After this post, and as of right now, this topic is only two posts away from topping the Jurassic Park Club thread. That's pretty impressive.

Hey jim,

There are some services on the customer side that can remove quite a bit of this section of work for you for atleast Aussie customers.

As an aussie that would like this mod we have a service by Australia Post called "Shop Mate" in which its similar to other US reshippers but comes with a bunch of extras.

Advantages to you which would be all transparent.
US based addresses.
Full Insurance Paid for by customers.
Accountability. Package tracking.
No Customs to fill out. Only required for amounts above $2.5kUSD.

The only sticking point in your list is payment.

If something could be worked out here would you be willing to sell to some Australians?

In that case.......

I get why people world-wide want this mod, but I also understand why Jim says US-only given that demand from within the US alone continues to significantly outstrip supply. Your best bet if you really want one is probably to find a friendly States-side Pinsider that will take delivery for you and then reship to Australia, allowing Jim to avoid the hassle of international shipping and you to get your T-Rex!

I would be willing to do this but I need to get one for myself first

I am traveling, but I will try and get a video in diagnostics next week.

Ross

Friendly and ... very trustworthy with large sums of money

... with the rapidly falling AUD one of these rex's will be worth around one million australian peso's ;(

Do you sign and date them? I'd like to request that on mine. On the inside of the back piece that is.

Installed my new T-rex yesterday and am very impressed with the quality of your work. The pieces themselves feel extremely solid with amazing detail. Thanks again!
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Add me to your list please. We are modding out a special JP for charity and would love to include your TRex mod.

-Dan

rviguet, I may have the solution to your problem...

Take a look at the horseshoe-shaped plastic (collar) that wraps around the rear of the T-rex neck. Check closely for clearance when he is in the fully upright position. Make sure there is no contact there. I found that the back of my new T-rex would rub on the edge of that plastic and prevent it from rising 100% up - I'd say it only reached to about 97%. Without the head being positioned fully upright, the plunger won't close the jaw as far as designed and will cause you problems. This was the issue I had.

You can easily check to see if this will help by tilting the head down and removing the plastic collar piece, then see if your T-rex swallows any better. I had to notch the holes in the mounting brackets to slide the plastic collar back a little. Even then it would still touch some, so I *carefully* bent the brackets to shift the plastic back a little more.

Before making these adjustments, the ball would roll back & forth a couple times in his mouth as he 'chomped' before finally being swallowed. Now it practically rolls down his throat on his first chomp.

Hope this helps.

I knew this was going to be fantastic, but I don't think I anticipated just *how* fantastic it was going to look on the game. I have to agree, the quality is fantastic and everything feels really solid. What an improvement!

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Simply amazing.

If any of the buyers is considering selling their JP and could sell their rex seperately PM me

I have been following this for a while and very impressed with the quality and perseverance of the OP. Great job!

I may have to grab one of these....but I am thinking some red nail polish would look awesome on the teeth! Give it that really scary look.

Oh, as an aside for anyone installing one. You will have to bend the jaw like crazy at the front, and ours needed to be bent outward from the sides too. We were afraid to keep bending but it needed a lot more than we thought.

Talking about the metal "teeth" on the lower jaw? I was curious as to why they'd need to be bent to pick up the ball. Shouldn't the mechanics still be the same? Not that I don't mind doing it, just wondering why the difference from the old shell to the new one.

Yep. The install video already addresses needing to bend out the front teeth, but we had to bend the sides quite a bit too.

It seems like the dinosaur's nose makes it stay a little further from the pf and requires a little more scooping action from the lower jaw, but I don't know if that's the official reason. That's just my best guess. But it wasn't a tremendous amount of effort to figure out why it wasn't eating properly, just required much more bending that we expected.

Here is a video of a couple of up/down cycles in diagnostics. It appears to me that the top switch does not trigger until the T-Rex is all the way up.
http://vid191.photobucket.com/albums/z223/rviguet/JP%20T-Rex%20Diag_zpsbjuyqyt1.mp4

When I originally installed the T-Rex is was rubbing on the collar plastic. I loosened the screws that mount the collar plastic to the playfield and moved it back a little. The T-Rex does not appear to be rubbing on the collar plastic anymore. I will put it back together and double check it.

Here is a video of the T-Rex in diagnostics with the full body on. It is interesting that the weight of the full body causes the T-Rex to drop faster at one point. Also, with the body on it appears to me that the T-Rex does not stop as straight up as when the body is off. I removed the collar plastic, so it is not rubbing on that.

http://vid191.photobucket.com/albums/z223/rviguet/JP%20T-Rex%20Body%20Diag_zpso6k0d5eu.mp4

It doesn't seem like anything is restricting the jaw when the top is on. Yes, I can close the mouth more when the T-Rex is in the up position with the top installed. When the T-Rex is in the up position with the top on it the T-Rex seems to lean forward a little. If I push up on the jaw, not only does the jaw close more, but the whole T-Rex moves back some. Maybe my spring on the crank arm is not tight enough to pull the T-Rex vertical with the weight of the top installed. I thought I might try a new spring, but I cannot seem to find one in stock.

Yes, I was talking about the spring under the playfield. I checked it today and I don't think that is the problem as it seems to be pulling the link arm down to its stop pretty good. There is a lot of play in the up/down motor itself. I am thinking the gears might be worn or something. I ordered a new motor assembly from Marco. I am going to try throwing some parts at it and see if anything helps.

Got my t-rex installed. One problem, and a few notes:

Right now it's all put back together. It will pick up the ball no problem, but won't swallow it. It will spit it back out. Two thoughts. It seems to be getting caught on the edges of the front of the jaw, the screw, and the front teeth. I counter sunk the screw. It's not completely flush, but is lower then if it wasn't. It seems that the metal of the front edges of the jaw are the main culprit. If I bend then out a little, it may be wide enough for the ball to pass over the screw freely.

But the other idea is that maybe I've bent the teeth out too far, and when it picks up the ball, it just isn't able to push the ball back far enough when it bites down.

Also, one thing to note for anyone else, my coil power cable was just over the jaw link. I didn't realize what the problem was. I couldn't get the screw in the back of the Trex to go in, and when I did, it wasn't lined up. And caused so much friction that the jaw link no longer moved. Just make sure to rotate the cable harness mounted to the side of the shoot away from the jaw link.

And another note, when I powered the game back on to get the Trex to stand up, it got about half way, and then froze and started to shutter. I double checked and everything was cleared, it wasn't getting caught on anything. What I needed to do was firmly, but carefully put it back. The mech that razes and lowers the head was just caught in a weird middle where it had no leverage. So just getting it pushed back just a little bit fixed it when I turned it back on.

Attached is a photo on how the trex picks up the ball. You can see the corner that it's caught on. 2015-11-15 16.27.56.jpg

Mine did that. I had to bend the sides of the jaw out a bit and then the ball could be swallowed perfectly.

COOL! Bent those corners back enough so that the ball could fit through, and so far it's picked up and swallowed every ball. Looks so good with the spot light on it.
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Excuse me while I go get my mind out of the gutter.

Mine was brand new from marco. It definitely looked more narrow than my stock rex jaw, but bending it was still easier than drilling out rivets.

Yeah. New from Marco. When I had it out, I compared that gap by using the ball. And seems that the stock one was just perfectly wide enough for the ball to pass through. New one after bending out won't have any more problems.

So I'd suggest to anyone else that uses the Marco jaw, bend the sides out enough so that the ball can pass without getting stuck, and you'd be fine.

Although, I didn't really bend the whole side out, I just curled the corners back to create a "funnel."

This mod is beautiful. If I ever pick up a JP, it'll definitely be a required purchase. I have enjoyed watching the process of the amazing sculpt and paint job. Very impressive, Winteriscoming!

On your number 2, just wanted to clarify if you read my issue as that issue. Mine didn't need extra clearance with the collar. Mine was an issue with the mechanical arm that raises and lowers the head.

I'm not sure exactly what the issue was, but my educated guess was that the arm just got caught in some slack. Working on the dino when it was in the down position, it did have some play where I could lift it up a bit. Guessing that by doing this, it moved the arm, and when it went to raise the head back up, the position of the arm and the motor weren't exactly synced. All I had to do was push the dino up a little. It felt like the side-to-side motor does. I was firm, but was able to to manually raise the dino by hand from that halfway point, and from there was able to turn on the machine to raise it the rest of the way.

Other than the cable getting in my way, installation was smooth.

I was thinking about maybe adding a bead of hot glue to the lower jaw teeth to better hold them in place. The front section is a little loose.

The teeth are probably in there as best as they can get. It's just that there isn't any forceful pressure against the front section. I'm sure it will stay in place on their own, but I tried to grab some lint stuck to it, and ended up pulling the teeth out just a bit. Had to tuck them back in. Was just thinking that I'd have some better piece of mind if they didn't move. But the sides are in nice and tight. And with the hot glue, I was thinking that even if I put the hot glue on the outer portion of the metal teeth, it would push up against the silicone teeth to hold them in place.

First baby? If so, say goodbye to any/all free time.

Congrats, by the way.

I had a thought about mine. So far it's picked up and swallowed the ball every time. All except for once, where for whatever reason, the ball wasn't able to roll far enough back to swallow. I had to wait until the game searched for the ball until I was able to get it back. Helped me out, since it was the start of tri-ball.

With my old jaw, someone at one point put a layer of hot glue behind his teeth, and then smoothed out the ramp with several layers of mylar. That gave me the idea that I may try Sugru to create a similar ramp, so that no matter in what state the dino is, the ball will always roll back.

I don't think it's anyway tied to Jims Dino, since my old one had this "mod" before, but figured it would take a 99% functional dino up to 100%.

But still love the looks. My friend sends me text messages every now and then with only the word "TRex?" as the message. He said that instead of asking me if he can come play Jurassic Park Pinball, he's now going to refer to it simply as "TRex."

Not entirely true...90% of it is gone though. When you have the second, 99% is gone. I'm down to one night, a couple hours a week after everyone falls asleep for my pinball time.

How about a small piece of sticky backed foam to force is backwards? I think this issue can occur for some people because it is very sensitive to the angle your pin is on. The steeper angle your playfield is on the more likely it is to happen?