Hey just wanted share our pinball pickup last weekend, which will probably be our score of a lifetime.
Tales of The Arabian Nights, Junk Yard and No Fear for $300 bucks for the lot $100 bucks each.
So I was loaded up with a Uhual trailer with 3 arcades from our collection heading to Jacksonville from Georgia. So about 8pm while I'm driving down I see an ad pop up, first I see 2 pins JY and NF for $125 each (WTF is exactly what I was thinking) as I'm typing up my message I noticed he put his phone number in the ad so I called the number. A man answers and is like Huh for the pinballs as he is handing the phone to another man probably because it was less than 10min since the ad was posted. Guy 2 is all calm and like yeah there here which one did you want? I said I was interested in both JY and NF, his response was yeah those are the better 2. Whoa Huh I ask what else do you have and he says we got a Totan also but it is in rougher shape. So I have to hold my self together and I say oh cool what would you want for the whole lot? He asked guy number 1, then tells me $300 bucks for them all! Holy Moly I got to make something happen.
OK where the problem is these things are in Georgetown AL just past the Florida pan handle and I'm already loaded up with my kids in the car. I'm not going to lie my 1st thought was go there get the pins and leave the arcades there on the side of the road and post an ad myself for free arcades on the side of the road. But no that wouldn't work as it was still a 5 hour drive after I looked it up and that would get me there at 1am doubt that guy wants to sell some pins at 1am. So I call him back and say I can be there as early as it is OK with you tomorrow and he said as early as you want I'm awake before 7am so OK 7am it is tomorrow, please call me if anything changes as I'll be driving all night to get out there and he is like sure they'll be here see you tomorrow.
Wow so now I finish my drive to Jville I got there at 11pm unloaded and went to bed for a quick nap about midnight. Woke up at 1:30am filled up on gas picked up my brother and some cash from ur ATM and hit the road it's now a 6.5 hour drive maybe a little more with gas stops to try and be there by 7am.
The last hour was pretty nerve racking as we where almost an hour late after stops for gas and coffee as we are turning down some very rural semi paved road and stop at a house we can seem them in the back yard under a tarp.

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So they are in the back yard under a tarp, I walk up the guy meets me outside and says here they are and pulls the cover off and Wow actually not to bad. Totan was the worse like he said the bottom fell out when they tried to move it from moisture. He bought just bought them from another who got them from a storage unit purchase, they have been in his back yard almost 2 weeks he says.
Here is the cash let's load them up! After the deal is made the more we look at them the better they look 100% complete if we have to part them out we still make good money but that's not what I want to do hopefully. On the way home my AC unit on my SUV froze up at gas station we had to swap that there in the parking lot that was a mission that took almost 6 hours getting my wife to bring me the part. We make it home at 1am so 23.5 hours for this round trip pinball pick up of a lifetime score.

We get them unloaded the next day and after a better look at them both Junk Yard and No Fear look to be good to try and turn on after I went through with the Multimeter and tested a few things. We put in a few new batteries and guess what they both fire up just fine they completely dried out rubbers are all cracked and the balls are rusty and very very dirty but everything is working just fine on them both.

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I started cleaning No Fear since it seemed the to be in the best condition this past week. Surprisingly the boards are in great shape and the bottom of the playfield is really clean.
So far the only things broken are the drop target return tab and I found one in some spare parts that's brass and twice as thick pretty sure it will never break again. The other thing is a tab on the No Fear mountain on top of the right side VUK and that's both an easy fix and easily bought part.

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After the tear down of No Fear this week I'm still amazed as to how good the inside of the pins are, the cabs are a little dried out but the playfields are great. No Fear has cleaned up really nice. I had just enough left over LED's for the GI and I'll start putting it back together then have to place a Non Ghosting led order for the inserts and what ever else is left. But No Fear will be down this week and playing again.
Junk Yard is in the same condition just needs a good shop job.
Totan is going to need a little work probably a new cabinet not sure yet might be able to save it.
What a great experience never thought we would get so lucky.

Anyone got the instructions on this thing

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That's what we thought for almost 7 hours was this really going to happen, but we lucked out. It will be our story of a lifetime.

I got that typo for you Thanx
Yes the excitement won't be going away anytime soon.

The Totan will be a project I am actually looking forward to, part of the hobby for me is working on the machines and constantly learning new skills. We already purchased a new Gold CPR playfield for it, then I'll get some opinions on the cab to see if it can be saved or just go with a new or donor cab one thing is for sure I want to do it right for that one. Junk Yard will be a quick tear down and shop job also can't wait to have them all working and playing next to each other again

The playfield isn't to bad really 3 areas of concern. The magnet area at the top of the geni has a couple cracks in it, the bottom of the geni bottle the insert has some wear, and the 2 purple diamond inserts in front of the left ramp the clear over the left diamond is complete missing and the right one is chipped. Overall not to bad, but with starting at $100 Totan it's an easy decision to get the Repo. Also I sent out a few pics to a reputable restorer and he informed me Totan playfields have a tendency to ghost so touch up and clear is not a good option. I'm sure when I get it out and clean someone will buy it for a couple hundred or something.

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The Gold CPR playfield landed today also and it looks great from fellow pinsider Damonator

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Finally had enough Honey To Do items knocked off the list and had time to put No Fear back together mostly on Sunday and finished the rest today. It came out great, GI all has LED's and the back box, still need to do non ghosting LED's for the color inserts I'll place that order this weekend when i start the tear down of Junk Yard and place an order for them both.
Going to spend the first 3 days of my vacation next week just working on JY and Drinking a few beers.

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I am definitely enjoying NF. F14 was my 1st pin and this is another fast pin by Steve Richie and I love it. I've always liked jumping from a fast pin like F14 and something like our demo man and now NF can be the fast pin to jump to when I feel like getting my ass kicked.

I'm pretty new to the led's. Black Rose was the first one I did, the ghosting wasn't to bad but there. I started doing our Demo Man but that one is really bad, I did read someone say to upgrade to the latest rom version and it should fix it. I did that just that the latest Rom and it helped but didn't stop it completely and Demo Man is pretty bad. I was going to do the LCD OCD board or non ghosting LED's. Is it a different Rom besides the latest version that someone is fixing the ghosting in???

Thanks all for the heads up on the patched eproms for the led ghosting, I did order a few for our pins, Black Rose and Demo Man are great now.

I am liking the Led OCD board also might try one of those soon also. Thanks.

Quick update been busy with work. Got JY almost completely broken down, I cleaned a few spots like the top of the shooter lane and the black tracks cleaned up also the area by the sewer entrance and it's cleaning up great.
I did go through everything and got it all working and just played it for a little bit also cool game I'm liking it.
One area of concern on JY is a little chipped clear on a insert but it should all clean up nice soon. It's going to look great with LED'S, it could use a little extra light probably going to try the star post lights at the sling shots and maybe the next set of post up also.

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Had to paint 1 set of the legs the other 2 sets will clean up OK. Painted the set black with the Fridge Black glossy paint they came out good, put them on No Fear and they look good on it.

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Just got a nice MOD from tjc02002 of his 3D printed cars for Junk Yard. It looks great!

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Hey all been a while you know work work work, also had a few other pick ups and shopped out a couple other of our games.
The Big thing slowing me down was the insert that was chipped and a couple other spots that need to be spot cleared, it was my 1st time doing it so I asked and read how to do it first. Well done it came out great and wasn't that hard.
Reassembly in progress should be done in a couple days. Only had 1 coil that needed to be replaced, LED's installed, coil sleeve kit installed, cleaned and waxed, plastics and ramps flame polished if needed, metal hardware all ran through the tumbler.

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A few more pics
Added 1 set of post lights next to the middle stand up targets to brighten up the center of the playfield and placed 2 sets of 7smd strips under each ramp to brighten them up also.

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Sunday at league, I'll be bringing it. I don't even know how to play it but it's clean and shiny.

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All finished with Junk Yard for now playfield came out great and looks a lot better the LED's. The 3d printed cars from tjc02002 look really nice, I add a 3smd white LED strip behind the cars mount also to light up bobs crane and the back ramp came out nice. The game is playing really fast after the cleaning and waxing and all the coils are hitting nice and hard. Installed a dmd anti reflection shield from Comet also that works perfectly.
Finished up last night with the coil sleeve kit and adjusting all the switches and cleaning all the optos and play for about 2 hours last night, great game.
Now onto the last amigo of the 3 the top dog Totan, this one is going to cost a little but will be worth it.

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Few more pics

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Picked up a nice donor cab for the Totan restore. The real work begins now.

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Finally getting back around to the Totan. Stripped down the donor ToM cab I used Klean Strip Premium Stripper on the decals let it sit for 15min and it came off like butter. The second side I was able to just peal the whole decal off in one sheet.
Also swapped parts for fresh new brass plated parts from Chris at PinballPlating.Com parts looks great.

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Operation time!

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Well at least you would be glad to hear that I have no problem lending pins out, the JunkYard has been on loan since I finished it I think I had it for a week. I don't mind sharing my toys

Was going to try and find a new head for the Totan but no luck so far just going to try and repair the original. After I pulled off the worst part the swollen MDF back and took the decals off I think I can save it. Going to re-glue and clamp the corners tonight the follow some of Vids cabinet restore tips using resin on the top and were ever else it needs to hold it together. And cut a new back myself. We'll see how it goes.

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I thought about it but add the painted black and a silk screen back and that's over $330 before shipping at that price I'll take a new set of ramps from Starship instead, my ramps are ok but new and clear is nice.
After i stripped it down and hit the corners with glue and clamps over night it was actually pretty solid and wasn't very hard to do. MDF is cheap also 30 bucks for a sheet for the back it was easy to cut also. From the pics the VP cabs head is missing all the bits and pieces to hold in the back glass and speaker panel and all the little pieces to mount the metal backplate perfectly also so mine has it all so just went ahead and fixed it.

Does anyone sell the stencil for the warning on the back of the head I know I've seen it somewhere before if not I'll just use a decal.

Been a long time without an update on the final restoration of the trio Totan. Been wanting to tackle the playfield swap myself and the cabinet but after a recent move I'm lacking the work space right now and In the middle of other projects as well so I just decided to let a local take care of the playfield swap, dropping off the playfield and CRP Gold repro tomorrow.

The cabinet is in the air, still on the fence about just buying a completely new cabinet from Virtuapin or trying to repair the ToM cabinet I have stripped already. Of the trio the Totan of course would be well worth all the work of the playfield swap and new cabinet I would still be will under buying another fully refurbished one now for sure.

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Quick visit to perryd who is doing the playfield swap. All parts removed from old playfield and cleaning has begun, new light sockets going in on the harness. Lots of parts that surface rust already cleaned up and came out nice. Few pics from the visit

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Few more pics after today's visit and parts drop off. Most top side metal installed with no issues with the clear cracking or anything.

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Progress with the underside

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Friday evening pics of the playfield swap. Brass Parts from Pinballplating look great.

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Getting close. Found a actual Totan cab from a fellow Pinsider. Installed Mirco Radcals they look really good very shiny. Almost there can't wait till it's done.

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Should be coming home this weekend, just needed one coil for the ramp diverter. Can't wait.

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AWESOME JOB Perry! Can't wait to start playing it.

Totan was finished a few months ago the last and most intensive restore of the 3. I finally got the 3 Amigos together for a family picture
More mods to come later on Color DMD's and at some point No Fear and Junk Yard will get new cabinet decals.

They are all Flippin Stong and alive again.

There were Tokens inside them all that came from an arcade in Destin Florida called Morgan's that a friend of ours from there said had closed probably 15 years ago. So they have been in storage for some time.

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Wow now that is cool that you actually played it when it was on location. It looks like new right now, they all cleaned up great.
They are still getting shared, I've loaned out JY several times, took NF to the SFGE show in June and actually going to loan NF out this week to someone that wants to borrow it. Totan will probably get to show soon also for others to enjoy.
Our friends live in Niceville also, Destin is a Beautiful place the beaches are amazing.