yeah nice translites! I might get one later on to change around with =) Probably also install leds in the backbox instead of the old flourescent pipe...

Those red siderails and legs.. not my thing to be honest on this machine but on a game like getaway it would look super cool! =)

Broken plastics are really annoying! i know what you mean amendes..

Gonna move the playfield into the cabinet today! Looking around for something to put on the edges of the playfield so I wont scratch the cabinet insides when lifting it. Its tight between the cab and the playfield but anything thats soft enough and will stay in place and im happy. I imagine some kind of felt tape or something.. must be available at any local store..

I have now put the playfield back into the machine just for some testing and to continue to reassemble the top of the playfield.
Nothing exploded!

Even though theres a lot of things to assemble I went into test mode to test the coin door buttons and such. It worked. Had some problems with active switches that was stuck like the tilt switch, the right slingshot and the left inlane. Also the bottom bumper did not register. Also noticed the LED for the bottom bumper is probably inserted backwards since it wont light. Also experienced terrible ghosting in the bumper lights and ive heard these segas are pretty prone to ghosting. Dont know if there are any nonghosting wedge bumper LEDs available but if there is I will get some.

In coil test no coils did fire but im not worried yet since ive taken everything apart and this was just a quick test. Will have a look later on and see what else to adjust. The display however looks terrific, sounds there and blasting and I did not scratch the inside of the cabinet when putting in the playfield so I am very happy so far! Even the transformer I painted and cleaned up seem to have survived (unless it is the cause for the non operating coils).

I put some double sided foam tape on the edges of the playfield to protect the cabinet. Its partly a temporary solution since i just have the protective film still on it and not some other soft material. But, I will come up with something.

Still a lot to do but a mile stone was reached today! =)

testing.jpg

Thanks! Will add more parts now and see if I can make it work in the end. It says 4 balls missing... I wonder why... =)

Worked some more on the game today. Mounted the "ball feeder coil", and the auto plunger coil. Also some plastics. The coils are now working in test mode. Think it had something to do with the coin door interlock switch. Anyway, the biggest downside now is the broken plastics. I will repair them as good as possible and then be happy for now. Then I will reproduce them and change them later on cause it will take time to get the originals right for printing. Need to reproduce broken artwork etc but will make a small test with the slingshot plastics first. If it's good then I'll do the rest. Really eager to test the machine now! But I need to hold my horses a bit. 4th of July seems like a realistic date to have it completed hehe.

The playfield plastics were repaired pretty ugly. So I have tried to fix that. Its not really pretty but at least a bit better then loads of glue gun glue:
plasticfix.jpg

Next i found out that the plunger for the super VUK was too small... (the one on the left). The one on the right is the correct one. It makes me think that this was why the ball did not get kicked up every time but had to be kicked multiple times before it came all the way up. Maybe the thin plunger hit the ball slightly to the side and did not transfer the momentum to the ball completely. Of course it can be something else too, we will see when Ive tested it fully.
VUK-plunger.jpg

And now some more reassembly pictures. Its really a pretty huge difference from when I got the game:

clean1.jpg
clean2.jpg
clean3.jpg
clean4.jpg

And some details:
clean8.jpg
clean6.jpg
clean5.jpg
clean7.jpg

Im pretty satisfied with the result so far! Now Im waiting for an extra bumper cap, some screws for it and some other small bits and pieces.

Lets not forget about the underside. Its not as clean as the top side but the Subway and the Super VUK assembly are looking great!
cleanu.jpg
cleanvuk.jpg

Pew.. thats all for now! More pictures and info later on!

Im still working on the ball trough VUK opto.. it does not work. Its reported, and the only switch, as closed in the active switch test. And the transmitter does not light up. As opposed to bally williams games (at least that I know) this opto is on and when the light has a free path the switch is open, whereas when a ball blocks the light it will close. The opposite of the bally williams optos. Hence it should not be closed and by all means I should be able to see the beam since its not an IR opto. Will measure some volts on the connector to the transmitter. I bet its not there.. then I can backtrack the wires up to the board and see if there is a break somewhere or a bad connection. If however there is volts on the connector i will take the whole thing out and see if the transmitter works when I hook up a battery to it.

Would be nice.. or the one who feels like it can maybe replace the plastic part.. dont know if they are available though and it would also require some rivets and tools for it. I dont mind mine for now.. but yeah they are pretty worn.

Its my first sega that Im working on but I must say its pretty neat under the playfield. Ive heard segas are not as fun too work on but im happy with this.

Hi Elfman!

I did not realise the cabinet speaker is an upgrade! Thats cool, it was there when I got the game and I thought it was stock since ive only looked into older bally williams games. Interesting.. I might add the third speaker channel to it too to make the sound in the backbox stereo. As it is now, and stock, only the left speaker is sounding and even installed. I started to buy some parts for the upgrade but did not find them all at the time so I will need to look into it again.

Nice you like the restoration! I hope the game will play great and be fun when its completed!

Most likely found the problem with the trough VUK opto. The power for it originates at J16 and then goes to one side of the alien opto assembly. Then it continues to the board on the other side of the alien and from there down to the trough VUK opto transmitter board. It's not a separate 5vdc for each board. Since I cut the hacked up alien optos from this chain the current can't go all the way down to the trough so that's the problem here. Need a new alien opto board set and then it should be alright. Just some info if someone else needs it =)

Here a couple of more pictures of the reassembly process:
lside.jpg

I mentioned before that the coils did not work... it was my own fault. I did not notice you had to pull out the high current interlock switch inside the coin door to enable the high power for the coils when the coin door was open. You learn a lot by reading your games manual!
It was not really well described though, it just said you had to pull the switch. How to was not mentioned but it was pretty evident when I saw the switch with my own eyes. Heres a picture for all the other newbies out there:
hcurrentsw.jpg

Now all coils work in test mode! Great!

Reading furthere in the manual i discovered there is a "Play test" on these machines, maybe on newer sterns too? Anyway, it was perfect for when I was reassembling the super VUK and the plastics around it. The whole thing works like the game would in normal operation, lets say for example you put a ball in the shooter lane, the switch will trigger and the auto plunger fire. So its pretty neat. Dont get your fingers or any tools around the live coils though.. dangerous volts and not so nice to get hit by a coil or have tools flying when it fires.

Anyway, I tested the VUK (the one after the virus hole) in the play test by dropping a ball into the virus hole and it does now work very well! I dont really know what the problem was originally but I changed the plunger to the correct sized one, replaced the spring and the coil sleeve and cleaned everything up real good. My bet is on the too small plunger that was there originally.
vukwork.jpg

Hi! =)

I got them from the swedish pinball shop called "Free-Play", heres the link:
http://shop.textalk.se/en/article.php?id=31839&art=14326197

Not really sure I will go for them everywhere since they are frosted.. maybe its better using wider angle leds without frosting under the plastics and only use these where the bulb is clearly visible. They are also "Dimmed GI" and to be honest I dont know what the purpose of it is.. they fade out slowly when the power is turned of so i guess they contain a cap and maybe they are designed to prevent ghosting that way. Im new to leds so forgive me.. Im super in love with the color though so will dig into it later on. And yeah... it will be a pain to replace the bulbs now that the plastics are all there but thats life.

Better start working then =)

Agree! it will take some time but I have some ideas to make it work better in the future. I will try and see if its good or not =)

Next report is about one of all the hacks you find when restoring a machine. This time it was one of the flipper bases that had been hacked. For some reason one or more of these have been welded or has the worng screws, bolts and nuts on them on all my games... Guess the metal gets weakened by long term use.

Found two home made solutions here.. the first one is an ordenairy bolt screwed into the bracket to work as a coil stop. The original coil stop part mustve breaked down so they used the bracket from the other side of the coil and drove a bolt trough it. Problem solved! or?

The second one is hilarious.. the all time favourite wood screw was used to attach a coil bracket to the flipper base. And to top it off it was screwed TROUGH the old machine screw! Made me upset so I ordered some new flipper bases and will replace them.
hackofday.jpg

I know.. not fun restoring a game cost wise...

"A friend of mine is reproducing the keyrings for this machine..... if you're up to acquire some, PM me!"

Good to know! I'll let you know if I'm interested later on!

Here is a picture of the mod I made to the third bumper cap which is "missing" in the factory design. I dont really know why they left it out but I guess it was because of bad design (the ramps are too tight to make the cap fit).
It looks better with a third cap in the game even though you dont really see the area from the players POV. Thanks to HOOKED for pointing out it was possible to add a third cap.
capmod.jpg

And, I have been testing how the ramps fit and tried to figure out where all the supports and stuff should go. Not that hard to figure out but its a pain working with it since you dont want to leave finger prints under the ramps and also all the wires for the switches and flashers are a bit troublesome to sneak down through everything and out the backside of the playfield. Looks promising anyway and I say it again.. it looks a lot better now than before it was cleaned! Enjoy the special effect super lighting from my electric screw driver/screw gun.
ramptest.jpg

Hi there fantasygoat!

Thanks, i will continue till im done with it =) not much left now.. "only" new legs of the proper model, new alien opto boards, new flipper assemblies, a few side rail screws (security torx style ones), flipper rubbers, adding the metal wire ball guides, more LEDs and last thing.. casting a new alien head and mount it into the game. I may, if I feel like it later, add a third speaker channel on the board and a second speaker in the display panel to make it true stereo. Not sure its worth it but in visual pinball, that I use for testing, there is indeed some stereo sound. Im so excited to try this game for real when its all completed!

@amendes, hm.. maybe someone added a third bumper cap at some point? All pics ive seen on the net have only 2..

The ramps, as far as I know they are not available to buy anywhere (yet) so I had to clean mine. I used a kitchen cleaning spray that takes away grease and dirt. Then flushed them in water and let them dry. After that I flame polished them which really makes a huge difference to the appearance! Word of warning though should you ever try it. Practice doing it on something less important like a broken old ramp or something first time if youre not used to do it. Otherwise its easy to ruin the ramps. Its also super important the ramps are very clean since the flame polishing will make any grain of dust or even fingerprints permanent!

Fingers crossed!

Yeah they have added a red cap in that picture.. And maybe you know that if you unscrew one plastic you're going to take the whole game apart =) lots of work!

By the way, does anyone know where and how the spotlight should be mounted in the game? Mine was just dingling around loose... I've seen pics where it sits on a maybe 2-3" hex post at the top of the right wire guide, but also some pics without that post as well as other variants. Would be nice to know how it was meant to be.

It would indeed look and sound great with those upgrades. The downside to getting a "rotten" machine for a fair price is you need to buy everything before you can play it. It's not like you get a decent machine and then have the chance to save up for buying a speaker kit after some time. But, adding the third sound channel could do in my case.

The spotlight can be found in the manual at Page 60, section 4, chapter 1. Not really easy to tell how tall it is though. At least you can see where it should be and the direction of it. Adding a few more could be something.