I just bought a new house (well, new for me - the house is 70 years old). In the cellar there is a room with space for 6 pinball machines, or perhaps even 7, which I think is pretty neat. Now I encountered the following:

The room height is 194 cm (76 inches), which is just enough for my Jungle Lord pinball, which is the only machine I have there at the moment. However, there is one thing: I can’t lift the playfield so that it leans on the backbox, because when lifting, the top of the playfield bumps on the ceiling - there is simply not enough height in the room. This is pretty annoying, because ”leaning on the backbox” repair position is very useful when fixing upper playfield mechanisms etc. Of course I can use the basic ”car hood” repair position with the help of the machine’s metal support thing (sorry, my pinball vocabulary is clearly lacking). Unfortunately this position is pretty bad on my back when fixing upper playfield mechanisms etc.

Has anybody else had this problem? I wonder if there any tricks that could be used that are not so obvious? If I don’t figure out anything else, I’ll probably put a couple of hooks on the ceiling so that the playfield can lean on those in a much steeper position than the basic ”car hood” position. That would probably significantly reduce my problem.

Soon I’ll bring my EATPM into the room. I had to get shortened custom legs, because Elvira needs about 0,5-1 cm more room height than I have… I really hope I won’t have the same problem with Elvira’s playfield as I have with the Jungle Lord’s playfield. Unlike Jungle Lord, Elvira has hinges for lifting the playfield, and it shouldn’t require so much vertical space… But we’ll see how it goes.

Anyways, any thoughts on pinball maintentance in a room with a low ceiling would be much appreciated! Please tell me my game room doesn’t suck because of the height

Thanks for the tips!

The ceiling isn't drop tile - it's concrete. Hence I think my best option would be two install those hooks to the ceiling. Then the playfield could lean on those with a much higher angle than the basic "car hood" position. I think then it should be quite comfortable to carry out those repairs that would normally require the "leaning on the backbox" repair position.

I'll report the results here when I get those hooks installed! I became a father two months ago, thus pinball time seems to be a bit limited