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A Williams Grand Prix!

Spent most of the day cleaning it up, but its working 100%, EM's are a new world to me and Im having a blast playing this machine.

However Im in need of the spinner arm that goes from the spinner to the switch under the playfield, part #12A-6484 i believe, after checking the usual suspects I couldnt the specific part.

Also one of the drop targets is cracked, anybody sell old Williams drop targets?

Lastly, should my power cord have a ground connection? The end is a 3 prong, but there is no ground prong.

Thanks PINMAN, looks like ill be giving Steve a call

Would you guys suggest rebuilding the flippers? The left side feels stronger than the right and sometimes the right flipper collapses a bit when im holding it up and the ball hits it while attempting to trap, or is that just par for the course?

Excellent, was what I was hoping to hear, thanks again

Alright, its my understanding I should have a good knowledge of what I need before contacting Steve.

I have a few questions,

Along with the broken spinner lever that I need the leaf switch underneath is pretty jacked up and warped, does anyone know the part # for this switch? I cant find it in any of the manuals. The good one on the other side appears to be slightly crimped over the lever after it is put through that tiny hole, not sure if they come like that.

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Does anyone know what this switch is supposed to do? Underneath the playfield everything looks fine with it, but the game does nothing when the ball rolls over it.

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Here's my broken target... are they available anywhere already riveted onto the rest of the assembly, or just the plastic part like PINMAN mentioned, http://www.pbresource.com/plastic/w-3a7431-4518.jpg

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Here are my coils,

Left
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Right20140825_141327.jpg

They are slightly different #'s, right is FL-20, left is FL-21, this would explain the one feeling stronger than the other I assume, also I saw nothing peculiar about the right flipper EOS switch, and the hardware in general looked pretty decent, do you think I should still rebuild the flippers, or should I just replace the right coil to a FL-21 so they both feel strong, FL-20 is stock for this machine btw.

Lastly, how difficult is replacing the power cord? I have done minor switch/coil/board work with success on my other machines, is replacing the power cord very dangerous at all? I appreciate any and all help guys.

Alright, thanks a lot Ken

Ordered all the parts I need from Steve at PBResource. So they are on their way.

I still dont know what the rollover switch on the top left of the playfield is supposed to do, mine is unresponsive, can any other Grand Prix owners tell me what that switch does? Does it score points (how many) or add to bonus (how much)?

ok thanks! I'll keep digging around.

Got all the parts in and installed them over the weekend. Right spinner is back on workin great.

Sometimes the bonus does not reset on side that doesnt get collected at the start of the next ball, it doesnt happen very often but it does happen, what can I look into for this?

Sorry noob question, what's m&b?

I checked the all the switches at the outhole relay and nothing looks fishy.

I did my best to clean the switches on the score motor.

I am still finding some consistent issues, without fail now, when the right bonus is Maxed at 50k and the right bonus is the side to NOT get collected at the end of the ball (only 1 side of bonus is collected on Grand Prix) the bonus resets to 30k or 35k for the next ball instead of 5k.

When left bonus is collected it sometimes skips a spot or two, this has happened both when the bonus was doubled and not doubled.

The top right drop target does not consistently score 1000pts as it should.

I've also had the right bonus collect saucer just go dead pretty much, the switch in the saucer will just go unresponsive, and then Ill play a bit and it'll start working again.

I've also noticed a relay in the coin door will activate sometimes when points are being scored or when bonus is being collected, should this be happening?

For now I'm just going to carefully clean as many contacts relating to those problems as I can while trying to not make anything worse as I've heard can happen often with EMs.

got it. thanks

lol. oh geez, go figure.

Got the new EOS switches in, flippers play great now, also replaced the power cord with no issues.

Any ideas about the bonus not resetting properly? So far Ive figured out the right bonus stepper unit rotates too far (or doesnt rotate properly) when the bonus is maxed at 50k, the ball ends, and right bonus resets to 30k, instead of 5k. Is this a coil stop issue? I noticed only one of the coils on the stepper unit has an adjustable coil stop, but when the right side bonus gets collected during a game or at the end of a ball, it always counts down correctly.

Guys, thank you so much for all the feedback and advice, I have been busy with work the last few days so havent had a chance to get back at it yet, should be able to look at it tomorrow (later today)

Alright, I took some video of each stepper when the ball drains and it is NOT the bonus that is collected, the ringing you hear is the other stepper counting down collecting it's bonus. You'll see the right stepper not reset all the way, and the left one resets fine. Im using my finger to activate the outhole switch so after the game counts everything down it keeps trying to reset cuz im still holding the outhole switch down, so disregard the single resets after the attempted full reset.

These videos are both taken when the bonus is maxed at 50k and does not get collected at the end of ball.

Left Stepper (working)

left stepper.jpg

Right Stepper (not resetting properly)

right stepper.jpg

You can see it only resets about half way.

If anyone would like to see a video of the other side of the unit during the reset operation I can try to get that as well.

My best guess right now is that the Escapement coil and the Reset coil arent working together properly during a full reset.

Ok guys, a small breakthrough here, I noticed the escapement pawl was not completely clearing the teeth on the center wheel which may have been causing it to not reset all the way on a full reset, this is due to the brass wire form that's attached to the armature plate of the escapement coil not pressing the escapement pawl back enough during a reset (I hope you follow so far, im new to all this EM lingo). So what i did was remove the brass wire form and physically bend it a bit so that it would push the pawl out of the way enough on a full reset but not mess up the normal action of the reset coil.

So now the bonus is resetting properly! Well almost, so far after a few games the worst its done was reset to 10k instead of the normal 5k. Im assuming I should just adjust the brass wire form again just slightly?