Hi Bitbyte..

Solar City is a great game.. ive just overhauled mine and got her running nice and smoothly..

First of all the TILT light in the backbox WILL be illuminated when you first turn the game on.. this is normal. But.... once the game goes into reset this should go off.

The suggestion earlier to set the 1st player ( just work with Player 1 and get the game running.. then we can go to multiplayer issues if any) scores to anything but zero... take out the reels and manually click them over. Turn game off and on again and with credits ( how did you set free play by the way?) press the start button.. TILT should go off and score reels start to turn and set to Zero.. if this doesnt happen then you need to address the issue in the head with the score reels before attempting anything else... if ANY one of the reels does not register its ZERO point then motor wil turn continuously searching for this state.

Yes.. its the same.. once Hold relay engages.. TILT light will go off. Its the first thing that should be noticed as the game resests... personally, id be looking at the score reels for this issue.. they may read ZERO on the reels as theyve been put there by hand.. doesnt mean that they register ZERO through the leaf switches

It HAS to be just the TILT light that is on.. stated in original post is that when machine is turned on and BEFORE START button is pressed, TILT is on and motor is turning... If TILT relay is on, it de- energises all else until reset again. I have schematics here.. let me take a look after work tonight. A few things concern me... "FREE PLAY is set".. Like i previously asked - how was this done? as there is no free play as such and if this is done wrong then we can have all sorts of issues depending on the technique employed. The game is obviously stuck in a state of transistion... im also wondering if it ever actually achieved GAME OVER status and motor is turning until this state is found. Did the switches get cleaned because there was a fault or did they get cleaned because it sounded like a nice idea?

No!!..This switch is momentary only and so it should act as a pulse.. im assuming that the leaf switches behind the START button have been held together?? Game will read the pulse at power up but it never delatches and so it can never reset properly.. undo the switch straight away and see how you go... also yes, you could well have a TILT somewhere.. either TILT plumb is touching or one of the slam switches is open.
To permanantly set for free play i normally just disconnect one side of the Credit decrement coil on credit wheel assembly while it has credits.. tape it up and if you need to go back to standard a quick solder to the coil lug is the go.

Undo that switch my man and see how you go....