I did a full restore on mine a couple years ago. It's been rock solid ever since.

If you can find Clays guide for system 80 games, it tells you how to stabilize it. It's well worth tracking down. The main things are the large capacitor in the cabinet, a few easy ground mods, and making sure your board connectors are good.

The mechanics look intimidating since things are packed so densely to accommodate the playfield window but it's really not that bad.

It's a great machine, well worth owning. Also pretty easy to sell later if you need to.

I had one. It is a great title. Mine was rock solid - but I have heard they can be a PIA. Anytime you add a lower playfield you add additional flipper maintenance. In any case - I think you will learn to HATE the sound. I turned mine down after awhile

Good game easy to work on too just not for me don't put it next to tz or transformers!!!waiting for shippers now lol

Beautiful game. Nice to look at and so incredibly innovative for the time...like a 1980's version of Twilight Zone. That said, mine was a pain to deal with at times. Probably no more so than other older games but just more complicated. It VUK'ed me up a few times. Small collection? You better love the gameplay of the the widebody system 80's.

This post is so timely!

I have always loved Haunted House and finally got one, but it has a few probs.

The GI lights up and the lightening flashes on the backglass, but the displays don't light up and the game won't start.

Does anyone have any ideas where to start looking?

Thx

Galaga, that sounds like problems on the MPU. Check for battery leakage. I have been playing my Haunted House after a few months to get it up and running (ended up with an MPU board from K's arcade). It is a bit of a bear with maintenance, but nothing crazy. Mine still blows fuses from time to time, but otherwise it is solid. I think it is my family's favorite game. Beautiful art, challenging gameplay and eight flippers! What's not to love. I can see why operators would hate it, but it's great in a home environment.

Go through your power supply (this would be from the bridge rectifiers through to the A2J2 connector) and be sure it's solid before trying to diagnose issues with the game.

Steve
System 80, not just a job, it's an adventure

Thanks guys - will check both things you suggested.

I can't wait to get it going - its such an awesome game!

Brought one back from the dead and still have it. Agree with first going over the power supply. Check the voltages out. Once you have that, the MPU is the next spot. Mine was damaged from battery acid. I used a Ni-Wumph board which actually helped me trouble shoot better. I would like to have an original MPU and just don't want to spend the money for it now. You can then traverse to the sound and controller board from there.

You are going to need this:

Black Hole - Haunted House Repair Guide(2).pdf

Timely post! I just picked up my Haunted House today! I got very lucky and had a "basement find" find me and I finally had the chance to arrange the right vehicle to go grab it. This is my first pin, and I do know about the amount of work I have in front of me. I just have to take my time, research, check the manual, and consult my fellow Pinsiders when needed.

For months I've been on a daily grind of market-checking sites and soaking up any and all info I can about HH and Sys-80's in general. Even bought this old pinball DVD's before even finding a game to get in the spirit and know what to do. This is my nostalgia game, the one from the childhood I remember the most and has intrigued me ever since. My research of the game, and interacting with the community has been so much fun, I pretty much want more already and I'm officially hooked... Future pin line-up goal = HH, Black Hole, Spirit

The game is 100% original and sat since the late 80's, so it's extremely dirty. I'm just assessing everything first and then plotting my restoration/bulletproofing moves.

I will be posting many pics and sharing the experience on Pinside.

I have the lockdown bar and glass off for these photos...

IMG_2308.JPG
IMG_2307.JPG

My playfields and the whole pin in general is really dirty, as you can tell from my finger swipes on the basement window. What cleaner and what wax would any of you guys recommend for an HH with this much time and dirt settling in?

One thing that has happened since I got it home is that while I was retesting all sounds and targets, the right side extra ball hole on the Main PF accepted the ball but froze on that sound, wouldn't spit the ball back out and locked up the game. Now when I turn the machine off or on it still stays locked up, won't go into attract mode and won't accept new credits. I'm too tired tonight but I'm going to try and dig into that tomorrow. Any thoughts?

I am a "dis-assembly" type person. When I first got my HH, I pulled out each playfield and worked on them individually. I cleaned, assessed parts, repaired, and waxed each one at a time. Once I was done, started working through the game issues. Mine had an alignment problem with the VUK which is a pretty common issue along with a blown bridge.

Steve at PB Resource will be your friend on this project. He has the largest and most complete selection of replacement parts for HH.

PM me with specific questions or photo needs.

Does it boot and start a game if you remove the ball from extra ball kickout hole? Does it fire in solenoid test? I'd test coil resistance and go from there.

RADIUM - It did not do anything when the ball was removed from the kickout hole. The sound effect for that hole kept looping and playing but it wasn't the complete sound, it was sort of cut off halfway through the music then starting from the beginning. I basically had to shut the game off for it to stop, and when the game is turned back on it stays in a locked mode with just a few lights activated and no other activity such as flippers or booting up when letting it off to settle then firing back up. The backglass lights are doing their normal routine, but the PF lights won't move.

Funny thing is, there was a rubber piece wrapped from pole to pole where it shouldn't be, blocking access into that hole. I cut it off and put the ball down there to assess the situation. I'm guessing the previous operator/owner couldn't figure out what to do with the problem there and just avoided it altogether. Thats not how I want my game to run, I want to fix it all and hit any and every hole available.

My next steps are to fire in a solenoid test and test the coil resistance. I'll report back on what I find.

gearheaddropping - Thats exactly what I'm going to do, disassemble everything one by one and clean from there. I'm about to place an order with PBR, but would love to know what you or others think about which cleaner and wax should I buy for a game this old and dirty. I guess I'll want a cleaner for the PF's, plastics, metals and finally a wax for the PF. If its any of the Novus brands or PBR has I'll just include in my initial parts order.

Any thoughts?

Oh I see. Mine had a similar "fix"... PVC pipe stuck in the kicker to the upper playfield. Tracked that down to be an out of spec resistor on the driver board.

I would disconnect connectors from the MPU and/or driver board and see if that gets it to boot. May help isolate what's failing. Then start diagnosing that circuit.

Did you do any of the common bulletproofing on it? They're notorious for ground issues, failed capacitor in the lower cab, and poor connections due to the edge connectors on those Rockwell boards. I think the best thing I did to mine was rebuild all connectors with with new Trifurcon pins.

Right now, the game is 100% original to whatever they knew and did to them in the 1980's. It sat wrapped in blankets since the late 80's in a family's finished basement for the better part of 25 years or more.

Next steps for me is documentation of everything, deep cleaning inside/out, replace rubbers and parts, then bulletproof it. I still need time running my hands through the machine, and during the cleaning and inspecting process I'm hoping to connect the dots from all my web based research on where things are and what things look like in person.

I'm going to try the disconnections you recommended ASAP.

Thanks Radium.

Another basic Pin question, does it hurt the game at all if you power off and on if say something locks up in the middle of a game? I don't want to do any damage when I have to turn the thing off.

Thanks!

That's exactly what you want to do; turn the game off before a coil blows (or worse).

My buddy picked up a HH a few months ago and it was definitely cool, but needed a little more zip. We changed the pitch on the lower playfield (added about 2° incline) and he did the multiball mods. Talk about a whole new ballgame!! His game is fast and furious and the multiball is difficult to get, but such a rush when you do....highly recommended!!

Post pics of the conversion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just an update here... My game re-boots when it's turned off and unplugged for a short amount of time. I tried placing the ball in the "extra ball kickout" again, and this time the music played, but didn't spit the ball out. It's definitely got an issue there and will continue to dig into it on how to ensure the sounds are accurate for that hole and ensure the lock-up doesn't happen again.

Right now, I'm still in the inspection and cleaning phase of my game. Next step will be to diagnose problems and begin fixing. I figured I can't play the game yet anyways until it's 100% cleaned and rubbers are replaced.

Thanks guys!

He's taking pics now, will post ASAP

Dave,

I have just gone thru the multiball conversion of my HH as Sparky suggests. I will post some pics when I get time. If its in the budget I would highly recommend Pascal's PI-80 board from flippp.fr for enhanced troubleshooting and coil longevity, for example if there is a coil problem the board will display the coil that had the error and what the error was as well as turn off voltage to it preventing coil burn. His board is also required if you wanted to do the multiball upgrade but also runs the standard single ball if you like. I bought a new soundboard from Swemmer Electronics that included the speech upgrade and for me personally it does fit the game but that is something everyone has to decide for themselves. As far as your kick out hole I would guess either the switch that tells the game the ball is there is stuck in the closed position intermittently or the coil to fire the kick is burnt. Check Fuse F14 (it powers main playfield up kicker, right side kicker and trap door 24VDC) and replace with 2.5A slow blow if its bad. I have a good working set of original boards I could sell you for cheap if you wind up needing them but my game was an early edition prior to main production so we would need to do a bit of digging to ensure it would work for you. As others have suggested the grounding mods are a must and I would recommend adding a pop bumper driver board to the vertical up kicker to enhance the reliability of it and reduce chance of the coil being stuck on. There are many guides on the internet for the VUK but if you cant find it PM me and I will send you a snipit from Clay's guide. Another detail about the VUK reliabilty that seems hard to find is that it requires a spring that pulls the tube towards the U shaped bracket mounted to the lower playfield so that it always sits in the same place. My game was missing that and it would be aligned perfect one second and then missing the next. Once I figured that out my VUK works perfect every time. If you are missing the spring also and want pics to better understand how it all ligns up let me know. It really is a wonderfull game with great artwork, hope your rebuild goes well for you.

Thanks Petey, I might eventually go for the Pascal board, it's been on the list of possible things to invest in for the game. I'm still in the initial cleaning phase and will assess the internals next.

Great advice on that right kicker not working. I'll check that fuse for sure and replace as suggested.

So far, my VUK seems to be working really well, and for the limited times I've played the game (held off due to dirtiness) it has yet to not push the ball up with some good force. When I replace that I'll be sure to add a PB driver board to that as well. How do you feel about Pascal's PBD boards?

I will not hesitate to reach out when I'm in phase 2 of everything, which will be ground mods, PB boards renewals and capacitor swap. I figured I get to know the game inside and out with a deep clean and then know the lay of the land better to dig into the soldering and bulletproofing since it's my first pin.

Again, I can't thank you enough for reaching out and offering support.

Dave

One more thing, this is a newbie question, but where can I find my game's serial number? I have yet to come across it on the game.

Thanks guys!

You can't go wrong with any of Pascal's boards, they're well designed.

Steve

So I found my serial number stamped into the cabinet next to the apron, and the number is 08044. I thought only 6,835 units made? I seen this 08044 on my boards but disregarded it because I thought the number was too high to be the actual game #.

Any thoughts?

Dave

Dave,

Based on the numbers I see on the IPSND yours appears in line with what others have reported and it does not appear they used all available numbers. My machine is 01289S meaning its a Sample game(pre-production). I don't have Pascal's Pop bumper boards but I would not hesitate to buy anything from him, he is very helpful and stands behind his products. In my case I ordered a complete set of pop bumper driver boards along with sound card and sound card power supply from Swemmer Electronics as I mentioned. One other thing I will plug about the Pascal board is it allows you to have 5 high scores similar to more modern games and if you do a bit of modding you can enter those high scores using the conventional flipper/start buttons. For me that makes my weekly pinball crawl we do here much more competitive. Your approach of going thru the game and cleaning sounds like a good one, lets you take inventory of all the parts you need and only order once. Let us know how it goes.

Thanks Petey, I may just grab that All In One real soon, once I get through the initial investment I made here.

Remind me, does the Pascal All in One board pretty much bypass the need for any of the ground mods? I believe I read that somewhere.

Here is the official restoration thread I just started for my game. I'll be updating this as I go along and will definitely need help I am sure.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/bringing-a-haunted-house-back-to-life

I will check out your thread for sure. As far as grounding mods go there are some different trains of thought on this. Basically the concern is a voltage differential between the different boards and components of the machine. The process commonly involves tying all the different ground wires together to avoid any potential difference and also to provide multiple grounds in the case that one were to go bad or open. I believe it is generally accepted that the only mod required is between the main driver board and the cpu board to add one additional ground wire to provide a better contact on the end connector. So if that is the accepted solution then in theory Pascal's board eliminates that requirement as it is a true all-in-one power supply, driver boad and cpu board. I am sure some smarter and more experienced pinsiders than me can chime in to add more detail but that is my 2 cents.

As prommised here are pics of my multiball mod. I did not feel like removing the apron so you can't see the changes to the main playfield troff but basically you just add a switch to detect when there are three balls there and you add a multiball trough to hold the three balls. It was hard for me to find the parts but after searching Ebay I found what seemed like would work and as it turned out it did. The physical work is actually very easy if you don't mind putting some holes in your playfield. The harder part was adjusting the lower ball trough switch to avoid ball hangs and actually running the wiring and making everything clean with plugs so it still looks stock. I was originally going the route of OPTO's but the stern ones I bought turned out to emit too bright of a light for my taste so I went back to a switch. Reading what others who had completed the mod said about ball hangs I knew I wanted to avoid them so I opted to mound my switch on the side instead of underneath. In the end this proved to be a great solution as my switch works every time and can't physically cause a ball hang. You can see what I did circled in red in one of the pictures I took. If you look at my Cellar image there is another red circle, I had constant ball hangs by that switch as well as it is not a typical two way switch from factory as the ball would never come back up there without the trough mod in place. I simply switched the wire form to the standard triangle style found in an out lane and that issue was solved. If I had it to do over again I would have bought or fashioned a playfield holder so I could put the playfield up on a desk and spin it 360 for soldering and fishing wire. I also added two additional switches on the flipper buttons to allow for high score name entry and some red/green led on the flipper and start buttons so they light up. I tied the lights into the upper and lower gi so they pattern in attract mode and switch with the game play. I also added two additional switches to the tilt relay to switch a 12V and 5V wire to an additional relay that is triggered by the upper GI. That additional wiring allows me to switch the behind flipper led strip with the GI and also switch some extra 5V LED's I'm adding in the clear start posts from green to red with the GI. As you will see in my pics my playfields are pretty rough and I am now onto the step of repairing them. Ok and now for the pictures.

Backbox.jpg

Backglass.jpg

Flipper_Buttons.jpg

Lower_Ball_Trough.jpg

Lower_Ball_Trought_Switch.jpg

Main_Playfield.jpg

Atic.jpg

Cellar.jpg