After about 2 or so years, I finally have my Firepower pinball machine. Took me all that time to move, have another daughter, get through other parts of life before I started looking for one again. A really nice member of the forum sold me what I consider to be a very nice working condition machine for a very reasonable price. I was unbelievably excited because this is my first, and will be my only pinball machine.

Now I am in the process of deciding just how much I want to do with it, and how far I want to go towards rejuvenating it. I know that on the open market, this will not fetch a price worth what I may eventually put into it, but as people say it is a "labor of love."

The reason I called this topic a rejuvenation instead of a restoration is that I am not sure how far I want to take this. Do I clean it, level the inserts and touch it up, or do a whole play field restoration? I don't know if I can do the latter, but am not sure what I can do to at least make it originally playable (i.e. the inserts don't slightly deflect the direction of a free-moving ball).

The previous owner did many major board fixes already (replaced capacitors, replaced the 40-pin connector, made the multiple resistor modification, put in a new speaker). He also installed full LEDs throughout. So far, I have:

-Adjusted many roll over switches so that they function consistently.
-Replaced the 1-6 target "Firepower" stickers.
-Am in the process of rebuilding the ball shooter with new parts.
-Cleaned and adjusted the three ball switches and return ramp (which was filthy).

I am also awaiting new parts to replace the plastic flippers.

So, after all that, I'll post some pictures so you guys can see what I have, what condition it is in, and what suggestions you have.

Here is the play field from afar:
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Here is the underside. Very clean, I must say:
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Here are the replacement target stickers (with new foam backing):
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Here are a few shots of the paint wear on the field. It is overall not terrible, but you can see whereto paint is worn, cracked, scrapped away where inserts have cupped, etc:
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The upper portion of the play field is either worn or dirty, and I am leaning towards dirty:
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Finally, the area under the front panel was INCREDIBLY dirty. You can see from just a simple cleaning on the right how much dirt stood to be removed:
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That's all I have for now. Please, let me know what you'd do, what you think can be done, and what you'd suggest. Thank you!

Well, space limitations and not wanting to bother the wife are powerful motivators otherwise!

That's a great point, just depends on what you want to invest. Currently, not too much. The prices that people want for used stuff varies incredibly, and I can wait it out (hence why it took me two years to find my machine).

Last night, I rebuilt the shooter with Marco parts, which worked like a dream. The shooter had been lubed with some nasty crud by someone, so I got rid of all that, and actually used Novus 3 and 2 to really get the shooter lever nice and smooth. New springs at both ends and a new tip, and now the thing fires the ball up the ramp like a bolt of lightning!

I also cleaned a majority of the play field with naphtha and a soft rag, as well as polishing the balls with, again, Novus 3-2-1. Man, what a difference! I haven't even waxed the play field yet, and just those two things make the game a different game! The ball is much speedier, and more random. I can finally shoot the ball to the top of the field predictably...before I couldn't get it all the way up the left ramp and was wondering why! Much more like the Firepower that I know now.

So I do have a bit of an issue with the left flipper. It works just fine, and hits hard. However, if I hold the button down to cradle the ball, often it will get stuck in that position for a second or two before returning to neutral. Perhaps the plunger is momentarily getting jammed?

Nice post...the issue I then have is this is the first time I am looking at these thugs closely, and am unsure what each part is that you are talking about in the images. I have no idea how to check mine for this, either. Would a flipper rebuild kit help solve this? Where exactly is the worn out piece?

Another potential issue: while I was playing tonight, I had a second occurrence of something odd. When I locked one ball, the machine then proceeded to release both remaining balls, leading to an inadvertent multi ball. Perhaps something is loose within the mechanism, or is this something erroneously occurring with the game processing? Anyone have a similar issue?

So, a few issues and a couple of fixes later, I have ow decided to go full Vid-style and get an extra play field from someone local. This way, I can still play and work on the restoration at the same time!

Board has had a few mods done so far: I haven't gone into them as of yet, can you send me a pic of what it looks like...I'll let you know! I'd like to get into the boards at some point, I am just not there yet.

I'll also get some pictures of the board that I just picked up a few days ago for restoration. Hopefully I can get them tomorrow.

I'll check first thing in the morning. I have a fair amount of confidence that the previous owner did this, but I will double check. Thank you for the heads up!

You know what? It hasn't been done...there were other fuses that I thought they were. I'll get to work on this, thanks for the heads up.

As of last night, I cleaned and waxed the play field, and...WOW! The different of waxing is insane. I had no idea how much of a difference it would make. With this done, and the game very playable, I am now going to move to working on the boards, as well as getting ready to start the restoration of the extra play field.

You know what they say: slow and steady wins the race! Thankfully, I have the extra play field that I'm working on =, so I should only be out of commission for as long as it takes to swap the parts from one to the other (likely, a few days, I figure). I'll certainly check out your thread if you have a link.

I got all the parts for the rectifier fusing project, so I'll get to that later today. Looking at the boards, a lot of Vid's other bulletproofing steps were already undertaken, as well as the 40-pin connector replacement, so I'm thankful for that.

Now that I have my spare play field, I will get some pictures of it and it's condition up, hopefully today. I am in the process of moving all of my painting tools and equipment to the basement, so it may take a while to get to this.

Got the pics of the new play field. The first is of that area in the foreground that it appears gets scrapped by taking off the housing over the ball return mechanism. Do others have issues with damage in this area?

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The next two show detail of the scoring inserts, as well as full detail of the planet. I am encouraged because there is next to no wear around the inserts, and the planet is intact. This is probably the most mind-boggling area to fix, in my opinion.

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The next is of the upper field. Not much wear here, either. One thing to note is, in another thread, someone mentioned stamping errors on the original pop bumper caps. Vid theorized that somewhere along the line, the die may have been damaged and not replaced. All 4 of them on my current play field have the defect, the three surviving on this replacement do not. This replacement also has a pretty early date stamped on it, so perhaps it was an earlier run:

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Lastly, here is a shot of the machine as it currently is. For those who commented, it is now out of the reach of any sunlight!

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Well...it has certainly been quite a while, but I have finally found time to start getting back into my machine. Over the past few months, I installed Vid's bridge rectifier fuses, and have replaced all the caps on my sound board. I currently have the NVRAM and solenoid fuse bridge on order...they should be here today. I am about to replace the 5V resistor/diodes for the gas displays as well. Breakdown of the play field will likely happen within the next month or two as well. If I have any extra parts that I am not in need of, I will let you guys know. PM me if you might need a part that I might have.

Well, I managed to do all of the modifications that I wanted over the past two weeks: All sound board caps changed (12,000 mf labeled with date), NVRAM installed, battery material removed, high voltage components replaced. I have to say, the Great Plains kit was extremely helpful. The only thing I didn't do is replace the transistors, as the ones there are just fine. The score displays are just slightly dimmer, but the life savings is what's most important to me. I love the original look of the gas displays. In fact, if anyone has some that still work, but want to get rid of, I'd pay for them to be spares.

I also discarded some old, crusty fuses (which you can see in one pic). Every-single-one was way above rating (i.e. a 20 amp in the 10 amp spot), a fire disaster waiting to happen. I labeled each slot and replaced them with new, fresh ones. I'd never seen a fuse with a resistor inside of it...anyone else see that?

I also got the solenoid fuse board do-it-yourself kit from barakandl : it was fun and easy to assemble, and I'd recommend it to anyone.

Next: going to start disassembling the spare play field, stripping, and on to restoration....

NVRAM installed (red board)Sound Board re-cappedHigh voltage components replaced6A4 diodes placedOld, crusty, wrong amperage fusesBrand new, correct fusesOther fuses labeledSolenoid fuse board installed

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Excellent! How's your cabinet and play field? I'd love to see the rest of the machine. The boards look good...it appears you have done pretty much everything I have as well. I also replaced each and every electrolytic cap that I could on the sound board, as well as the lone ones on the driver and CPU board. What else do you have in store?

Nothing wrong with that approach! My large sound board cap was literally bursting with goop, so it was time to go. That was the push I needed to just replace them all and make sure they were good for 15 years or so. The NVRAM I just had to do, because the battery thing is just a pain.I am fortunate that the person who owned it before me had already replaced the 40-pin connector.

I'd love to see other's threads as well, if there's links to them.

The rectifier mod was the easies thing that I've done. For the protection it gives, there's no reason not to. What's the issue with your transformer?

The only way to say it is this: that effort is simply bad-ass! The amount of painting you had to do is incredible, I'll likely have to do nowhere near that amount. I don't plan on touching up the cabinet, except for re-buffing the metal. I'd love to see how you did that...I have zero experience with buffing metal. The cabinet is pretty good, and I like having the original outside paint. I am fairly lucky in that I have an extra play field to restore. I can play the game still while I work, and I also always have a reference for it while I work. There won't be a year between changing the wire harness, either!

Your work is incredible, especially without prior experience. I hope mine turns out half as nice.

I got two varieties: one that is a bit taller and thinner, and one that is wider and shorter in height...depending on what the need was. Incredibly cheap, come in bags of 100 off of Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B017TVXB5I/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003L13A7K/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00

It's definitely not hijacking....good to have the community tossing around ideas. I'm getting inspired by you guys, as well.

I do have all of the original cards, so if you are looking for a scanned original to print, I can get that for you as well.