Joined the club yesterday.
I didn't grow up with pinball and just got a few years back into playing, but Paragon and Mata Hari showed me that older machines are fun and I wanted one ever since. Before I only ever played the new shiny modern machines and walked by older ones.
Super stoked, now i have to practice tap passes

Rolling this game is on the bucket list, but I rarely get up over 300k... there is some work to be done LOL

The drop bank assembly schematics in the 1979-1 Bally parts catalog doesn't match what's installed on my paragon for the 3 bank.
The drawings show a single link phenolic plate but mine has a double link like the inline drop bank as well as there is no reset spacer block in my assembly at all.
Does anyone know where I can an explosion drawing for mine with part numbers. I want to replace the coil stop, plunger, links and those little plastic inserts in the holes for the rest bar shaft.
(Picture is from a different machine, but it have the same type of drop target assembly, the linkage looks similar to the inline drop target actually).
It's a 4 bank with only 3 used. As said the other machine has exactly the same do that seems to be intended.

Also in general there don't seem to be any of those phenolic links available to purchase. I only saw PBR having strips you can use to fabricate your own. Any insight?

16724980793026773468586620802805 (resized).jpg

Actually found the schematic in the Bally 1982 parts catalog. I guess they must have switched around the time Paragon was built and had the old style drawing still in the 1979 parts catalog.

Thank you for the response!
I'm not familiar with that material at all (phenolic), so a few questions:
If I drop that in an unltrasonic cleaner or dish washer -> OK or not OK?
Is that cuttable with scissors, or would you suggest something different - The original link has rounded corners, so I was thinking cutting it with scissors, but the material may be too brittle for that for example or too hard.
To get the holes, I do have access to a drill press, wood drills ok?

Is PBR the only place that stocks those? I'm always afraid if only one place has something it's sold out by the time I have my list together.

It's a rescue machine and a lot of the mechs and assemblies are broken or worn. So I'm replacing everything that's broken and all wear parts while I'm doing a playfield swap

The picture above is from a different Paragon with the same mech BTW

Wondering if that is the same stuff: https://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/63410724

Got there from here: https://www.mscdirect.com/industrialtools/phenolic-laminate-sheet.html

No I'm planning to get it from PBR, but its likely gonna be a month until I have my list together what all I need. It happened to me before that while I got my ducks in a row stuff got sold out, so I'm just looking for alternatives if that should be happening, plus just curiosity at this point.

The machine is a total rescue without boards,display, transformer, legs and so on. Essentially I paid for a wiring harness, the cabinet without coin door, backbox, lockdown bar, and 90% of mechs in various state of decay/breakage.

I bought already a CPR playfield, backglass, all boards, transformer, rusty old coin door, legs, flipper rebuild kits, wolfpac displays, display holders, plug housings, ground braid, bus wire, playfield plastics, Yopsicles, rubbers, fuses, plunger, apron decal, and pop bumpers.

I know already i need, some coils, diodes, new line filter MOV, power cord, saucer eject plate, coil stops, plungers, sling coil holder (seems the one with 3 screw pieces is not available anymore at all, the one installed the tabs are broken off and when i google the parts number it looks like there is only some sort of Z bracket available with a warning that it MAY be a substitute), various switch stacks, plum bob, GI light sockets, plastic spacer for drop banks, pinball pimp mask and other stuff that eludes me now.

Right now i'm stripping the playfield to see what else I all need and then getting lists together for PBR, ActionPinball, Pinball Life and Marco's

--- Rant - LOL:
Getting through my list of stuff that I need to replace, and the switch numbers are a nightmare. I think some of them are just flatout wrong in the parts catalog.
E.g. one of the rollovers is marked as having a ASW-A10-47, which is a general purpose switch per parts catalog that wouldn't have the little white standup thingy on the end of the blase to work for a rollover.
In general the switches seem to differ in amount of lugs, NO or NC, length of blade closest to playfield, presence of insulator paper, position of insulator paper, presence of the little white standoff tab for rollovers, if switchblade closest to playfield is rounded or square and so on.
The problem is the parts catalog doesn't even show all the supposed numbers used and you always only get one view, either side or top, so you can't even figure out how a given switch is made up. No measurements and so on. Sorry for the rant.
---Rant end

1. Essentially I'm trying to figure out what I can substitute, because the switch, if they are present on the machine to restore are clearly already substitutions compared to a known good example and only a few switch numbers seem to be available to buy when I look at the parts catalog.
Is there somewhere a library that decodes all of that or do I just order a bunch of different styles and see what works - as said the parts catalog is not helpful in all cases?

2. The switches on the inline drop down bank is marked in the parts catalog as ASW-A1-168, the same as the switches on the non-inline drop targets. However it looks like the ones on the inline drop target is a stack of two switches. The one closer to the plate seems to be indeed the switch in question but there seems to be one on top of that that looks like an EOS switch. Anyone knows what the part number for that one is - I assume I have to combine them.

3. The paragon saucer (right most saucer) mounting plate is broken which the whole assembly is ASE-428-41 (note the 1 in the last digit).
The 1979-1 parts catalog has a drawing of ASE-428-40 with Mounting Bracket A-643-7. There are drawings for both ASE-428-41 and ASE-428-40 in the 1979 parts catalog but they do not have a part number for the mounting plate.  As far as I can tell ASE-428-41 and ASE-428-40 seem to be the same with the exception how the lugs on the coil are oriented.
If I'm correct then I need Mounting Bracket A-643-7. Anybody can confirm or deny?

Tryin to get my ducks in a row for PBR order. Thank you for all your help!

I haven't seen the little insulation tubes that go in the screw holes for sale nor the blades that have those little white standoff cylinders at the end for roll over and eos switches.
And the little spring tabs on to of the switches seem to be sold out as well. Same thing for the spacers between blades. Does Steve have those and if yes what's the proper term for those things?

I can take a switch from a working paragon apart and measure the length of the blades and thickness of spacers. If i know the proper terms i can build them then, great idea!

Some of the stuff is missing unfortunately. And some had been replaced with wrong parts.
I finally found the blades and parts you were referring to on the PBR website. I must have scrolled by that at least a dozen times before...

Stupid noob question:
How do you afix the contacts to the blade? I saw there are holes already punched into the blade. I would assume some sort of riveting tool? Or solder it from the back?
Edit: Found a thread, some people seem to peen it and some solder them.

Same question for the nylon switch blade lifters?

And i still didn't see those little tubes inside the screw holes to insulate the blades from the screw.
Edit: Found them on Marcos, it's called leaf switch tubing. I had filtered by Bally, and they don't show up that way!

Thanks again, I do appreciate the help!

Anybody know what those gray plastic spacers are size wise and where to get them? Few are missing. OD is 3/8 but all other measurements are funky and don't come out to any sensible fractions.
I'm not talking about the bell shaped metal things on the lowest level, i mean the ones a level above directly under the screened plastics.

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The length is bonkers: 57/128. The closest Pinball Life offers is 3/8 or 1/2 but that's either 1.7 mm too short or 1.4 mm too long.
There is a small washer on top of the spacer as well.
I don't see a part number for those anywhere.

On the playfield, the majority of the machine post studs (https://www.pinballlife.com/machine-poststud-530-5012-02.html and https://www.pinballlife.com/machine-poststud-530-5010-02.html) is 2" long overall which are S-2124 and S-2125 (1-11/16 length of the bottom part in the catalog).
But there are also a few S-2124-1 and S-2125-1 mixed into it - they are 1-7/8 overall length and the bottom part is 1-1/2" (per Bally parts catalog)

Are those supposed to be there or did they just get replaced with what was at hand and everything should be the longer ones instead?

In terms of spacers, I suppose I could replace ALL of those spacers to be either 3/8 or 1/2 and then just screw the studs in deeper / less deep, I would have more leeway with the longer studs I assume.

Edit: Looks like PBR has 3/8 long Gray spacers, In combination with a couple of plastic washers from McMaster-Carr that could work. For all I know Steve may have the right size on hand and just not advertised.

Edit:
I was wrong -> Zombywoof has the correct solution

Edit:
I was wrong - do what zombywoof suggested.

Edit:
The ones with the wood screw base here may work:
http://www.pbresource.com/postscrew.html#lampc
or
https://www.pinballlife.com/1-716-tall-metal-post-with-cutaway-with-wood-screw-base.html

Nope, i was wrong, and your assessment was spot on. Sorry for me giving bad info here.
I already posted above that you were correct

Thank you so much, I really appreciate the offer. I may take you up on it if i can't find replacements. I think I'm missing only a couple.
I'm surprised that they are not easily found at the usual places. I'm probably just searching for the wrong thing.

Did an oopsie with mixing up springs on the drop targets when breaking down:
After looking and researching I found that for both drop targets it calls for SP-100-314 as the drop target spring (the one between the drop target and the mech).
There are however 2 different versions of that spring under the same number, a long and a short one, I verified that already, and I will need both (Short for inline and long for the "normal side by side ones)

BUT: In the schematics I have not seen any mention of the reset bar spring on the end of the mech. I think that may be SP-100-350 and looks to be the same length and diameter when relaxed as SP-100-314-Long. Since I did not separate that when I was breaking it down, I likely won't be able to distinguish between the reset bar spring and the long drop target spring, so that's the reason why I would like new ones, aside from wanting to replace 44 year old springs on the restoration.

Now to the question:
Are SP-100-314-Long and SP-100-350 the same under a different part number? (I suspect they have different strength, even though they are the same size relaxed)

Thanks all for your help again.

If you want to get rid of them I'll pay for shipping and give you something for them. Since my Paragon I'm restoring was in a totally trashed state and had all boards missing, I bought everything Alltek, but for the first test I probably would feel better if I had some cheaper boards and don't fry the expensive Alltek boards if I did something stupid.
If you are willing, PM me and let me know how much you want for them.

Thank you, now I have something to look for and I can send that to Jimmy & Steve at PBR!
Didn't get direct hits for the first one with a quick Google, but the Stern one came up immediately!

Edit: I found them at McMaster-Carr #8 3/8 OD 7/16" tall in off-white nylon. I probably could just buy a 100-pack and dye them and make them available to people at shipping cost if PBR doesn't have them, depending on how many I end up needing after I tried to clean the ones I have + the ones missing.

On my trashed Paragon that I restore, one of the pop bumpers was missing and I saw on the ones that are there, they have this mounting bracket on the underside with those 2 nuts attached to it that goes across the hole.
I can't find it in the parts catalog for the pop bumper schematics.
What's the part number for that?

IMG_20221224_162158 (resized).jpg

Edit: I found it on a Canadian store: https://www.absolutepinball.com/shop/bally-pop-bumper-body-under-playfield-mounting-bracket/ but still no part number to see if one is closer.

The playfield that I'm going to swap out is in terrible condition and I was thinking to turn it into a wall hanger / light box.
I was looking at this: https://classic-arcades.com/shop?keywords=paragon&olsPage=products%2Foxo-playfield-overlay to spruce it up and make it pretty again.
But I've seen now that the items from that store can be hit and miss quality wise and there are a few threads where people were complaining about the the quality for a given one of those overlays was terrible with colors mismatched and art flatout missing. Haven't seen one discussing the overlay for Paragon specifically.
Anyone have experience with the one for Paragon and can chime in if it is good or not? Don't want to drop 250 dollars on something that I will throw away.
Again, don't want to use it to play, just making the playfield pretty for being a wall hanger / lightbox.

Thank you!

Thank you all for your input; I think I'll go with cleaning it up with Naphtha and then use it as is down the road for a lightbox.
You are all absolutely right; it's part of the history and adds character. Otherwise, I could just get an art print on paper.
I think my OCD just got the better of me there.

I wish I had just been a little bit more careful when stripping it; I think I added a handful of gouges when removing the rails and the pop bumper fin shank screw/nails cause I thought it wouldn't matter if I were careful, LOL.

I removed the old lamp sockets from the back box insert. (The hinged door like board behind the glass, not sure what the correct word is for it).
That wood is cheap and crumbly, it's like dried out cork. The light baffles are falling apart too.
Did you guys just give it a new paint cost or did you cut a new one?

I sprayed a whole Rust-Oleum 2 in 1 white rattle can on one side and it soaked it up like a sponge...

I bought some nylon spacers from McMaster Carr in white a while ago and some gray dye, but I had to put the project down for a while, so I actually never checked the fit nor dyed them. All of that is currently in storage and it will be at least till next year till I can get back to it.