May be a while before i get to it but i certainly will.

I just did mine on the wolverine magnet on XMen. The coil stop/Vice grip worked perfect. Thanks for the suggestion.

Was the magnet core the cheap kind or the good one? I have heard the cheap ones mushroom badly. I have an X-Men and worry about this.

It was mushrooming but not badly enough to remove it. The edges were splaying out. It could be ground done and reused. I put in a replacement I bought from pinball life.

I worked on two magnet cores... the first one came out without a lot of issue, but the second will not budge.

I tried heat, I soaked it with WD-40 three times overnight but that solvent doesn't seem to work on loctite (if that's there... none visible). I destroyed a flat wrench trying to use it as leverage in the magnet notch, tried the biggest flathead screwdriver you can purchase at the hardware store, but that slot wasn't made for a screwdriver. I can't find a spare coil stop, so I gave up and slapped it back on the game. At this point I'd rather waste money on a new assembly than wasting time and money at a hardware store trying to figure out how to work around Stern's lazy mechanical design that requires loctite.

Drag link socket and impact wrench, zip and its out.

For me, it was a combination of heat, large adjustable wrench on the nut, and a large vice grips on the core itself. Oh and also 2 and a half hours of swearing and giving up. (Had to pull it up through the top of the playfield due to mushrooming).

This worked perfectly for me as well on both the magnets on x-men. If you don't have a spare coil stop it's worth taking one off a flipper to use. I had a spare stop and used a large adjustable wrench to grab it. The core just turned right out.

This should never, ever be attempted on a mushroomed core. There is a good chance for serious playfield damage if the nut and core both spin together and force the core down through the playfield.

Alright looks like I should buy vice grips or a drag link socket and try again. Every once in a while I wish I had a vice for tasks like this.

If you use vice grips on the core itself it would damage the threads that still need to screw through the nut to get it out of the playfield... I assume it didn't damage the threads that much?

i need to do this on my XM are there higher quality replacements?

I believe the ones at Pinball Life are considered the best. I could be wrong.

My magnet core will not give way. At this point 2 of the 4 welds on the base have cracked, and I've scraped, bent, or dinged up every piece of metal on the mechanism trying to force it to turn. The other magnet core in the game came out with relative ease. I am not at all happy with they way Stern assembled this part.

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Oh...didn't realize it was out of the machine. I'd just buy a new assembly.

In my case, it was so mushroomed that I had to leave the assembly in the game, and work it out through the top. The threads did get rather torn up, which probably explains why it never seemed to get easier, even when it was close to being freed.

crazy heat is the answer... way more heat than you think you need.

Use a butane torch.. and heat that sucker up for a few minutes.

6 year old thread for the win! I conquered a magnet core with lubricating spray, heat and an old coil stop.

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I used an impact driver and a socket and it was out in seconds.

This is what I did, and it worked out great.

Heat breaks down the Loctite. WD40 and similar sprays are useless, don't waste your time spraying.

Loctite holds firm regardless and one of it's "features" is that it is resistant to solvents (such as WD40).

If you use heat - and then apply mechanical pressure to undo the nut - it will give.

I just stumbled across this old thread while searching for a way to remove the magnet core from my SM. I've replaced many magnet cores over the years, but this is the first sucker I've encountered that just won't budge. The nut was hard to get off, but I eventually removed it with a crescent wrench and a hammer. The magnet core, however, seems impervious to everything I've thrown at it. Why the f*** would they loctite it in there? Isn't the whole purpose of the large nut to keep the core from moving?

After trying several methods to remove the core unsuccessfully, I've decided to just bite the bullet and order a new bracket and core. Fortunately, my core was not mushroomed, so I was easily able to remove it from the playfield and magnet. I needed to place a Pinball Life order anyway, so it's not really a big deal. In the end, it only cost me a little money and a lot of aggravation.

So you got it out of the PF whole, but can't get the core out of the bracket? Use heat from a butane torch.. that will break down any loctite.

I also find that the tool you use in the slot makes all the difference. I use the tooth of a crowbar lying sideways... as that gives me a nice long (14" or so) arm to get good leverage and it doesn't chew up the slot.

I attempted to use a hex key that perfectly fit the slot. I heated up the bolt with a heat gun on high for a couple minutes and then tried to turn the bolt. It wouldn't budge. I then whacked the hex key with a hammer and it snapped in half!

Never had trouble with removing any magnet cores over the years. I use a combination wrench--it is well over a foot long, with a cold chisel acting like a big screwdriver to turn the core, no problem.

I took the bracket out, put the whole thing in a vise and used an impact driver with the right sized socket and it came off very easily. But it is really in there. It’s amazing how much loctite they used.

FWIW... I use a nail puller similar to this (not this exact model)
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I can lay it sideways in the notch for almost a perfect fit.

Next time try a mallet instead of hammer Leverage is preferred to avoid snapping stuff.

After reading this thread I was a little hesitant to change out the magnet core in my RBION, but it wasn’t too bad. Mine is HUO with very few plays when I got it, so I’m sure the core hadn't been touched since the factory.

I left the magnet assembly in place with the playfield vertical against the backbox. The nut definitely wasn’t loosening at first. I hit it with a hair dryer for about 30 seconds. Still nothing. Another 30-45 seconds and it was hot to the touch, but not so hot it would burn you. The nut now loosened up easily and I removed it by hand. I then used a screwdriver to start the core turning clockwise looking from below then removed by hand. Put the new core in from the front until flush and replaced the nut by hand then snugged with a wrench. Working great so far!

I too had a mushroomed magnet core on my Spiderman and didn’t want to pull the core down through the playfield. I couldn’t keep the core from turning with a large screwdriver and didn’t want to damage the playfield. Problem was solved by drilling a hole through another nut and feeding a #6 nail through the nut and slot in the bottom of the core. See picture. This allowed me to use a large wrench to keep the core from turning while I loosened the original nut on the magnet core. Hope this helps some with a similar issue.

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Very creative!

Just had my own need to swap the magnet post out of RBION and used a variation of the Harbor Freight prybar approach. I purchased their $4 prybar, and then used a bench grinder to grind down the fork to fit perfectly in the post slot. Took me less than 5 minutes with a bench grinder (and it helped that I had a fresh post in hand to keep checking the fit of the prybar into the post slot). I ground the prybar so that there was NO play at all when inserted in the post slot.

Then it was a simple matter of using a butane gooseneck candle lighter which makes a sharp pinpointable flame, and heating the nut, post and bracket just enough to be HOT, but not melt the coil spool. Once hot, I used the prybar for a few seconds and with constant pressure, it started moving just as expected(hoped). I kept going clockwise to unscrew the post from the TOP.

I decided to install the new post since I had it in hand, but I also went back to the bench grinder with the OLD post and re-ground the top and mushroomed surfaces for use next time I need a post swap. Again, 5 minutes at the grinder.

RBION
Fortunately for me the nut came loose fairly easy with this 18" adjustable wrench. It started turning the core so I found something, the wire cutters pictured, that fit perfectly in the slot. Using vice grips to help with the torque, I was able to get the nut off then clockwise turning to thread it through the top of playfield. As you can see, the core was heavily mushroomed.

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Looks like the playfield wood around the post didn’t get damaged too badly, so fixing the post is well timed.