I imagine the F1 fuse on your rectifier board is blown...the small board in the cabinet.

Of course, "chopping the head off" doesn't leave me feeling good

Edit: at least thats how it is for a stern machine of !the same era, hmm...bally may be diff'rent. Anyway, start with those and also check the connection on your light board. Lower left board in Head.

If for sure could be. Just tonight we had a fuse blowing from a poor ground connection from the cab to the head.
Did you make sure to connect the braided ground wire from the cab to the head?

Gotta find that short. Gotta get in there and look at every lamp and look for something bent or a pinched wire or something touching metal.

you're looking underneath the Playfield at all the sockets of the bulbs for anything wacky. Like the tabs of thr sockets being bend or something instead contact with anything else, like thr lug of a coil.

Shorts are the worst man! Take the victory and don't look back

That's probably easier than this. Usually a crappy connector/board pin