Over the past few years, I have done lots of pinball repair, but never an all out restoration.

Recently I picked up a HUO Pinbot that would be nearly CQ if it only had some minor work done on the playfield, and the badly faded cabinet repainted.

I decided that screwing that up would put too much pressure on myself, so I decided to get some experience on a less valuable (to me) game. I have a weak spot for terrib^h^h^h^h cheap pinball machines. One of my pride an joys right now is the Popeye machine that is sitting in my living room.

Enter now: One rotted out Street Fighter II:
Yeah, it's as bad as it looks.

This machine met a couple of key requirements for me: 1. It's solid state. 2. It's cheap. 3. I won't be drawn and quartered if I screw it up. and 4. IT'S CHEAP.

So my goals for this machine are: 1. repaint/refinish the cabinet. 2. Touchup and clear coat the playfield 3. Have the rails and legs powder coated. 4. Generally get the machine back into playable condition.

So how rotted out is the poor machine...Well lets just take the tour:
Something is missing here...
Yup, it's missing not only the car, but the plexiglas cover that goes over it was busted up so bad, it just fell out. This may be hard to replace. So far google skills have failed me, and I have not been able to find a replacement. If anyone knows where I can find a replacement, it would be most appreciated.

It looks like this poor machine sat out on someone's back porch, and it faded and rotted in the elements. Just about all the metal on the exterior is rusted..

some one sand blast me please.

I am hoping the rails and legs will survive sand blasting and powder coating. Down the road I will have to decide what color they will be.
fade...fade...fade
Lucky for me, the transite is one of the more commonly available items at a reasonable price.

Warp?
I don't think this ramp is supposed to look like this....

blown....
More rust on the insideFactory??
I don't think this was installed at the factory like this either. In my review of the machine, I did discover the coil under it was dead.

So what is good about the machine? Well first of all, it is complete. Second, The boards are all there, and more or less seem to be in good working order. The DMD is in good shape. So far I have fixed the flippers and playfield GI lighting (dirty relays contacts), and have diagnosed three dead coils.

Hey! Something that works!

My immediate goal is to more or less get all the coils and switches working before I start to strip down the playfield. I would rather assemble a know working machine than try to fix all the wayward coils and switches while I am assembling everything.

My immediate challenges include: finding a source for the graphics on the cabinet, and replacing the plexiglas plate in the playfield. Any help on those would be appreciated.

So after a thorough going through, the mechanical dammage was quite extensive, but fixable.

1. Just about every fuse in the playfield had the incorrect value in it. The scary part is that a lot of them were 10 amp fuses where 1 amp and 1.5 amp fuses should have been. This may have contributed to problems 2 and 3...

2. The left ramp lift coil was pretty much melted out. A replacement has been ordered.

3. The right kicker coil would stick on. That turned out to be a bad diode on the coil, and a burned out driver transistor. It is now working again.

4. The flippers would not work. I cleaned up the flipper power relay, and now they work fine.

5. Same thing with the playfield GI lighting.... dirty relay leaf switches.

6. The car bash playfield flipper would not work. This turned out to be a mis-aligned relay under the playfield.

7. The left lower ball kickup was out (where the golf ball was). This turned out to be a broken wire at the coil terminal. Easy fix.

8. All the playfield flashers were not working. This turned out to be a bad resistor mounted to the playfield (no voltage at the lamps).

So next up is stripping down this very very dirty playfield.

Let there be light!

BTW, if you know anyone parting out a street fighter, I still need a bunch of parts: Both ramps, and the car pit cover! I think I can get the ramp off FeeBay, but I have yet to see the car pit cover for sale anywhere!

Whoo Hooo! A box of parts! The first of many.

I haven't forgotten about this thread. I am still working on the machine.

The playfield is out and stripped, and a first layer of clear is on it.

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I made the decision to remove the factory mylar off the playfield as I plan to clear the playfield. That turned out to be a mixed blessing, because in the process of removing the mylar, paint did come off the playfield in a few places, especially around the light inserts. You can really see it in this picture:

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So I have started the process of trying to touch up the playfield. I am using Createx acrylic paint, along with a Motolow black acrylic marker for the black areas. This is also the first time I have used Frisket.

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I have started out trying to touch up a few of the areas on the playfield that are not typically seen by the player. This gives me a great chance to screw up... Here is my attempt at touching up a ball trail near the top of the playfield.

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The color match isn't perfect, but I hope clearing the playfield will help to hide the color differences. I do now know why they say if you are going to repaint, do an entire area to the border. You don't have to have the color perfect in these situations.

So far I have learned a few things.
1. You initial clear coat should not be a light coat. You need to put it on thick enough to fill in any paint chips. This a mistake I made. You can really tell where I have touched up the paint chips because of the difference in texture.

2. Frisket will pull off Motolow acrylic. Save those touchup till last.

3. Createx will pull up even after being heat treated. I am hoping that roughing up the surface with 600 grit sand paper before applying the paint will help with it's adhesion. Otherwise, painting colors next to each other will get interesting.

More playfield painting.

The orange was hard to match, and even now I don't think my match is perfect.

One thing I learned doing this playfield is that you can use transparent Createx paint, buy you have to put a base coat under it. In the case of my Gottlieb Orange, the base coat ended up being a light gray.

I started with a test patch with an base coat of opaque white, and that was too bright. I experimented to the right of my white patch with varying degrees of gray, and I settled on one drop of black paint per 5ml of white paint for my base coat.

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so on my test patch, first the gray went down.
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Then I went over it with the transparent orange.
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The results were just a touch darker than the existing paint, but I think that if I go just a little lighter (say 7.5ml per drop of black), It will come out right on. Otherwise, I can just use this color and paint to the lines, and I don't think anyone will notice.
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You will notice I am not doing much about the dings in my playfield. The only spots I patched up are where wood came out when I removed the metal guides. My plan was to just do a light coat of clear, and address the playfield issue, however, now I wish I had done a heavier coat of clear so all the imperfections in my paint won't come through so bad. I hope to top coat of clear will cover a lot of these imperfections up.

Another trick I picked up last night doing my test patch: When using heat set paint like Createx, use your heat gun to set the paint before you take up the frisket. This cuts down on the paint peeling up. Also make sure the paint and frisket are cool before you peel off the frisket. Otherwise the frisket will leave behind some adhesive. If it does leave behind adhesive, you can clean it up with naphtha.

Thanks. I purposely picked this machine to learn on before I take down and pull apart my HUO Pinbot. It needs some minor playfield work, and the cabinet repainted. The cabinet is nearly perfect except for the horribly faded paint.

Some progress today... I painted part of the cape.

I did learn that if you press too hard with the exacto knife, it will leave marks. I tried applying frisket over the stripes on the cape, and was not happy with the results. As you can see, my attempts to mask them off left behind some marks. Hopefully the decals will hide these.
Here is the before photo:
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And here is the finished product. I will apply the decals as one of the last steps before I clear coat the playfield, as I am sure they won't stand up to having frisket applied over them.
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More progress tonight. I finally got out and did my mass orange paint...

I adjusted my gray base a little lighter than my test area, and I think the result was very close to match to the original color.

So here it is all masked up and ready to go...

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Then I laid down the light gray base color.

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Then the transparent Orange went over the top of it.

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I think the results were pretty good. One think I have learned is that you have to be just as careful removing the frisket as you do putting it on. If you pull it up wrong, it will take the paint with it. I have a few spots of white that came up when I frisket over it.

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I did screw up two spots... One was where I completely brain farted... and forgot my orange overcoat, and another spot where the orange was a touch too light. No big deal, I will just set up and shoot these spots again in a few days (I hope).

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brain fart..

Next up, I will start to shoot white areas again.

So a lot has happen since August... My wife and I finally got to buy our dream house. Fortunately for me, attached to it was my dream shop! I spent the month of November and December getting everything moved over to the new house, and getting my shop set up. Over the Christmas holidays, I have gotten more done on Street Fighter than I did in the last 6 months...

I have shifted away from the playfield for a bit to concentrate on the cabinet. I finished stripping out the cabinet, and started to replace the bottom. It was water damaged fiber board that had sagged pretty badly.

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I found out that on system 3 machines, they use 3/4" fiber board, routed to 1/4" round the edges. The bottom is set into about a 5/16" gap around the bottom of the machine. To get it out, you have to knock out one of the plywood sides near the bottom. I am planning on replacing it with two layers of 1/4" plywood.

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Currently, I am sanding the rest of the cabinet in preparation for filling the dents, and hopefully painting when the weather warms up.

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So tonight was all about Bondo.... I started to patch over the dents in the side, and the holes in the front of the cabinet. The cabinet is not in that bad of shape, and should clean up well. I with the same could be said of the head...
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I am going to try to sand the back, but I think that may have to be replaced.

Well this is turning out to be one of the longer restorations on pinside. However, I am making progress.

The playfield touchups are done, and I have the first coat of clear on the playfield. I hope to get a heavy coat of clear on the playfield this weekend.

After I sanded the first coat of clean on the playfield, I am starting to realize that just maybe it does look a little better than before I started. I don't think my final playfield will be mistaken for a NOS playfield, but it will look better than when I started.

Painting the cabinet was an adventure. It was the first time I had used an HPLV spray gun, and there was a lot more over spray than I anticipated. The floor in my shop now has a blue tint to it. IMG_5501 (resized).JPG
Like the playfield, the cabinet is not perfect. I have some runs on the inside that I will need to sand down, and possibly recoat.

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Lucky for you, I happen to have the album on my phone...

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As a general update, I am still clearing the playfield. I put a heavy clear coat down on it last week, and have sanded it flat. The lesson I learned from that, is that you don't want to sand too aggressively. I sanded it through to the color in a few spots. Hopefully I'll be able to cover it up before I put on the next coat.

I had some divits I had to fill from a dropper full of clear, and to speed up getting through those spots I've been using 600 wet dry. I plan on putting one final coat of clear on it before moving on to the final polishing.

Some of you might be aware of the disaster my clearcoat turned out to be, but a friend of mine was kind enough to sell me another playfield. This restoration kind of took a back seat to other projects until last week when I decided this thing needs to get finished up, and out of my shop.IMG_6074 (resized).JPG

More fresh cabinet shots..I test fit the glass tonight. I had to reuse the old plastic rail inserts as they are not available anymore.IMG_6076 (resized).JPGIMG_6077 (resized).JPG

More progress tonight, as the ground wire went in along with the transformer. No I've got to figure out how to secure the ground wire without buying an upholstery power stapler. I only need to do about 12 staples.IMG_6081 (resized).JPG

I got through a couple of major milestones today: first power up test, and installation of the new playfield!

The new playfield is in pretty good shape, and will need a lot less work than my original playfield to get it looking nice. Part of me feels bad that I put all that effort into restoring the playfield only to have the clearcoat process ruin it.

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That was one of the reasons I picked this machine for my first full up restoration. I wanted to learn on this one before I tackle another more expensive and less forgiving machine.

I could salvage it, but the replacement playfield I have looks better without any work.

So I have the new playfield pretty much stripped down for cleaning. Notice that I have not removed any of the pressed in rails and the screw in posts. I learned my lesson on my last playfield, don't remove the railings unless you absolutly have to. They rarely come out cleanly. The screw-in posts all have blue lock tight on the threads, and they have a bad habit of shearing off unless you can get some good heat on them.
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As I am cleaning I am contemplating how to polish the mylar on the playfield. It looks pretty glazed over from years of wear. I have tried 2500 grit sand paper, followed by glazing paste, and then novus 3 and 2. So far I have not found a combination that doesn't leave a haze behind. Here is one of my test spots. You can just make out the haze on the surface. I really want to find a solution I can apply by hand, as I tend to have an aversion to using power equipment on playfields.

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One last issue I am addressing are a few broken angles on the ball guides. I think this is a common problem with SF2, as both playfield have broken guides in the same spot near the yoga flame hole. So I am drilling out the some of the angles from my original playfield to use them on the new playfield. I still am up in the air as to how I am going to attach the angles. The proper way would be to rivet them on, but I don't have the equipment to do that. I am thinking some 4-40 cap screws with polished heads may do the trick.
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The problem is I don't have a press to install the rivets. However, I am beginning to thing rivets would be the best answer.

hmm.... I may have space issue.

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That is a pop-rivet gun. Pop-rivets are a little softer than the original steel rivets, and cap screws I am thinking of using, but it is an option.

I managed to squeak out a little progress last night.

While this playfield is in a lot better shape than my old one, it still has it's issues. The worst is the paint that has flaked off round the car bash window.IMG_6257 (resized).JPG

My plan is to airbrush in some blue acrylic I mixed up to more or less match the blue on the playfield. Then I am going to tape off and airbrush in some black to match the border. After I get the paint down, I am going to wax the entire playfield to seal in the paint.

First lets tape it off...IMG_6262 (resized).JPG
The nice thing about working with an airbrush is that it gives you a lot of control over where the paint is going, so you don't have to tape off the whole world before you shoot paint.

It didn't take long to put down the coat of blue.
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Then end result looks better, some of the remaining bare spots will be covered by black paint. The hardest part is going to be masking off the black areas. I am using using createx acrylic. It holds down pretty well after being heat set, but my base is not exactly stable, so I have to use low tact tape to mask over the blue before I shoot the black. I am hoping to get the black down sometime this weekend, and then I get to start rebuilding the playfield!
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Woo hoo! I got the black on.. First the mask, and then the color. 14B06812-871B-4B37-8AE6-75F69F8DD336 (resized).jpeg
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Since I’m not going to clear coat the playfield, this will be protect by a good coat of wax.

So I made some major progress today: I replaced the car in the lower playfield!

I know some folks have been asking about how to do this, so I thought I would take the time to document the replacement of the stock car shell with in my case, a die-cast Lexus IS300.

First of all a look at the plunger assembly:IMG_6322 (resized).JPG

Basically, it is just a metal rod with a rubber guard on the front. When you defeat a fighter, the lower playfield lights up, and the lower flipper becomes active. Then you can hit the car until the back of the rod (not shown) breaks a beam of light, signaling you have beaten the car crush challenge.

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The stock setup is a very light weight car shell that attaches to the rod at the front. Most of these break right across the front where they attach to the rod. The first thing you should take note of is the fact that the back of the car is missing. When the car gets pushed back, it has to pass over the rod supports until the 'winner' light is revealed. So no matter what car you use, you are going to have to hollow out the back.

So here is my car:
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I picked it because it most closely resembles the car on the back glass. I bought it at a craft store for $7. I also saw them at Tractor Supply hardware for about $4 each. When you pick a car, it needs to be approximately the same size as the stock shell.

As you can see, it will take quite a bit of work to get it to fit.
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My car was pretty easy to take apart, as it was only held together with two screws. Then I set about to cutting the rear out of the car with my dremmel cut-off tool.
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The bottom of the car will also have to be cut and discarded so it will clear the rod supports.
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After I cut off the back of the car, I re-assembled the interior of the car, using epoxy to hold everything into place. I then cut away the interior at the back of the car so it will clear the shaft support, and allow the shaft to go down the middle of the car. You can also see where I have cut away the front of the car to allow the rod to pass through it.IMG_6335 (resized).JPG

So at this point I had to make a decision: Do I pass the rod completely through the car, and attach the car shell tot he rear of the bumper, or do I sandwich the car shell between the rod attachment, and the front bumper?Option 1Option 2

I decided it would be a better fit if I passed the rod completely through the car and used lock nuts to attach the shell from the inside. From there I had to deiced how I was going to attach what was left of the bottom of the car so the wheels touched the ground, and allowed the shell to roll down the playfield. This is more important than you think. The die-cast car shell is much heavier than then stock shell, and to get it to reset correctly, it has to roll freely on the playfield. I don't think it would work if you just suspended the heavier shell from the bash bar. I ended up using a combination of zip ties and small self tapping screws to hold the bottom of the shell on.IMG_6347 (resized).JPG

The zip tie is wrapped around the bash rod, while the screws just go into the plastic.

I then test fit everything on the board, and discovered the car would not go back far enough to trigger the optical switch. I ended up moving the switch assembly up about a half inch. From what I have read, moving the switch is pretty common when you do this mod.
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So there you have it, all put together and ready to go back into the game! Hopefully it will hold up to the beating it will take when the pinball strikes the bash rod.
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I finally got to test this setup today, and the shaft is binding up, and it won’t reset reliably. I’ll report back when I get it working right.

I do have about 90% of the playfield back together.2E033903-F652-46F2-A85F-F1946DA681B9 (resized).jpeg

Next is the coin door...507C704F-2DC7-48A5-9B86-0ED68C1CC6DB (resized).jpeg

IT LIVES!!! After two years, I finally played a game on it.

There are a couple of issues I have to work out still with the playfield.

1. Weak flippers.. even at 6 degrees, it’s really hard to get the ball up the right ramp.

2. The car bash still doesn’t reset reliably. I may have to replace the reset springs.

3. The coin door restoration is not going as well as I hoped. I don’t think those doors are painted, I think it is powdered coat. My wire brush on a drill barely made a scratch in it.
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Mine are both A-25959s, with new coil sleeves.

Ok, I went through my parts stash, and found an A-29876. My playfield is made up from parts from two different playfields. It appears one of them was setup with the 29876 on the left side, and the other had the 25959 on the left side. When I built up my final playfield, I used the factory setup of a 29595 on both sides. I will swap out the coil on the left side and see if that makes a difference.

Ok, I installed a 29876 in my machine tonight. It plays a lot better. I even find hitting the Guile ramp easier.

I also swapped out the car reset springs for what I believe are a set of WPC flipper return springs.8098FCBE-057C-4E85-AC2F-97897C931BD5 (resized).jpeg.

The original spring is in the right. You can see where I tried to shorten it. The wpc spring is about the same length, but is stronger. I put a matching set in. The car now resets much better, and completely. It is also harder to defeat.
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So if you are having car reset issues, try replacing the springs.

In other news, I tried using rustolium hammer coat black on the coin door. It needs another coat, but I think it will come out well.8A12134B-A12C-4BB1-8547-CB6F452B43D4 (resized).jpeg

I know Marco lists then, but you may be able to get it cheaper from pbresource.

It seems like this restore is never ending...today I took stock of what is left to do, and discovered I’m out of LEDs, and I still have to do the Back-Box. Also, the playfield glass really needs to be replaced (it’s pretty scratched up), and to top it off, my coin door is missing a few parts...

I have to agree, the coin door came out very nice.

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Williams part number 10-364. I found the springs in a box of miscellaneous parts, but I’m about 90% sure that they are flipper return springs.

My LEDs for the back box came in... so I finally had an excuse to mount up my new transite. 1A43D7AA-0E6B-4057-9960-165C6541E1E9 (resized).jpeg
I know, the stock transite stinks, but the red car does tie it to my car in the lower playfield. I also finally took the protective plastic off the rails.

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I put the finishing touches on the inside of the cabinet today. I decided to re-use the plastic transformer guard, and the original guard over the three mechanical relays.D22F7E5E-5AC0-46EF-A8AD-A4545C844B93 (resized).jpeg

The coin door still bothers me. It is missing one mech, and the bracket the holds the mech in. I may have to hunt for those.

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Well that is very generous. Is stpcore a website?

You know what, I think your transite does look better than the original.0CE038C4-EA17-465B-AFF4-7E011FE3DC7B (resized).jpeg

An update on my car mod...795F456B-96CD-4895-8386-9D41B5390E38 (resized).jpeg
I have about 50 games on the machine since I finished the playfield. My car has lost some of the paint on the top. I think when the ball hits it, the roof is rubbing against one of the overhead brackets that hold the lexan in place over the car. I may have to take it apart to repair the roof of the car, and find out exactly where it is rubbing.

I really didn't do anything to the window other than clean it up with Novus, and then after I assembled the playfield, put a good coat of wax on it. The playfield still has it's factory applied mylar on it, so after I touched it up around the window, I waxed the playfield to protect the touch-ups.

So I fixed my car issue today. It turns out the car was scraping on the rear support for the plexi that is between the lower playfield and the playfield window.

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It took a nice chunk out of the paint. So it was time to do a little auto body work..
I sanded the spot smooth, and then shot some new red over the roof. I used acrylic, so after the paint dried, I put a good coat of wax on it to seal it up.
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The finished car doesn't quite look like new, but when viewing it between two sheets of plexi, it looks good.
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So I mounted it back up in the game, and placed some washers under both the plexi shield, and where the mount attached to the lower playfield. This gives the car about 3/16 of an inch more clearance.
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So now we are looking good again!
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Well I am closing the book on this one... I spent the morning packing it up and getting it ready to ship to it's new owner.
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I already have my next project lines up. It is a much abused Sorcerer. This one will truly be a ground up restoration... starting with a new cabinet. Right now I have not sources one yet, so I won't start a new thread until I find one.
Thanks,
--The Uncivil Engineer

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I got about $2,200 for it in the end. I am pretty sure I didn’t make any money on it... however that was not my goal.

My sorcerer project is now officially on hold as one of my grail pins has popped up, and is now in my possession, and desperately in need of work... here comes Rudy!

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