It took me about six months also and I have beaten Jericho 3 times in a little under 2 years. I am a good but not great player and I just hit start again and again and again. My IM plays a little harder than others I have played though.

Just picked up a TFLE, like you have, and the opposite of IM, which is LOTR. Those are fun games also for me. My LOTR is fast as hell for some reason and kills me on a lot of shots. I thought that would be my easy, long ball time game, but I am not sure about that yet. TFLE is just fun for me. I don't stress out and just enjoy hitting the shots.

What's the best solution for the Monger lid being slightly too high in the front and slightly too low in the back? Every once in a while I have ball jumping issues. There are some signs of a little chipping on the front of the lid. I know there are adjustment screws for the vertical adjustment, but what about the forward/backward tilt? I have to dissect Monger anyway pretty soon (as soon as I get parts) to install a missing compression spring and install a LED Mod behind him. Might as well do it all in one shot. Might just replace the lid too once I get this fixed.

I think you need to bend the bracket a little bit to level out the lid, I still need to do it myself though. I think the adjustment screws are only to control the height of the entire lid.

I installed washers under the mounting brackets to level it out, at which point you can lower the entire lid level with the playfield. It is not a simple thing to get the exact washer heights and install them, so if you can achieve it by another means like bending the bracket mentioned above, try that first.

I blew up my IM today!!!
Unfortunately, not during game play but during Colordmd installation... DMD is dead and so is the start button. Also the provided 14 pin red stripe cable provided wouldn't reach from the color dmd to the J5 on the board, so I used the bone that was already there...
What did I do wrong? How do I fix it?
I sent an email to the colordmd guys so hopefully I can resurrect my game before too long.

Which power plug did you plug the color dmd into? The free one on the right side of the cabinet? Was the game one when you were installing? Using the factory ribbon cable is fine.

Yes the one down at the front of the cabinet on the right, yes game was off
Of note sent an email to colordmd and they got back to me with 10 minutes - WOW that is quick...

Ok with some trouble shooting with Randy from colordmd I seem to have blown a couple of fuses in the power driver board
I had the color dmd along with some light led mods and my speaker lights kit all plugged into the right front power - not sure why those blew but I think it will be ok and easily solvable...

66 million on the first ball only to end the game at 72 million.

Randy and ColorDMD do a great job with customer support and seem to never sleep.

When I got my IM, it was launching airballs like crazy. I went with removing the lid, and bending the bracket, then measuring with a straightedge. Took a bit of tweaking, but as soon as the lid sat flush, the airballs disappeared. It can be the front or the back that causes them. Putting the straightedge over the cover shows it clearly.

A tiny bit off, and the ball goes sailing. But I haven't ever needed to readjust after that. It felt more exact than the washer method.

I'm in the club!!!!! Picked up an original 2010 Iron Man in fantastic condition on Friday. Tons of mods and powder coated rails and legs. Beautiful game an HARD AS HELL!!!!

So a very typical "good game" in other words.

My high is 84 million...I honestly thought I was gonna break it today.

Thanks guys! When I have Monger apart for mods and repairs I'll see if I can easily add a washer or two for the coarse adjustment and fine tune it by bending the bracket a bit.

Guess I should have said "really good game".....72 million is a big score on IM. My all time is 180 million but games in the 60's-80's are still fairly rare. I'd hate to see my average score!

My next 10 games, I don't think I broke 10 million. I'm still trying to get over that 100 million.

I have 2 older brothers (11 and 9 years older). Growing up, they never let me win at anything. If I did win, everything had to be perfect. Guess that's why I love this game, makes me feel like a 10 year old all over again.

Does anyone here own or have played Iron Man Classic? I'd imagine that it is so much easier without those magnets causing so much chaos.

Just picked up an iron man today and love it! Got to do or die three times scored it once and chocked getting to Jericho on that game too! Already surpassed the Gary Stern high score that hadn't been passed yet! Played about 20 games mainly within that 5m bracket got it pitch at 11deg for that brutal feeling

11 degrees? LOL...ok.

I was at the Michigan Pinball Exposition yesterday and was talking with JJP distributor Abel Electronics. I own a WOZ and wondered if they had any standard size invisiglass. They did at their shop, could save on shipping ... yada yada yada ... we took a hour break from the show to go get it. Later that night I took before and after pics of our IMVE with the JJP Invisiglass. It looks much better than the pics really show. My adult son said "It is a different game because you see more depth. With the old reflections, it is more 2D than 3D." It does make a big difference when playing and having the interactive flashing lights in the back box (translite) and lights on your topper. The bottom of the playfield doesn't even look like it has any glass. The back half still has "some" minor reflections, but much less than the standard glass. A big expense at $295, but you would not regret it once you put it on. See the comparison pics. The first is with just LED room canister ceiling lights on that are really bright. The invisiglass pic is deceiving because in reality you actually see in the reflection the outline of the individual LEDs under the diffuser. The second pic is with the pin lights on also. The room light is too bright to play it that way anyway. The third pic is very low level room light and just that pin on. This one is deceiving too - the camera pics up more reflection. This was a good investment. My wife liked it so much (after the full day of pinball also at the show), she beat my #2 score and was jumping around. She was actually pushing me "a bit" to get the invisiglass because the reflections of the flashing of the interactive back box lights mod I just bought distracted/annoyed her. Gotta love it.

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I'm getting Invisiglass for all three of my games. It's next on my list.

So ... are we bad influences on each other? That's what my kids say.

One thing to note ... the JJP Invisiglass is just a touch thicker than the standard Stern glass in my machine. The stern glass could slide on it's own with just one finger helping it. Or you could probably fling it right out of the machine pretty easily. The Invisiglass was a "snug" fit that was good, not too much. It got rid of a lot of the rattles too.

I'm happy for the people who love invisiglass....but it's just not a big deal to me. Maybe I'm too "old school" but the reflections never really bothered me at all. Yes invisiglass looks better, but not 1375% better (cost difference). If it cost $60 (3x more) I'd probably/maybe get it.

Welcome to the club!

So I've got a question. Where was that "11deg" measured? On the playfield or on the glass? I'm asking because 11 really doesn't sound right. If it is on the playfield, it sounds way to steep. And if it was on the glass, it is way too shallow. That sounds right between them (7 on playfield vs 16.5 on the glass sounds more normal).

I'm also asking because IM really is a brutal game. But if you get the Do or Die hurryup too often, it might get boring quickly. DoD hurryup is reserved for fantastic play. I realize it is your game and you can set it up any way you want. But the magic of Iron Man is the proverbial "so close" feeling that leads to anger as you hit the start button again.

Wouldn't you need some bricks under the legs to hit 11 deg?

We played an F-14 in our league that was up on bricks and also featured some insanely bright flashers. Was darn near unplayable but we had a blast!

Got my color dmd installed successfully today with a minor repair by Randy -I did in fact t blow it up. Anyway service was great and WOW what a difference the colored dots make... Going to do all of my games thus way.

Felt exactly the same way u do until i bought a pin with it in it from a friend...... now i cant have a pin without it and everything i own has it.

Absolutely correct.....PDI looks better to me, so that's why it's on all my machines....trying to correlate a percentage gain based on price is kind of silly....no such logic....

Actually you're right. It was a silly way of stating it. I understand that people often pay large sums for tiny incremental improvements. Just look at the audio world or what people pay to gain a few more horses from their engines. Argument retracted.

I simply meant I personally don't think it worth its current price of admission. Someday that might even change.

Ha....been there!!! I think the only accurate statement is anything is only (and always) worth what someone is willing to pay for it. "beauty in the eye of the beholder"....mark....

PDI is one of those mods that is truly appreciated in the short and long haul, imo...I'm always amazed how great the playfield looks through that stuff....

I am a "value guy" in general when it comes to adding stuff on to my pins, but PDI can be transfered from one pin to another and if you ever want to sell the glass I bet you can get someone to happily pay you $200 for it. Not bad for the $5000 game with a pretty playfield that you will get a better view of. Color Dmd are both similar in that way. Neccesary - no. Cool if you have it - yes!

That being said I do not have any PDI yet.

Can't you just pull the glass completely to experience true no glare??

Anyone else having an issue with the ramp flaps rusting? Love my Iron Man and it's in really nice shape except that all of a sudden the ramp flaps started to rust. Can't find replacements other than changing the whole ramps. Anyone have a product that works to clean it off? I've tried numerous with no improvement.

Just a added note ... I figured out some of the remaining reflections is on/from the playfield itself and not the glass. I would need a playfield wax that does not give off reflections to fix that.

Funny, I tend to score better that way also.

Yeah the 11 was on the glass I was just lazy and didn't measure on playfield. Measured last nit on the playfield as I changed over the magnet cores as they were mushroomed and levelled the back of the iron monger (but I think I lowered it too much... The lay field is actually at 6.7 now and I moved the left Outlane completely off instead of the lowest rung like it was when I got it. In saying I got to do or die 3x in one night I think I played about 30 games in a row so that's how I got to do or die that often. Most of the games were in the range of 2-7m. But the game is definitely a hard one!

I think IM is one of those games that is easier at 6.6-7.0 degrees than it is at 6.0-6.5. There is more "side to side" action on the lower settings which sends it out the outlanes.

I agree. I moved mine last week and it is not as steep and plays harder, but it is still fun so I haven't set it back up.

Or a bit steeper... 7.9 on the playfield. And yes, it constantly kicks my ass!

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That actually makes it easier. Less side to side motion and outlane drains.

The swearing from my gameroom disagrees

I've always liked it there. But maybe tomorrow I'll give 6 degrees a shot. I just think it will feel too slow for me. I don't like the one on location near me because it always feels too easy to me.

So how many owners in this thread owned, sold, then bought back IM?

I had an original and then bought a vault and then sold the original

I did. Have a VE thisntime.

I listened to groupthink and totally missed it the first time around. Then the price skyrocketed and I thought you were all nuts. Finally I got a "can't lose money" price on a VE and decided to bring it in for a few months to get to know the game... Boom, I was hooked in less than a day, and the honeymoon is still going on.

What ever happened to that extra IM play field you had?

I sold it to Xerico.