I'm kinda new to all this, but having GREAT fun (again) thus far! I grew up playing EM's and early SS's in the 60's/70's and am now one of the baby-boomers who's bringing them back home. I bought my first machine--KISS--a couple of months ago and have had a ton of fun working/playing on it.

Being a collector I'm used to scouring ebay and craigslist on a regular basis and have now added pins as one of my searches (much to the chagrin of my other half)!! I was a little surprised to see a post pop up last week for a San Francisco for $50!! The playfield and backglass looked decent, so I called the seller. He said that two people had previously committed to it and never called back, but he realized that I was sincere and was kind enough to pull the ad. I finally made the half-hour trip to his place out in the country to pick it up yesterday.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was in much better shape than I anticipated. The playfield and backglass are extremely nice for a game that shows over 89,000 on the counter! It appears to be complete, other than missing the door on the backbox and coin mech, and someone decided to paint the cabinet blue at some point.

I realize that this isn't a high-demand game--even though it's the last EM made with a gobble hole and has backglass animation--but figured that it would be fun to try to bring it back to life if I can do so without sinking more into it than it's worth. I figured that it would be a good winter project. I'm currently putting my spreadsheet together on restoration cost, but can't seem to locate any back doors--?? Does anyone reproduce them or can you suggest a source for a NOS or used one?

I'm also open for suggestions on how to best redo the cabinet to original. Again, it's not popular enough to have a paint template anywhere that I've found, but I may be able to put one together myself as I'm someone handy with graphic arts.

I need to go to the hardware store and pick up some bolts to mount the backbox and then will see if she'll fire up--keep your fingers crossed for me!

Oh yeah, in addition to the machine I got the head off of a United Singapore bingo machine. Not sure if there's any reason to keep anything other than the backglass out of it?? I noticed that the one that's shown on ipdb doesn't show the sides of the cabinet, so maybe I can add something to the community.

Any advice or feedback would be appreciated. TIA!

No problem--all too often I type just like I think . . .

Thanks for the tips ccotenj. I'm gradually learning my way around all of this stuff. I have a buddy who's a woodworker and I figured that I could have him make me a door if I couldn't find one readily available.

Ok, ya'll want pics, so here you go . . .

Lovely shade of blue huh? And you can see that it has housed some former inhabitants, who obviously trashed the place out!

And does anyone think I'm crazy for trying to plug this in based upon the looks of that transformer (if that's what it is)??

P1050490_(1280_x_1024).JPG P1050491_(1280_x_1024).JPG P1050492_(1280_x_1024).JPG P1050493_(1280_x_1024).JPG P1050494_(1280_x_1024).JPG P1050495_(1280_x_1024).JPG

Sorry, didn't realize you could only post six at a time . . .

P1050496_(1280_x_1024).JPG P1050497_(1280_x_1024).JPG P1050498_(1280_x_1024).JPG P1050500_(1280_x_1024).JPG P1050501_(1280_x_1024).JPG P1050502_(1280_x_1024).JPG

. . . and the last of them. Off to the hardware store for bolts.

P1050503_(1280_x_1024).JPG P1050504_(1280_x_1024).JPG P1050506_(1280_x_1024).JPG P1050507_(1280_x_1024).JPG P1050508_(1280_x_1024).JPG

Oh yeah, I tried a little Goof Off on the paint and while it was taking it off, it appears that it would be a VERY slow process. It came off like a charm on the area I tested on the back of the backbox, so I thought I'd see if I could reveal any of the stenciling on the side. It took some off, but would certainly be one big PITA to do it that way and require a bunch of Goof Off. Not sure I could handle the fumes off it that long! Is there a "next step" to try that's not too harsh? I can see where it would be much easier to trace the existing art to make a stencil than to redraw it electronically and would like to go this route if possible.

Got some head bolts in it tonight and plugged it in. It came to life somewhat. Looks like most all the lights are good, but that may be about all I can say that's positive. It seemed as though it was stuck in reset mode, so I unplugged it.

I realize this is a bit of rhetorical/open-ended question, but how does one determine if a machine is worth fixing? I put together a quick parts list today and came up with a minimum of $175 in parts that it's going to need and that's before any of the cabinet re-do or any labor, assuming of course that I can do it myself. Is it worth it to have $300-350 invested in a machine that is only worth $425? I can see that if it had some historical, personal significance and/or market demand that it might be worth the effort but the math doesn't seem to work in my opinion. Maybe I should just flip it as is or part it out and make a few bucks if that's even a possiblity--???

Again, given that this is all new to me I appreciate any advice that you all can provide. From what I understand EM are the easiest machines to work on, so maybe I should learn how to read a schematic and cut my teeth and grow a set . . . but I also know that I need be careful what I wish for--LOL!!

Sorry for apparently tripping your tilt . . . maybe you forgot the newbie part? I've been a collector of other stuff for over 35 years and have always been a purist, rarely ever redoing anything as I feel that destroys the collectible value. I'd MUCH rather have something that isn't perfect over an item that has been redone, especially by someone who doesn't know what they're doing.

I question if this is beyond my capabilities, hence asking for advice from those who have been down this road. I learned long ago that there's no reason to reinvent the wheel . . . but realize as well that everyone has to start somewhere, which is pretty much where I am.

I not in this for profit--I just don't want to look back and have a machine that I've invested multiple hundreds of dollars in, as well as countless hours, that no one--including me--really cares much about. If it was a favorite from my youth then it would be a different story. It appears that this might be a fun game to play, but if you look it up you'll see that reviews are pretty limited, again making me wonder if anyone besides a left-coaster would ever be interested in this machine.

My time IS valuable. I spent two hours, a few gallons of gas and pissed off my wife in the process of chasing this thing down. You think that doesn't have value? If not then maybe there's a reason you have a cat pictured in your avatar . . .

Alright, message received loud and clear. Lesson one learned, now moving on . . . I guess this cow's ear has the potential to be a silk purse.

Yes, the replacement bumper caps are nearly half the budget I mentioned. Good points on getting it up and running the way it is and going from there. I just realized that only three of the nine bumpers are active bumpers.

Something I CAN contribute--be careful with that Airline Stripper as it is VERY hot. You need to have some thick, chemical resistant gloves and DO NOT get any on your skin as it will burn the h-e-double toothpicks out of you--a lesson I DID learn the hard way unfortunately.

LOL! A Tulsa Golden Hurricane logo would color coordinate as well . . . just doesn't fit the SF theme for some reason.

I'm gradually working my way through cleaning her up. I've cleaned the score reels and all the contacts in the back box, blown out all the dust and have removed all the paint overspray. Seems to be doing a little more than when I first turned it on, but it appears that I either have a bad coil (as it's making a lot of noise and sparking quite a bit) or some contacts that aren't operating properly in the back box. I'm guessing that it's the coil, which is a M29-1100, but no one seems to have these is stock. Is it a problem to replace it with an M29-1000?

Thanks again for the advice.

Great, I'll check that out--thanks!

I took a look tonight and nothing up the line in the back box appeared to be obviously out of order/place. I'm still waiting on the schematic I ordered to arrive, though I'm not sure it will help ME much--lol!

The coil/relay that's acting up is the top one pictured here, which is labeled Left Advance Relay and from what I can see everything looks just like the one below it, which is marked Right Advance Relay. So I thought I'd take a look inside the machine to see if anything was obviously out of place. The one thing I noticed was that the sleeve and shaft out of the coil mounted at the back left of the cabinet is COMPLETELY missing--could this possibly be what is causing this issue? I'm assuming that if it's not what's causing this problem, that it is causing something else--possibly yet to be discovered. I don't see on the part sites where the shafts are offered for sale. Any help here would be appreciated.

More to follow . . .

P1050509_(1280_x_1024).JPG P1050510_(1280_x_1024).JPG

It was way too nice out in the garage tonight to hang it up at this point, so being stumped on issue I did what I'd told myself that I wasn't going to do--work on cosmetic issue before finding out if the mechanical issues could be resolved.

I know there's a problem with the kick out hole pictured below. Apparently one of the previous owners worked around this problem by just taping over it with some duct tape . . . My question is this--would it be o.k. to use Goo-Gone on the playfield to remove the leftover tape adhesive? I searched Goo-Gone and didn't find anything on this issue.

P1050521_(1280_x_1024).JPG

I took all of the easy pieces off of the field, including the metal cover that goes over the ball return and plunger. I'm glad that I did as this was about the sixth dirt-dobber nest that I removed and wouldn't have ever guessed it was there . . .

Yep, she's still just a bit dirty!!

P1050522_(1280_x_1024).JPG P1050523_(1280_x_1024).JPG

Thanks Ken. I assume the bell you're referring to is in addition to the one located in the back box? I will take another look but I'm not sure where this would mount as I didn't notice anything that appeared to be missing--i.e. no obvious screw holes.

AWESOME find man!!! I've done some pretty exhaustive searches but continued to put 'pinball' in my search string . . . I popped an email to them along with the picture that EM-PINMAN posted so we'll see what they have to say.

I started stripping the cabinet yesterday. I'm using 3M Safest Stripper for this as I didn't want anything overly aggressive. I chose it hoping to take off the top layer of blue paint while preserving as much as the original finish underneath it as possible. It did a good job in that regard and I should be able to make a tracing of the graphics to make stencils down the road. I haven't decided yet if the old-fashioned "do it by hand" is going to be best or if I'm going to use Corel to redraw the art. I took a good set of measurements and will at least play around with redrawing it. Who knows, maybe someone else will need it to bring another one of these back to life--lol!!

P1050524_(1280_x_1024).JPG