Jesus man. Thats crazy! I should show you the giant divit on the left side entrance of my gold middle ramp some time. Found it after I replaced my posts. Took a beating and its mushroomed out just like your spinner.

Look at the 2 endpoints of the center ramp, they appear to have burred up quite a bit? I just filed mine down to a nice smooth feel.

Holy crap lol. Never seen a spinner that beat and I re-decaled the one out of my Space Shuttle that was original and still kickin...

Common on LOTR.

Pinball Life has new spinners, make your own decal for on it.

LTG

When you put decals on it, you can protect it with clear heat shrink tubing (or even Mylar if that's all you have in house).

Pinballlife has the spinner with decals:

http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=1357

Guys...

He already said he replaced it.

^It helps others for future reference. If people use the search engine they can find the answers without starting a new thread. The new google based search function works great, unlike the old non-google version.

Edit: I did not mean to sound like this thread was not worthwhile. This is the first time many of us have seen a spinner that looks like it has been damaged in a fire so I think most here would agree that it was definitely worth the thread. Thanks for posting. I had been thinking of ordering a back-up spinner and you have convinced me to do so.

Fair enough.

Bump.

Just did a search on this issue, because seemingly out of the blue, I was repeatedly bricking the Ring shot. Started to look at the spinner, and I was literally being rejected fairly regularly. I mean sometimes the spinner would just reject the ball outright, not just slow it down. The spinner suddenly looks tweaked, not quite as bad as the one shown here though.

Funny thing is that I didn't notice it until after I just finished a mini shop job (replaced every rubber) and a few other things (like dead foam in the tower saucer, and new coil sleeves and stops). I was looking forward to seeing how smooth the pin would play now, and BAM!

Guess it's time to order a new spinner from PBL.

Indeed! It just helped me. I mean, I figured I probably needed a new spinner, but wasn't sure whether it could just be tweaked back into place. I tried doing that. No dice.

No wonder I'm having trouble making this shot during War of the Ents. I have no foam on my tower. Ball bounces off the tower and back to the flippers 50% of the time.

Funny, I got the new spinner from PBL yesterday (thanks for the FAST shipping Terry!), put it on, and holy moly, what a difference! I think my spinner was having a negative impact on the Ring shot even before I realized it, because the difference was amazing. My flippers seem stronger now!

Before putting the new spinner on, I lubed it with powdered graphite and man that sucker spins!

War of the Ents shouldn't be affected by the tower saucer (I'm referring to the tower in the far upper right of the PF where you collect Gifts of the Elves etc.). War of the Ents relies on the diverter working properly. This is a common problem. Try adding a cut off rubber post (or Cliffy post) to the top of the diverter post. This will help prevent the ball from travelling past the diverter post when it is in the up position.

Correct, and in fact I find that I am going to have to use a combination of these methods to make it work 100% of the time. The rubber post on top of the diverter rod works about 85% of the time, but the ball occasionally still makes its way past the diverter.

I also did this and it helped my ring shot big time. I think it definitely needs to be repeated.

Bumping an old thread, but I have a similar issue. I'm ordering a new spinner, but wonder is there supposed to be a bushing that rides in the ramp hole between the spinner rod and the ramp? The spinner has a lot of play in the hole.

No there is not... if you do what centerflank and fattrain suggest you will be good to go!

Wow. Now wonder it took me forever!!!!!!! to destroy the ring for the first time.

My spinner just busted too. Time for a new one. I hope that is indeed my problem... or maybe I just suck.

So I know this is an old thread, but to be clear, you need to buy a new spinner to fix the issue of it settling incorrectly? You can't just adjust it or the switch to get it to hang down correctly? My league just got a LotR and it has this issue.

It's pretty common the spinner gets stuck up a little and then gets mushroomed. Once this has happened you just have to replace it as it just doesn't spin right. It's worth the $15 to buy a new one.

https://www.pinballlife.com/lotr-spinner-with-decals.html

And me. It never even occurred to me that a borked spinner could be the reason I can no longer make ramp shots (despite rebuilding the flippers).

How the hell do you get the spinner on? Trying to replace mine currently

Bump. Still can't get it

It's usually best to include pictures to show where you are getting hung up. But with most spinners, it is just a matter of jamming them in. They will usually take a bit of bending to do it, which you then straighten so the spinner hangs correctly. So send along a pic of what you're stuck on and I'll try to help. I don't have LOTR anymore, but as I recall from replacing my spinner in it, it was pretty straightforward.