So as i said, nothing changed, we were playing. All was fine. i raised the pf to change a diode on the diode strip at the bottom of the pf, for the tilt circuit. Put the pf back down, and noticed the drops were staying down. Went into the test menu, and checked the coils, it tries to come up, but only comes up maybe 1/2", when i raise the pf to vertical, then that coil is horizontal, it raises them all the way. The mech seems smooth, i checked the resistance on the coil, it reads around 9.0 which according to pinwiki, is correct, i also compared to another of the same coil, and got the same readings. I checked the coil diode, it also reads as good.
While i was checking, i pulled the coil sleeve, and ran a paper towel through it, and wiped down the plunger. i haven't made any changes to the mech, changed any springs or anything.