Thanks, and thanks for the great answers.

As you have experience with this game, do you think the game play would be ruined if I swapped the wire 'wobble spinners' out for true solid spinners that could take a good ripping, apart from the scoring being increased ?

Same thought, If I go down that route I was thinking of ghost on one side and Pacman on the other so that when it is spun it looks like Pacman punching a ghost.

I had to find a way of fixing the lower gate mechanism as although I got the lower plate with the relay I was missing the shaft, gate and pivot bit.

Complete it should look like this...
Gate Mech (resized).jpg

My gate is like this...
MyGate (resized).jpg

The top part of the gate should not be too hard to make as its is essentially just a wire mounted onto a 1/4" shaft. The tricky bit for me was the pivot bit below the playfield.

Most things available that were similar, such as the depth stops for drill bits are made of hardened steel and would therefore be a pain to modify due to them being hard.

I settled on using a hardened aluminium coupling that I had available from an old CNC project. This I hope will still be tought enough for the required task but soft enough for me to work with, it also had two grub screws for securing to the shaft.
Coupler (resized).jpg

Sawing aluminium with a junior hacksaw is a pain so I just stuck a length of 1/4" in the end and snapped it off...
Gatepivot1 (resized).jpg

I then used a file to get rid of the bur and sanded back the rough edges...
Gatepivot2 (resized).jpg

It aint pretty but the lip will be on the side away from the relay arm so it will be as good as invisible. It is also a little thinner then the original would have been so I will need to have CerClips above and below the bushing on the new shaft.

Here is the new bit (minus pin) on a temporary shaft mounted on my mech.
Gatepivot3 (resized).jpg

As I said it is not perfect but it should do the job and it took 5 mins to bodge up.

Connector madness...

All the mechanisms that I received were already cut from the harness. Fortunately the person that did this left good cable tails so matching them up to the playfield harness should not be a problem. Because of this and that I wish to use a lot of the assemblies in other projects in the future I have decided to re-attache the mechanism to the harness using various types of connectors, thus enabling their removal in future without the use of a soldering iron.
Powerconnectors3 (resized).jpg
Powerconnectors4 (resized).jpg
Powerconnectors2 (resized).jpg

The duplicate cable tails have been left on for the moment to assist with matching with the playfield harness. The duplicate harness ends will then be joined in the terminal on the mating connector. Finally the extra tails on the mechanisms will be cut off.

Thanks,

I had to take a step back from pinball related time wasting as work became full on over the student exams period and my kids decided to turn into monsters. Now I am back.

The lower gate is an odd thing. On my EM there is a similar gate that uses a full blown flipper assembly to open and close it. The Pacman version does indeed seems to be unique and cheaper. I cant quote anyone on this but I have read in a few places that as Pacman was licensed any unique parts are unobtanium, like the bumper caps.

Regarding your gate not working... I have never played the game so I dont know when or what makes the gate open or close. I am probably going to have similar issues with everything on my playfield. Have you tested continuity from the trace under the the connector A3 J5-7 to the gate solenoid and back to A2 J1-7 ?
When I start having to do this I think I am going to use croc-clip to short the coil and then just buzz the relevant IO sockets.

Good luck with this and your other projects.

Wow, you found a whole playfield, looks good.

What is the plan ?
Does it have Mylar ?

As I was forced to take leave from the project it gave me time to think about what order I should be doing things in as I have a tendency to drift from one thing to another to break up the monotony and ultimately this can result in a lack of direction.

So before I start doing anything crazy I thought I should see if the repaired boards, bodged power supply, frankensteined displays and patched up playfield would actually work together.

To this end I am now here, matching up assemblies with the harness, then crimping on the appropriate connectors.
Playfield rebuild harness (resized).jpg

Is anyone able to tell me where these two terminals go ?

First is this one, next to the solenoid expander, consisting of some black-white cables.
Where Black (resized).jpg

Second is this one, same side of the playfield consisting of a bunch of yellow wires and one orange-black.
Where orange (resized).jpg

Do they just screw into wood or are they meant to be terminated onto something like a ground trace ?

Smashing, That's great thanks.

I finished the playfield harness and those guys were my last issue.

A few IC's to fix on the MPU and I should be good to fire her up.

A moment of glory or a pile of ashes.

Ok, I had some issues with the boards, documented here...

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/bally-35-crazy-lamps-issue

That all seems to be fixed so over the next few days I will introduce the mechanisms and hopefully get some progress notes up by the end of the week.

Slowly.
My boys have both started their first years in school, and as I work in a school September to December is always a busy time for me work wise.

Regarding the project I got up to the stage of making sure the game worked as in all boards were acting like they should, the playfield switches and mechanisms responded as would be expected, sounds were correct and the displays indicated the correct things. All done with the playfield upside down so no balls in motion yet.
As I have really limited inside space to work the structural project is on hold until the spring. Before Christmas I hope to have some progress reports on fixing up the playfield. I am leaning towards trying my hand at painting it.

I have given it a lot of thought and decided to give hand painting another go, inspired by the many fine efforts and outcomes of people on this site.

Acrylics is the game and Liquitex is the name, They have lots of recommendations on here. I got a basic set as I should not need that much for this project and I have been reassured that the 'basic' tag just means smaller tubes and the coverage should be ok for the task. I got them for 75% off as well so I cant complain, the 3 brushes cost more than the paint. There is a good colour range and hopefully I will be able to finish the job before the boys get hold of them and use them as toothpaste.

Paints (resized).jpg

I could not find much on prepping this vintage of playfield for painting so used magic eraser and alcohol, then naphtha and then gently sanded with 600 to give some tooth.

Also cleaned up the shooter lane and other wood areas as best I could without digging in to deep.

Before After

All impact posts have had holes drilled through for M4 studding and T-nuts and recess holes drilled on the backside for the T-nuts. One post had snapped off in the playfield, this was excavated and the cavity filled with epoxy putty then sanded flat when dried and drilled.

Holefix1 (resized).jpg

So this is the playfield prepped for its facelift.

PlayfieldRef1 (resized).jpg

I had a few minutes tonight so thought I would test out the t-nuts with the bolts I had, just to make sure they were long enough.

Made a brace out of a bit of scrap with a hole drilled in it, washer is to spread the load from the nut. The bolt is screwed through the t-nut, head side down, then poke the bolt up through the playfield and through the brace, put the washer on, add a regular nut and tighten until the t-nut teeth have sunk in and secure. Simples...

T-nut-jig (resized).jpg

...the t-nut is now recessed and the head of the bolt is flush with the playfield, sorry for the dark pic.

T-nut in (resized).jpg

T-nut flush (resized).jpg

Once the above is done, drop a post on and add regular nut to retain and test with a rubber...

T-nut Rubber test (resized).jpg

..and finally with a plastic, top off with either lock nut or rubber nut, I am not decided yet.

T-nut Plastic test (resized).jpg

For the curious, I wanted all the posts under the most stress to have t-nuts and I also wanted to be able to remove plastics without having to deal with rubbers popping all over. As the regular pinball post screws cost almost $5 a pop over here (if you can get the right ones) this seemed like the logical and economical route to take.

Its been a while but its still going...

After months of touchups, procrastination, fear and missing weather windows I finally got the spray booth setup in the garden and fired up the compressor for the first time. I ran some tests on Saturday and forced myself to grow some balls and use up the remaining clearcoat I had. So this morning with a raging hangover MMPM got her first coats...

MMPMclearcoat1 (resized).jpg

It still needs some work but its getting there.