Probably the dirtiest task of this whole project is next- cleaning the wire harnesses. The pf harnesses are covered with 30+ years of carbon dust and dirt. I know that some people just swap it all over and keep on trucking, but I personally would not recommend it. You have a shiny new pf, why plop a filthy wire harness on it? I can understand if you just do a basic scrub in the bathtub or hose it off in the driveway and call it good, but I highly recommend doing that at the very least. As anyone who has done work on an older machine knows, once you get carbon dust on your hands, it transfers to anything and everything you touch and it’s a real pain in the ass to clean.

Everyone has different methods to clean the wire harnesses. For this restoration I did a two stage cleaning. Prior to cleaning, I cut many of the old zip ties and then loosely attach some new zip ties just to keep things together. I think this is important so that you get to all the dirt and crap that worked it’s way inside the bundles of wire. I left all of the micro switches attached since they were being replaced. If I wasn’t replacing them, I would remove them. After this, the whole thing goes into the sink for the first scrub down. This is to just clear the initial gunk from it. I use purple power and a scrub brush, then rinse. I then filled the sink with water and scrubbed some more. The water is pretty gross when finished. I hung the harnesses up for a few days to dry.

The harnesses are fairly clean at this point, but I wanted to go one step further. I liked Vid’s dishwasher method to get the harness super clean. The only issue I had with this was using the house dishwasher. I know it’s probably fine, but I had access to another generally unused dishwasher so I used that. Just make sure to use the top shelf so nothing gets damaged by the heating element. The harnesses come out super clean! When you’re done, be sure to look in the drain for any small parts that might have come off. I hung the harnesses up again for a few days to let them dry out.

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Glad you're enjoying it!

The next job is prepping the harnesses for installation. I laid them out on a table and inspected them for any issues.

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In addition to replacing the micros, after looking over the leaf switches I decided to replace them. I considered cleaning them but I saw that the contacts were corroded and far from their original gold. I decided that the cost of replacing them was not that expensive (most are around $2). The lane rollovers are noted in the manual as SW-1A-124, but are no longer produced. I found that PBL’s SW-1A-94 are identical. The rollover star switches are noted in the manual as SW-1A-157, but are also no longer produced. I found that SW-1A-120’s, used for kicker scoring switches, are essentially identical. The leaf switches for the slings were also terribly bent up in multiple places from adjustments over the years, so they are all replaced.

Before tackling installation of the harnesses, I wanted to install anything on either side of the pf that I felt would be a hassle to access once the harnesses are in place. I started with posts that go through the pf and have nuts underneath. I then went on to the solenoid assemblies.

Prior to installing assemblies, I went ahead and installed the wood rails with ball guides attached. With the additional weight I knew would be added by the assemblies, I didn’t want to take a chance of the pf flexing.

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Since I was attaching the wood rails, I needed to attach my shooter lane Cliffys. Prior to installing the cliffys, I put down mylar to further protect it. I have done this to other games I’ve owned and found that it keeps the shooter lane looking like new.

From what I have seen, pin owners are generally in one of 3 camps when it comes to cliffys:

1. Always use them, every game
2. Only use them to cover damage
3. Never use them, hate cliffys

I’m in the first camp when it comes to the shooter lane of any game. I’ve seen on multiple nib games that it doesn’t take long for damage to begin from the ball constantly ejecting into the shooter lane like this Metallica (Pro) :

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I think that they are definitely worth it there. For me, other places are a case by case basis. On this particular game I also added the escape hole protector. The escape hole on my old pf is pretty beat up and there is also the typical wear in the area where the ball ejects onto the pf from the hole. I placed some mylar on that spot also.

I will also add that Cliffy is just a great guy to deal with! He has always responded to my questions very quickly.

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With the rails in place, I’m putting all of the underside coil assemblies together. I got new coil bracket/stops (A-17808), new plunger/links (A-5103) and new springs (10-135) for all of the assemblies. Most of the plungers and coil stops were flat or mushroomed from bazillions of hits over the years, so in the trash they go.

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On the bottom side I made a dimple mark on each of the holes for the assemblies, but would only run 1 or 2 screws in. I then adjusted the assembly for fit and operation. Getting the operation part just right is very time consuming, (I spent an hour or two on some single assemblies!) but this saved a lot of time later on when dialing the machine in. Once I was satisfied that the assembly was going to work correctly, I drilled and added the other screws.

Most of the new coils had Williams wrappers, but I bought new ones from PPS for the ones that didn’t. After wrapping them, I put the assemblies together.

I learned from reading the forums that Williams initially oriented the coils in the assemblies with lug-side closest to the coil stop. They found that over the years the plunger striking the coil stop caused damage to the plastic and/or caused soldered wire connections to break. They then flipped the orientation to the lug-side being away from the stop. I installed most of the coils this way, but found that a few, particularly the eject mechs, would not permit this. The arm of these mechs would strike the lugs if they were oriented this way.

I went through each coil and verified that the power wire was connected to the lug on the banded side of the diode. Lastly, I checked resistance on them.

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Old pf is really clearing out:

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Prior to placing my first one, I closely inspected the harnesses. On the controlled lamps harness I found a couple of issues. First, a couple of wires were close to or completely broken off of some of the lamps. I didn’t notice issues during testing, so this may have happened during harness cleaning. I also found some damaged wires that were replaced.

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The second and more problematic issue was flaky sockets on the multi-lamp metal brackets. I assume that Williams used these brackets because they were quicker/easier to place than individual lamps. The downside is that the lamps on the brackets cannot be replaced unless you have lamp parts and a way to crimp it together. I had a few that were wobbly and many that had corrosion and stiff springs. I had one particularly frustrating lamp that was falling off completely. I glued it back in place, but was not happy with the result. It not only looked sloppy but I knew that sooner or later some of these lamps would cause a problem. At that point I decided, as much as I hated the thought of all the work involved, that since I replaced every other lamp socket in the game, I might as well make it 100% and replace all lamps. An extra benefit is that it makes the lamps much easier to service if necessary.

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While waiting a few weeks for Chicago Expo 2018 to pick up a large order of parts at PBL, I put the switch harness in place on the pf and started marking and drilling holes. I placed all of the switches in their locations and left the screws in place so it would be easy to re-attach them later. I still needed to attach all of the new switches I would be buying at PBL, but I figured it will be much quicker to put it back on with the screws were already in place.

With all of the switch screws in place, it was time to start replacing the lamps. The controlled lamp harness was separated, so I didn’t have to deal with the other harnesses while working on the lamps. The first task was to attach diodes to all of the lamps. I bent the diode legs with a pair of pliers marked at a certain spot so they would all be uniform. Each diode was tested, all passed. They are good quality as are all other products I purchased from Great Plains Electronics. With that completed, I started placing the lamps. This required a lot more drilling.

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I figured this would be a good time to place bulbs in each lamp. When finished, every bulb in the game is CoinTaker. I think their products are of good quality, but I did run into some customer service issues. I don’t want to derail the thread with the whole story, but after this restoration I began using Comet exclusively for all of my lighting needs and I’m very happy with their products and service.

Thanks to Pinsider Pac-Fan for creating a thread on led placement in HS. He put a lot of work into it and I went along with just about every choice he made. I think it looks great and it saves quite a bit of money over using the pre-made kits. The vast majority of the bulbs are frosted.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/my-williams-high-speed-led-conversion-wmap-lists

With the new lamps screwed in place, I put the harness in place and began cutting wires from the old lamps, stripping them, and using small clips to hold them in place on the lugs of the new lamps. I also placed new daisy chain wiring where necessary. After hitting each lug with flux paste, I got my soldering iron set up. I was able to move pretty rapidly from lamp to lamp since everything was set up and ready to go.

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After finishing all the lamps, I put the pf in the cab for a test of the controlled lamp harness. In attract mode I noticed 4 lights out. Fortunately they were in the same matrix column so I set out to find the short. Somehow I was lucky enough to notice it pretty quickly. A single strand of wire on a lamp was not soldered to a lug and was making contact with the top of the lamp. Once this was corrected, all lights were 100%.

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Thanks!

You're welcome! Once I got some experience with this one, Taxi was way easier.

With the other harnesses laid out on the bench, I began cutting off old switches and connecting new ones. I also cut off the flasher resistor boards and replaced them with the newer style I designed. Since I replaced all other lamp sockets, I also went ahead and replaced all of the flasher sockets with new.

The only switches that I didn’t immediately replace were the spinner switches (SW-1A-118). They are very unique switches that are hooked to the spinners with a short metal rod. Every time the spinner turns, it pulls the rod upward, which pulls the switch contacts together. They were eventually replaced with micros, (more on that later).

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The pop bumper switch stacks were, by far, the most difficult switches to replace. There are multiple wires attached to the stack along with a cap, a resistor and a diode. When placing them on the pf I found Vid’s pop bumper guide to again be a valuable resource. Correctly lining up the skirt pin with the spoon on the switch stack is very important. At the same time, the solenoid switch needs to be gapped perfectly so the slightest amount of contact between the ball and the skirt will fire the coil.

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After soldering all the new parts to the harnesses, I began re-attaching them to the pf. This was easy since all of the screws were already in place.

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I then handled soldering the wires that power the GI. This is a part where detailed photos and my photo map of the pf were critical. Most of the GI wires connect directly to a lamp socket. A few of them connect to the ground braid. Without using my map and pics to identify which wires connect to which lamps (and the correct tabs on the lamps) this task would have been extremely difficult. Like coils and switches, each of the GI wires/wire pairs were zip tie labeled. Pictures are obviously helpful, but having the map of the pf to know the location of the pic made things much easier.

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I then prepped the rollover stars for installation. There are warnings on CPR’s website and various Pinside threads to not just pop the rollover stars into the inserts. Build-up of clear in the inserts will block the star from being able to sink completely down into the insert, essentially creating a ramp that will cause airballs.

You need to scrape some of the plastic from underneath the star in order to get it to go all the way down into the insert. The problem is, once the star is placed into the insert, a small nub at the bottom locks it into the insert. On the bright side, you can always cut the nub off and push the star out if you find that it doesn’t go all the way down. The star is ruined, but they’re cheap so I bought a bunch, figuring that I’d destroy a few. It’s hard to tell exactly how much plastic to trim off.

I wanted this to be perfect, so to assist in determining how much to trim, I bought the insert itself. I broke the tabs off the practice insert to allow me to pull the star back out. This way I could trim, test and trim again until I got it to where I believed it would not be affected by clear build-up. I fit the trimmed stars into the real inserts, and they went down completely into the insert.

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Thanks, I’m a big fan of them too. The idea of a pf swap was very intimidating when I was a new guy and I most likely wouldn’t have started this project without reading @mof’s HS restoration thread years ago. It’s very well written and showed me that a pf swap is very doable, even for a newb.

I’ve been fortunate with this lot, they’ve all worked great. All of the flat GI lamps and a few others came from Pinball Resource. The rest came from PBL.

Good luck with your swap and feel free to holler if you need pics or anything else from this swap that can help!

With all of the underside parts attached, I began dealing with the pass-thru parts on the topside.

HS has multiple parts on the top side with wiring that passes through the pf from the bottom. These items include 2 coils (trough and kickback) as well as 6 flashers and 2 switches for the hideouts.

After installing most of the flashers, I needed to make a decision on what to do with the 2 flashers at the rear of the pf. I have always believed that these flashers were an afterthought when the game was designed. They are just flat lamp sockets attached to the back wood rails of the game. I wanted to find a better place for them so they could be a more visible part of the game.

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I first considered drilling 2 holes through the backboard of the game and placing them through the holes, with lamp domes, similar to F-14. The part about this idea that I didn’t like was that the flashing lights would be directly in your line of sight. Also, it’s obviously not reversible if I ended up not liking it.

Another option was placing the flashers in the back corners of the pf with the lamps sticking through the plastics and covered with a dome, but I wasn’t sure how to do this and how it would look. Another HS owner did this, and placed pics of his work in a thread (sorry, don’t remember where). I decided to go this route. I like the fact that it looks very similar to the other topside flashers and it would be easy to go back to original if I wanted to.

Before placing the plastic I insulated the flasher lamp sockets from the metal guide rails. I also later swapped out the clear red dome cover to the newer style so the led flasher is not so visible.

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After completing the pass through items, the next part was quality control. I had too much invested in the game to blow up a board or fry other critical parts due to a stupid oversight. Once you flip the main power switch, there’s no going back.

My QC checks consisted of checking every coil, every switch, every relay, every resistor board, every lamp (other than controlled lamps that had been already tested under power), basically every single wired connection. I went down my lists of all of these items, checking off each by their numbered tag. I would look at the picture of the original on my laptop and verify that each item was identical. I was also on the lookout for anything that could cause a short such as wire strands, loose metal parts, dripped solder, wire lugs too close together, etc. This was very time consuming, but did yield a target switch with backward wiring and a lamp wire that was improperly soldered. The lamp wire would very likely have broken off at some point and caused trouble. I also made sure that all switches were properly gapped.

Then it was the moment of truth. I set the pf next to the cab and kept the door to the backbox open so I could keep an eye on the fuses. I plugged in each of the large molex connectors to the boards, prayed for no disasters, and flipped the main switch. Thank God, I heard the familiar beep as the machine starts up and saw a zero in the display on the main board indicating a normal startup!!! Everything on the pf lit up and went into attract mode. So far so good!

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Next was switch tests. In the menu I saw switches 49 and 50 (the sling scoring switches under the pf) were stuck open. In switch test mode every switch was good except the shooter lane switch. No response at all. Overall, not bad.

Next was testing the higher risk solenoid connections. I went into coil tests and ran through them. All coils fired correctly except for the left hideout coil. Completely dead, no response whatsoever. Connections were good, I traced the wires all the way to the board. Right hideout coil was just fine. The ground wire to the relay was also fine.

At this point I knew that I needed help, so I contacted a master of pinball repair, @Grumpy. He immediately jumped in, taking me through the steps of diagnosing the issues.

The sling switches were simple enough. They were wired correctly, but I had installed them upside down. The sling coil arms were holding them closed instead of holding them open (shown correctly in the pic). Flipped them and problem solved. I then found that the shooter lane switch began responding. Not really sure why because they are not connected in the matrix, but I was happy.

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Back to the left hideout coil. I still couldn’t figure it out. Grumpy told me to test power with my DMM, it was good at right around 72v, same as the right hideout. Also again checked the coil’s resistance, no problems there.

With no luck there, Grumpy told me to check the nearby resistor board for power and to also check the 100 ohm resistor. The hideout coils both have a relay that they are tied into, and each relay is connected to a resistor board. The resistor boards have three lugs. Two of the lugs connect to the relay. On the left hideout coil’s board I found the center lug at 38v but the other 2 lugs were around 3v. On the right coil’s board I got 38v at each lug. I then tested the 100 ohm block resistor on the left. It tested at 5.5 ohms, clearly way below its rating. I tested the right coil’s resistor and it tested at 100 ohms. Looks like the problem is found!!

Grumpy suggested de-soldering one of the suspect resistor legs to test it further. When I did this, the resistor block fell off completely. This was a new resistor, but apparently a wire had broken inside. I replaced the resistor, and just for good measure, replaced the diode next to it. Both were tested before installation.

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I powered back up, went into test mode again and heard the sound I was looking for. The left hideout coil was now firing correctly!

With the all solenoids and switches testing 100%, I could focus on the loose ends that needed to be finished. First was the main ramp. I made the decision that I wanted to switch from the OEM black ramp over to @Freeplay40’s clear ramp. I had a new black repro ramp all ready to go, but changed my mind before mounting the hardware to it.

I like the fact that he engineered this ramp extensively to make it not only modern in appearance, but functionally better. The clear ramp is quieter than the old ramp and is built so it doesn’t require the clear plastic shield on top. Since I mounted the rear flashers in the back corners, the clear ramp will make them visible. It really opens the game up and, I believe, this is the way it would have been done if HS was being made today.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/freeplay40-ramps

The only thing I don’t like about the clear ramp is the dead space and GI lights under the ramp that are visible. This is especially conspicuous when the traffic light is relocated, as the majority of clear ramp owners do. Before the newer traffic light mod that fits on a post next to the ramp entrance was produced, most people moved the original traffic light to the back left corner. I have seen various mods to cover the dead space- from decals on the ramp to toy police cars, motorcycles, helicopters, UFO’s etc., etc... I decided to mount the traffic light in its’ original location for 4 reasons:

1. The traffic light conceals the visible dead space without adding silly mods.
2. I have an extremely hard to find NOS traffic light cover that isn’t melted/warped.
3. I like “running” the red light by hitting the ball up the ramp under the traffic light.
4. If I relocated the original to the back left corner it would look cluttered with both the traffic light and the flasher.

I do like the look of the post traffic light mod. It was done very nicely and blends in well with the game. The red translucent ramp was also not an option at the time.

I sent the metal parts from my ramp to Freeplay40 to rivet them on and in less than a week, I had a new ramp! He also shined up the metal parts nicely.

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I also received yet another shipment of parts for this machine from Pinball Resource. This shipment included a replacement nos microswitch for the right hideout (broke it by breaking the arm off while fitting wireforms, damn it!!!) new diverter arms and new pf pivot brackets for the cabinet.

While looking at pics of the back of the pf, I remembered that there are 2 wood blocks/rails attached back there. I located them in my giant box of parts removed from the original pf. They are 3/4” black painted wood and very chintzy. Since the other rails were replaced with better quality materials, I figured I should go ahead and replace these. Back to Lowe’s for a section of oak board and then over to my friend’s woodworking shop to cut them. Once cut, I sanded, painted and cleared them. Definitely an improvement over the old ones.

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Since I am mounting the traffic light to the ramp, I took this time to refurbish the assembly. The traffic light assembly is a metal plate that holds three #44 lamp sockets. The lamp sockets are all mounted on a single metal bracket, similar to the multi-lamp metal brackets used on the underside of the pf. The bracket is held in place with 2 plastic standoffs.

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Like the other lamp brackets on the pf, the individual lamps on the bracket cannot just be replaced. With a little creativity, I came up with a way to mount new lamps on the standoffs. The new lamps have new diodes and I re-molexed the connector.

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I lined up the traffic light assembly on the ramp, comparing it to my old ramp. I measured several times to ensure that the assembly was positioned correctly and would not be too high and hit the pf glass. I marked and slowly drilled the holes in the ramp edge. I was worried about cracking the plastic, but everything went fine.

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Next was installation of the ramp. It’s probably the most critical part of gameplay, so it’s gotta be perfect.

Freeplay40 told me that his ramp is designed so that the edge of the plastic at the bottom of the ramp should line up with the edge of the routed area on the pf. The metal flap goes over the edge and sits flush on the pf. I set it up this way and drilled the holes. The ramp has a total of 5 screws, 2 in the flap (#4-1/2”) and one on each of the 3 support legs (#6-1/2” truss).

I also wanted to get the 4 wireforms set in. The pre-drilled hole that accommodates the rear leg of the lower wireform on left side of the pf was close, and worked with a small bit of adjustment. The right side was way off. The hole had to be widened with a step bit to accommodate the leg in order for the wireform to line up correctly with the holes in the bracket of the ramp. Both wireforms locked in to the ramp just fine.

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So after soldering up the new nos hideout switch, I attached it to the bracket, but found that the actuator arm was slightly off and was dragging against the side of the hole that the arm sticks through. This caused the switch to not reset properly. As I adjusted the arm, the damn switch cracked...AGAIN!!! This is an older style Cherry switch with very thin plastic that holds the actuator arm on the top of the switch.

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I got fed up with the nos switch and decided that I would just replace this model of switch (A-11047) with the newer version (5647-12693-20).

https://www.pinballlife.com/williamsbally-sub-microswitch-5647-12693-20-nos.html?Category_Code=

It’s a DB3 microswitch with the same actuator arm. The difference with this switch is that the actuator arm is attached over the top of the switch and can easily be adjusted without threat of cracking anything. Worst case, the arm pops off and I would have to reattach it. Since I did this to the right side, I went ahead and matched it on the left side. Both switches are also molexed for easy removal/adjustments.

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I had some problems with the spinner switches below the pf (SW-1A-118) that I mentioned before. Even with adjustment, one in particular was not registering every turn of the spinner. They are the only switches in the game that I had not replaced with new. I saw a similar switch, the (B-8307) on Marco’s, but I decided to replace them with micros designed for spinners (500-5193-00). I figured that I might as well take care of this now while the pf is on the rotisserie than trying to fix it later on.

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I cleaned up the wiring a little and installed wire guides where needed.

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I then assembled the diverter for screw installation and testing. The diverter assembly is the biggest assembly on the pf and is somewhat visible so I decided to send it out to be chromed after testing was completed. You'll see the finished product later.

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I wanted to get the ramp in first so I could line up the diverter to work with it properly. Once it was lined up I drilled the holes, but did not attach it. I wanted to save this for last, since once the diverter is attached, the pf cannot go back on the rotisserie.

At this point I had done everything that needed to be done on the rotisserie and it was time to pull it down. I then installed the wood blocks at the back and attached the six metal posts along the back. They all use bolts that screw into tee nuts, so it went quickly.

Now I came to a part that I thought was straight forward, but ended up being tricky. I knew about the two bands that go around those posts at the back of the pf and had two Titan bands ready to go. I put them on, but when I attached the diverter, they rubbed against the diverter arms, preventing the arms from freely moving. Obviously I knew this was incorrect. I tried moving the bands in front of the posts, but that didn’t look correct either. After doing some Pinside research, I lucked up on a picture showing the bands actually wrapping around the back of the installed diverter assembly. I didn’t think it was correct, but after trying it, I found that it was.

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I didn’t see the need to screw on the wood backboard right now as I would be removing the diverter for chroming. It was again time for testing, but this time the pf would be in the cab.

I bought the HF lift cart specifically for this project since it gave me the ability to drop the cabinet very low. This makes placing the pf into the cab 100 times easier than having the cab at normal height. I plugged up the wires and lifted it up to normal height. I fired it up and all tests were still normal.

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Last thing to do on the pf is the plastics. This is a licensed repro set.

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I needed to rivet new flasher light domes onto the plastics. I put red domes/flashers on the left side of the pf and blue domes/flashers on the right side.

The rivets are done by placing the rivet through the dome’s plastic tab. The rivet then goes through the plastic and a thin washer is placed on the bottom side. The plastic is then placed on a cloth and set on the anvil part of my table vice. I then carefully tapped the rivet rollover punch with a ball pein hammer. About 5 or so light hits secures the rivet. All of the rivets and the punch came from PinRestore.

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Some of the plastics have smaller tree/bush pieces attached with a bolt, spacers and a locknut. The old spacers were yellowed so they were replaced. Here you can see old vs. new:

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A couple of the plastics have a metal bell attached to prevent ball traps. They all fit into their correct holes on the new plastics, but I added a small bolt and nut to ensure that they don’t pop off if they get hit by the ball. Tip- if you do this be sure to add a little Locktite on the bolt or the nut will work its way off from game vibration.

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Pics from the old pf were very helpful in knowing how/where all of the plastics attached to the pf.

With all of the plastics in place, I could finally declare the pf swap finished!!! I then put the glass on and played my first test game!

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With the pf done, it’s now time to look at the cabinet. First I wanted to make a new speaker panel.

The old speaker panel was in pretty bad shape. For an unknown reason, there were four holes drilled through the front of the panel by a previous owner. Carriage bolts were put in that were attached to L brackets screwed into the backbox. This really didn’t make sense because there are already factory L brackets on the sides of the panel that adequately secure it to the back box. Who knows...

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I was on the fence about the speakers. The original setup is a single 4”x10” 4 ohm speaker in the backbox and a 6.5” 4 ohm subwoofer in the cab. I had already replaced the speakers when I first got the game because the old ones were corroded. I replaced them with Pyle speakers and they sounded decent. The only issue is that the Pyle subwoofer was tall enough that the back of the pf would drag on it when lifted into service position. Also, since I had done everything else high-end, I figured the speakers should be one of the pinball-specific kits. My options were:

1- Pinball Pro makes a set with a 4x10 speaker and sub that is exactly like the original. It is expensive though, $170 for the regular system or $220 for the upgraded sub system, plus shipping. I have never used PP speakers, so I don’t know much about them.

https://pinballpro.net/shop/williams-system-11-games-w-4x10-speaker/

2- Flipper Fidelity does not make a specific set for this machine, but I could create 2 speaker holes in the panel. I would then wire two of their 4” speakers in series and then get one of their 8” subs. Total cost around $90 shipped. I have used FF speakers in the past in Metallica and they sounded great.

Greg (PP) and Michael (FF) are both very helpful. In the end I went with option #2 (FF) because I was familiar with the product, not to mention the significant difference in price.

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The new speaker panel was sanded, painted black and cleared. After attaching new plastic grille over the speakers with glue and staples, I finished the panel with speaker fabric, re-attached the L-brackets, and added ground braid. It was fitted with the metal backglass channel, which was sent off for chrome.

This is about halfway done, you’ll see the finished product later in the thread.

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With everything done, it was time to figure out the cab. I knew that I would never be able to get this cabinet to the level I wanted it to be. This was a long, drawn-out process that took over a year. I researched building my own cab, but even with my friend’s wood shop, it was a very daunting task and I was concerned that the cabinet wouldn’t be an exact replica. I did eventually locate a source that was able to produce exact copies of HS and Taxi cabinets. I was asked to not disclose the source so I won’t.

While waiting on the cab to be completed, I decided on the parts I want to be chromed. Essentially, I planned to chrome all major cabinet parts. This includes all stainless parts visible outside of the cabinet (lockdown bar, side rails, speaker panel parts, etc.)

At first I took the parts to a local chrome guy. He does very good work on car parts, but when I brought these parts in he looked at them like they came from an alien spaceship. He still said he would do them, but I thought that I should probably get another quote from a chrome guy that specializes in pinball parts. I read about Chris Royalty’s (@sc93cobra) Hot Rod Arcade work on Pinside, so I contacted him. After speaking with Chris, I chose his company to do the work.

Chris was very responsive and honest in the transaction. His work is expensive and takes time, but he did an awesome job!

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Just prior to ordering the cabinets, I acquired Taxi. I was looking for one at a reasonable price and found one near Orlando. After a 14-hour round trip...

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it was in my house.

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For now, back to HS. My cabinets arrived in May 2020 via STI and looked great. The only change to them that I requested was to add skids on the back of the cabs so when they are sitting upright they are not flat on the floor. This also eliminates any issues with the backbox latch getting damaged when the game is upright.

Now comes the ugly part: cabinet prep and painting.

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I will freely admit that I hate painting. I considered farming this out, but decided it was time to learn.

The equipment:
• Harbor Freight Spectrum HVLP gun
• DeWalt orbital sander
• 3M sanding blocks and sandpaper
• Frog Tape and masking paper
• Tack cloth
• PPE- Respirator, goggles, gloves, etc.

The paint:
• Sherwin Williams oil based primer and oil based paints
• Naptha for thinning at 4 : 1 ratio

First step in prepping was filling knot holes and other irregularities. Next was a TON of sanding. With a friend’s help the cabs were sanded from 120 grit to 800 grit. We started around 1pm and finished both cabs around 7pm, so about 3 hours per cab.

I then cleaned, masked and primed both cabs. I then re-sanded them until they were extremely smooth.

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I prefer the look and function of the newer-style lighted start buttons to the old white plastic start button with a leaf switch. The hardest part was figuring out the conversion from a leaf switch to a microswitch, but nothing too complex.

Since I’m using the newer style start button, I had to recess the hole. I was very grateful that my friend PinPilot wrote up a nice how-to for this in his HS restoration thread. I bought a set of Ryobi forstner bits at Home Depot for a reasonable price that worked great. BTW- there’s a ton of other great information in that thread!

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/high-speed-restoration-in-low-speed-jan-2020

Old cab heading out.

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Finding a summer day in Atlanta with reasonable humidity is virtually impossible. This delayed the painting until September. HS was painted first because I figured it would be the easiest to start with since it’s all one color and it’s black, so there’s no issues with matching paint color.

I found that 2 coats was the sweet spot for this paint.

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