Hi all!

I live in Europe and as you might know we do not use inches as the unit for measuring stuff, instead we use millimeters (mm). This will cause some trouble when working on a pinball machine from the US. All the nuts, bolts and screws are in inches on the machines while the tools we have here are in mm's (Not medieval madnesses.. ) hence they do not fit. I was lucky enough to be able to find a box of tools for inch-based nuts etc. They exist here since american cars are very popular over here but are not that common. Any ways, so far so good, got the tools.

Next problem is when trying to replace something. Its not like I can head over to the hardware store and just pick up a few 3/4" machine screws. Need to order them from pinball part suppliers and some other special stores but its hard to find everything.

What I wonder is what standard is used in pinball machines, in general. Might differ a bit but im interested in knowing for example whats used on bally/williams machines from around 1980-1990s.

Ive googled a bit but there seem to be different standards even within the inch system, like Unified Thread Standard (UTS), UNF, UNC and such. If I understand it correctly the UTS is the base standard. UNF is the finer screws, nuts etc. and UNC is for heavier stuff like industrial machines etc. So my conclusion is that whats used in our pinball machines is the UNF which is a sub category of the Unified Thread Standard.

Just wanna clarify this a bit and the goal is to be able to understand it to make it easier to order stuff from places that do not particulary sell pinball parts because then i might find the stuff that are not available at the pin-part stores.

Andy

Thanks for your fast replies! =)

Will have a look at that pinballife link schudel5!

The "extension" of the problem is also that not every single screw is mentioned in the manual.
However I found a document that looks really nice (have not digged into it yet) but with the help from it one should be able to identify the type of screws, washers etc. that one may encounter while tinkering under the hood of a pinball machine. (Some of them at least, not all).

It can be found here:
http://www.boltdepot.com/fastener-information/Printable-Tools/Printable-Fastener-Tools.pdf

The idea is to print it without scaling and then just compare the screws with whats on the charts and hopefully one might be able to order the right stuff!

Thanks again for the answers

Thats great! j_m_, new obstacles with every step i take with my first restoration. Im glad you guys can give these advice! Cool thing on that ebay link

Interesting that there is no worldwide standard, or I mean there should be one =)
But with the gauges and stuff one might be able to find the right parts. I will have some more looking around before I order straight from the US.