(Topic ID: 246504)

Help Me! 1964 Williams River Boat in need of love

By rott

4 years ago



Topic Stats

  • 3 posts
  • 3 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 4 years ago by bigdog50
  • Topic is favorited by 1 Pinsider

You

Linked Games

Topic Gallery

View topic image gallery

FB_IMG_1543769525336 (resized).jpg
IMG-4307 (resized).JPG
IMG-4299 (resized).JPG
IMG-4296 (resized).JPG
IMG-4295 (resized).JPG
IMG-4294 (resized).JPG
IMG-4293 (resized).JPG
IMG-4291 (resized).JPG
IMG-4288 (resized).JPG
IMG-4283 (resized).JPG
IMG-4287 (resized).JPG
IMG-4284 (resized).JPG

You're currently viewing posts by Pinsider rott.
Click here to go back to viewing the entire thread.

#1 4 years ago

Sup pinball people. As the only one interested, I recently inherited/rescued our family pinball machine, a 1964 Williams River Boat. Considering it has sat in my grandmother's uninsulated Michigan garage for the past 4 decades, never having been played, let alone serviced, it some how works almost flawlessly. At not even 93,000 plays, this beauty is just being broken in, and I'd love to bring it back to its glory days. Here are my concerns...

The almost flawless:
Water/Moisture damage- The inside of the cabinet is where you can really see the effects of 40 or more michigan winters. There's nothing serious, no rotting holes or anything, but there's visible stains and surface decay in the corners especially. Many of the metal brackets are also covered in surface rust.

Modifications- Someone spray painted the entire exterior in a protective coating, which honestly may have turned out to be a good thing for the garage, but it doesn't exactly make the thing look great. This is nothing however compared to the newb who put a nail in the PF to act as a center post.

Scoring Wheels- This is where my most immediate problem is. Someone, I'm assuming the person who put the nail in the pf, has used a set of pliers or something to twist and mangle the switches for the scoring drum units. This has resulted in the total malfunction of the scoring wheels. Sometimes the thousands wheel will advance when the hundred wheel does, or the hundred when the 10... The game will reset without resetting the scores to 0. I have some experience in motor controls, relay logic, ladder diagrams, but I have never worked on a pinball machine before, and never worked with true old school EM control devices like this. I'm seeing on the schematic that all the switches for the drum units are normally open. So I'm wondering about trouble shooting the issues I'm having. As far as I can tell, the switches are being held open by the plastic armature from the drum unit. When the drum passes 9, the armature is momentarily tripped downwards, temporarily closing the circuit, energizing the next wheel, and advancing it by one position. So the switches simply need to be in a position/state where this can be true, and Im assuming, due to the mangling, it's not. What I'm wondering is, is it best to try to fix/straighten the switches, or should I buy new ones, also benefitting from the new contacts? And if it is best to fix the ones already inside, which I'd prefer, keeping it as original as possible, how do I go about doing this properly? Although I've worked with switches before, I've never had to straighten bent ones. I'd love to get this figured out, as it's the one thing keeping the game from working fully at the moment.

Beyond that, I don't intend on messing with the playfield or cabinet myself as I'm not qualified to do so. Perhaps down the road, I can have someone else do it for me, but I'd like to get the thing working mechanically and playing well first, as nothing in the playfield is bad enough to really effect play.

I can try to upload some better photos if necessary. If it would be helpful, I can remove the drum units, or at least the switch assemblies to photograph them better as they're difficult to get to when in the game. Thanks for any help!!!

IMG-4283 (resized).JPGIMG-4283 (resized).JPGIMG-4284 (resized).JPGIMG-4284 (resized).JPGIMG-4287 (resized).JPGIMG-4287 (resized).JPGIMG-4288 (resized).JPGIMG-4288 (resized).JPGIMG-4291 (resized).JPGIMG-4291 (resized).JPGIMG-4293 (resized).JPGIMG-4293 (resized).JPGIMG-4294 (resized).JPGIMG-4294 (resized).JPGIMG-4295 (resized).JPGIMG-4295 (resized).JPGIMG-4296 (resized).JPGIMG-4296 (resized).JPGIMG-4299 (resized).JPGIMG-4299 (resized).JPGIMG-4307 (resized).JPGIMG-4307 (resized).JPG
Promoted items from Pinside Marketplace and Pinside Shops!
$ 12.00
Hey modders!
Your shop name here

You're currently viewing posts by Pinsider rott.
Click here to go back to viewing the entire thread.

Reply

Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.

Hey there! Welcome to Pinside!

Donate to Pinside

Great to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, subscribe to Pinside+!


This page was printed from https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/help-me-1964-williams-river-boat-in-need-of-love?tu=rott and we tried optimising it for printing. Some page elements may have been deliberately hidden.

Scan the QR code on the left to jump to the URL this document was printed from.