On mine, it was a bad wire from the jaw down. Check the wires that go down the side of T-Rex. It'll get pulled apart when he goes up. It's a good starting point.

Well, you have theater of magic...wish I had that!

The wiring may be bad under the insulation where you can't see it.

RussMyers

If Williams had made this exact game but with Williams quality it would have been an A-lister and I wouldn't have been able to afford it so I don't mind fixing it

When the t-rex drops the ball does he chomp or just open his mouth? The answer will determine whether the machine thinks he is fully raised and is commencing the chomping motion to swallow the ball, or whether the jaw coil is failing due to a bad connection in that main wiring.

The jaw coil wire had severed on mine just like it had on yours. Initially a tried a wire connector cap like you did but it didn't last long because it's not a good solution for the biggest failure point for that wire where it bends 180º every time the t-rex bends over. So I ended up stripping, splicing and soldering the wires back together then insulated each with tape and taped the whole lot back together.

It has been fine since. But I did buy a replacement two-channel cable that is ultra flexible so that I can replace the entire thing at some point. To be honest, replacing the entire wire is probably easier than splicing like I did — and what I would have done if I had a replacement cable to use and didn't have ants in my pants to get it up and running again

DE quality isn't much different than B/W quality. They practically use the same parts. Only one that really shines in the quality department was Gottlieb, but unfortunately a lot of their games sucked. But they were built strong.

Broken wire for sure.