Everything on my Jive Time was working great. Then the ball started to struggle to kick out on occasion. It would buzz but nothing would come out. After buzzing like 2-4 times it would finally kick out. This went on and off for about two weeks. Then the meltdown happened... multiple things started happening fairly quickly over the next couple days. First, the 2 kick-out holes would start going crazy and kicking in unison and the balls in play would count down to zero. Next, the ball would get stuck in the kick-out hole because nothing was activating. Next, the ball would be in play but the score reel wouldn't do anything. Next, the lights would't turn on from the left flipper but it would start. Later, the lights would turn on from the left flipper but wouldn't start. Today I adjusted a relay and it now starts but no balls light on the back box in play. Everything functions correctly but as soon as the ball drains it lights up "game over." As all this crazy has been going on - I have been cleaning the plugs, making sure there are credits on the reel, adjusting and cleaning a few switches. I can't imagine I have all these distinct issues happening at once. I feel like they must all be tied to a similar problem. Mind you, I haven't been in there messing with it much. Most of this stuff started happening together at the same time and one after another. I am not saying I didn't perhaps move some switches that caused more problems but I honestly didn't do much... I don't want to give the impression that I was messing around with it the whole time and thus jacked it up more. Any help to hone in the core issue here?

I need to learn to read schematics better... on my list of things to educate myself on in this hobby. I guess it is saying that the coin relay goes to the ball count unit. From the description in the Jive Time manual it seems like the game relay should play a role in this issue somehow. I cleaned the ball count unit with some nu-trol to make sure nothing was sticking. The ball count can be manually added and subtracted if I use my finger. If I add five balls - I can play all of them and the game operates as normal (right now), but once the game is over and I hit reset... the ball count unit doesn't add back five balls.