Thnx yes that is a good motto!

Hi All!
Just acquired a Night Rider SS in good condition. It did not run for 20 years - hence I am up for a complete overhaul. Cabinet and playfield look great - just dirty. Seems to be complete including chimes and documentation - and the usual amount of work being required for a restore.

Nice project waiting!

20210503_195320 (resized).jpg

20210503_200241 (resized).jpg

20210503_200303 (resized).jpg

Congrats!! Great pin! I have EM and its really fun to play!!

Very pleased to be in the club finally. Picked this up from Aflacjack who was nice enough to split the shipping with me from Tennessee to New York. Going to enjoy it for a bit then start the restore with my son. Should be a fun project. I’ve never done a full restore before but after reading through RonSS posts I’m confident it will turn out great. Have my CPR playfield,pinball pimp stencils and new apron decals so far. I wish I could find a new plastic set. Reached out to CPR to see if they plan on running one. Mine are decent but would love to have a brand new set. Swapping the Playfield seemed like a daunting task but after really taking a look how things are layed out underneath the Playfield I’m pretty confident. No issues with gameplay/mechanics so that’s always a plus.

75D2D0C4-551C-4271-B8BF-A08CAE2F6151 (resized).jpeg

Very pleased to be in the club finally.</blockquote

Congrats.

Never played one but would have one easily .never had an EM.

Ten drops and two spinners with those chimes, oh yeah.

How does your playfield look? I've been really wanting to purchase one. Mind posting some pictures?

All the inserts are sunk/cupped but overall it’s not terrible cosmetically. I’ll post some pics when I get home. I would be more then happy to send her you’re way if you’re interested for a small fee+shipping.

Flash71 youre going to love the project!

Congrats!

I admit RonSS has inspired me to try repairing a playfield so i would be interested in your old one so i could try that without taking my game down so please PM me and maybe we can work something out. I was initially wondering how the CPR playfield looked though? I was wondering if your happy with the art details and colors.

The CPR one is nice. Very smooth and all inserts are uniform.

C3DF91F6-07F1-4355-82E9-937F4C85CB83 (resized).jpeg

I’m looking forward to the challenge. I guess my biggest concern is rerunning of the control /general illumination lighting wire. Lots o pictures and labeling.

Does anyone know the exact color code for the red and blue on the cab? I thought I saw sunburst red in a post.

Looks great! Thanks for taking the time to share. I'd love to follow your restoration if you start a thread.

I think I will. It will be an adventure I’m sure. Lol!

That was from gdonovan. Its the spray can color from Home Depot, so i doubt an exact match, but it looks pretty good.

I have a can of blue in the garage still, ill grab the color for you shortly.

Arg! Totally forgot! AM. Sorry.

I recently got a pretty beat up Night Rider to work on as a bit of a stress relief. I figured I’d post a few photos of the current progress to liven up this thread. It’s not perfect but it’s a huge improvement. Still lots to do but hope to have it back together in a couple of weeks.

DDD11258-B0C6-447E-A33E-79DC4A8727B8 (resized).jpeg

8FE5F465-45B8-4788-AD3A-35D738ACFFB1 (resized).jpeg

7339B619-870A-4717-9D8B-4F1ECA771290 (resized).jpeg

47BE2355-932C-44B2-9E92-FA093F7BBACD (resized).jpeg

Is yours an EM or SS version? I have a well worn EM, it’s my first pin and still most played just a fun fun game. Congratulations!

It’s an EM. My first EM, excited to get to playing on it. Personally I think the game looks better as an EM as well. Love the colors on this one.

Hey Night Rider club, I made these apron cards as part of my work in updating my project. I hope they uploaded correctly, let me know if not. I made both a 3 ball and 5 ball variation.

Night Rider 1 (resized).png

Night Rider 2 (resized).png

Night Rider 2a (resized).png

I picked up a non-working EM version from an estate sale last week and after a few days, I have now have it coining up and starting 1, 2, 3, and 4 player games (my first EM!). I can play games, but I've got a pretty good punch list to get through before I claim it 100% working.

Question for the group: my Night Rider has a steel undercarriage. In all of the pictures I've seen online of the EM and SS versions of NR, I've not seen this undercarriage. I'm assuming it's there to protect / deter breaking into the machine from the bottom to steal the cash box. I make that assumption because the floor itself is still in good shape, i.e. this is not a repair job. I'm just curious if any knows if Bally did this at the factory for some units or as an option, or was this more likely an operator who did this himself. It's very clean-looking and fits well...this isn't a hack job. Holes had to be drilled through the cabinet, tho, for the bolts (secured by nuts on the inside of the cabinet).

After I get this pin working 100%, I'll be deciding if I'm going to take the refurb further by repairing some cabinet dings and re-stenciling. If I do that, I'll likely be filling in the cabinet holes drilled out for that steel undercarriage and not reinstalling it. I don't like the way it obscures the cabinet artwork, and this pin won't be routed (at least by me, anyway).

Do any of you guys with Night Rider have this steel undercarriage? Is it factory?

Steel Undercarriage 01 (resized).jpg

Steel Undercarriage 02 (resized).jpg

Mine is a rough one and it doesn't have the metal on it. It was added By owner/operator. Is the bottom full metal cabinet are just the edges? Most likey reason cabinet damage. If full bottom they were sure to keep their coins.

It covers the entire bottom. From the inside of the cabinet, the wood floor appears strong and undamaged. I'll know for sure about the exterior floor when I do a full tear down, but that won't be until spring or so.

Couple of rules / behavior questions for the Night Rider owners. Picked up that non-working EM NR above a month or so ago and now have it to point where just about everything is working. Now I'm paying closer attention to the scoring/rules.

On my NR, the bonus count never goes advances past 15,000. The shots still score, but the bonus count stops at 15,000. Is this normal behavior or do I have something new to debug? Don't pay attention to the dirt and grime - I'll do a full tear down and shop job once I get everything working reliably:

IMG_2586 (resized).jpg

Second thing that's odd that I just noticed today - sometimes (randomly on any score value) the scoring from the saucer does not score. You get the bonus advancement and the ball ejection, but not the score. Here's a quick video of what I'm talking about:

First few seconds show that with the 1000 score selected, you get no score (no chimes) but the bonus advances (I do this twice). I then move it to the 50 score, and you can here the chimes of it scoring and bonus advancing (I do this once). I then move it back to 1000 score, and you can hear the chimes of it scoring and bonus advancing (I do this three times).

This doesn't just happen on the 1000 score....I've experienced this on each of the saucer score values at one time or another. This isn't normal behavior, is it? There is something likely wrong with the Top Hole Unit assembly I'm guessing? I had to replace a fried coil and a melted plunger assembly in the Top Hole Unit as part of the punch list to get this pin flipping...perhaps something else is compromised with it?

This is true for the solid state version which only goes up to 15,000 max bonus so I imagine the EM version is the same.

Issue Above: scoring with saucer is sometimes skipped (but bonus advances) is definitely not normal. I decided to take apart the Top Hole Unit assembly to inspect it and lo and behold, I found an open trace on the scoring PCB - that's gotta be the issue:

IMG_2625a (resized).jpg

So before I go through the trouble of unsoldering this PCB from the wire harness so I can get it on my bench to repair the open trace and clean up the rest of the traces, does anyone know if these PCBs are obtainable from anywhere (I'll probably reach out to Steve at Pinball Resource)? If they're around and not too expensive, I'd like to just replace the PCB as long as I have this thing apart.

Second question - I'm assuming the white jumper wires to get around the screw holes is factory? It's exactly the same on both the scoring PCB and the lamp PCB in this Top Hole Unit assembly, and the age appearance of the jumper wires look to be the same as the rest of the wires in the pin.

IMG_2626 (resized).jpg

Let's fix a broken/lifted trace! I'm not going to win any soldering awards, but this trace "repair" now ohm's out from the contact pad to the wire just fine, and there's enough clearance for the contact wiper to rotate. Got other things on my To Do list today so hopefully I can get back to this soon, reassemble, and re-test that saucer scoring issue.

IMG_2629 (resized).jpg

IMG_2630a (resized).jpg

IMG_2632a (resized).jpg

I’m struggling with the two score targets near the pop numbers not registering. If anyone can provide any input on my thread I’d really appreciate it. All other items are working so it’s the last fix before this project is in the home stretch.

Edit Solved:
Went back to basics and took each target assembly apart. After reassembly both worked fine. Guess I just had bad/dirty connections. Feel silly but hey, progress!

Picked this beauty up a while back, the cabinet is so wrong yet so right.

20221113_145707 (resized).jpg

Pretty sure the armor for the bottom is an aftermarket thing. My High Speed came with something similar installed and I've heard from others they've seen them on all kinds of machines. Considering how many games I've seen with a big hole carved through the bottom under the coin box, makes sense that there was a market for an added security measure.

Did you ever get it completed?

Sadly it’s still sitting in my basement waiting to be restored. I have everything needed just need to find the time. I’ll keep you posted. Happy Thanksgiving!

Can someone help me finding the following fuses from the rectifier? I can’t find the exact ones, What can I use to substitute and replace the blown out fuses? I would like to swap all of them for new ones. Hope someone can advice.
Thanks

14E01AA8-81C9-4D2E-85CF-4FE44684C161 (resized).jpeg

Does anyone have a clear photo of the card by the arrow of the EM version of the playfield (I grabbed this off of the IPDB)? I just finished a playfield swap on a new CPR Night Rider and one of the last steps before I move on to restoring the cabinet is reproducing the under-playfield cards. I have all of the other cards on my original playfield, cabinet, and backbox but this one is missing on mine. Thanks in advance....

Playfield Underside2 (resized).jpg

Hope this helps you. Had dig out my dumpster save night rider to get these pictures.

IMG_20221230_191606705 (resized).jpg

IMG_20221230_191603267 (resized).jpg

IMG_20221230_191441203 (resized).jpg

Way cool - this helps a ton. Thank you!