here is what happened... Other coils not listed below do fire upon the test.

Coil 2: error 2

Coil 12: Nothing happens when I hit test, no error displayed and no physical coil activity

Coil 13 pnp: Nothing happens when I hit test, no error displayed and no physical coil activity

Coil 15 pnp: Nothing happens when I hit test, no error displayed and no physical coil activity

Coil 16 pnp: Nothing happens when I hit test, no error displayed and no physical coil activity

I did find this article with what seems to be a similar problem. Does anyone have any suggestions on what could be wrong here? http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Rec/rec.games.pinball/2009-01/msg15776.html

Also, I asked Pascal about the problem and he recommended I check the game over and tilt relays. The 24VDC coils power is fed thru them. But, I'm not really sure how to test those and currently researching how to review those parts.

Sorry, I'm a newbie, but totally in love with my HH despite this headache!!!!

Thank you to anyone who can help here.

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Also, in relation to my post above, despite the issue I'm having with power getting to those various coils, I am having a hard time re-pinning this connector A3-J4. I almost have to force the old pins out. The wire was able to be removed, but there seems to be some original piece of the original connector that won't budge from inside.

Can someone tell me how you remove the entire pin that is originally there? Does each slot have it's own pin, or are all the metal pins inside this connector interconnected somehow?

I also notice this new connector I bought from PBR (pictured below) is different than what is originally in the connector. The old setup has the insulated wire not stripped at all, and it's fed through the bottom of the pin that is split into two metal sides. Those sides grips the wire, rather than stripping it and sliding it up vertically toward the connector clip. Hope that makes sense.

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Sure do. Pictured below.

Great to hear I have the right pins to do the job. I'm having a hard time getting the original punch pin out of the housing. It's taking huge feats of strength to get it out, still not budging. I don't think it should be this hard, and because of that I'm probably doing it wrong.

Also, I know it's hard to say right now, because I may have something happening with my relays causing 24vdc to not get to the coils mentioned above, but with these pins in A3-J4 being loose or some pins setting back compared to others, could that cause the issues I'm having with no activity in pops, flippers, kickers, etc.? I notice on the Pascal board, my picture above, that this connector does in fact work with the Solenoids.

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Thanks guys! No rush at all, and I'm going to buy the right one the minute it's posted. As you see, I'm still building my tool kit to work on my pins.

I'm still a little unsure on how to pop out those old punch pins that are in the connector. I'm literally using all of my strength to push it down through the bottom of the plastic housing and it won't budge at all. These come out one at a time, right?

Also, fingers crossed my solenoid issues are due to faulty pins in my connectors and everything comes back to life after a good re-pinning. I read over and over again that a lot of issues start in the connectors.

Good to know. I'm gonna get another crack at them tonight. I was using a very thin allen wrench to get in there and push the tabs, but a small flat head might give me the leverage I need.

Thank you!