Good luck dude....hope it works out for yaa....any of those prices are fair.....offer a tad lower as that's how I roll on CL.......bumper could just need an adjustment...............Joey

Not a bad price but check the boards for corrosion, like Breaking dad said they may never have opened the machine that includes changing the batteries! I doubt its huo it has ALOT of coinslot wear. This is irrelevant though with the condition of the game that you stated and in no way should affect the price.

Hey man, so first of all welcome to the forum! This forum is full of some seriously knowledgable people that have been dealing fixing, modding, maintaining and in some cases building machines from scratch! So basically, you are in the correct place for all things pinball. If something goes wrong on your machine somebody will know the problem and be more than happy to help you fix it. Some great stuff here!
Anyway, I'm here in Vegas also and I've been looking at that F-14 ad for a couple weeks now also! Pins don't last long on CL here in Vegas compared to other places I've noticed. So when I see this F14 still for sale I've suspected something was up with it. The pics of it look great and from what you describe the mechs work and all the lights work which is very good. Lots of cosmetic issues on the cab and playfield glass but thats not a big deal at all. Throw a new sheet of glass on and youre good. The pop bumper not working will be an easy fix cause its only one so it means its JUST that one, not a whole string of coils basically (someone correct me if my logic is wrong). Adjusting/replacing switches is super easy, and so is bulb replacement. It sounds like the machine works 100% which is PERFECT for a first machine as it works great and you just need to maintain it at this point.
On to the bad, The mylar is notorious for bubbling up on F-14 on the inserts. It always happens. And forget about peeling up the mylar on a system 11 machine. You will do FAR MORE damage from what I understand to the playfield than it currently has. The bubbles affecting play is no good at all sooooo not sure if a playfield swap would be in order, or pull the mylar and hope for the best?? I'm sure someone will chime in with some f14 input. The excessive playfield wear looks bad yes but usually can be touched up enough to get it playing good again at least. So basically the mylar issues are the major problems. Oh and I would offer $700-800 at the most. It is a working System 11 and an awesome title. F14 rocks. Hope this helps, I am still very new to the hobby and I hope someone will correct me or add anything that I missed or am wrong about haha. Good luck man pinball is awesome!

I recently breathed life into a ran down F14 (paid $1200 and spent another $1000 on it, at least). I took the plunge and removed the mylar and corrected some inserts. It came of quite alright and only took some letters of the inserts with it. There are no new F14 playfields, what you buy is what you get. Playfield wear in the kickback, loop and shooter lane is common. The shooter lane damage is fixable with some wood putty on the rails and new vinyl. Mine has this too but I can't care less, I want a good player F14 and I'll just keep the playfield waxed and I'll enjoy it for years to come, hoping there will be a replacement playfield down the road or pickup a HUO on a garage sale (yeah right).

As with all pinball machines you should focus on the machine unique parts, those are hard to come by. Flippers, bumpers, slinghots and other non-unique parts could be missing all completely. Don't judge a machine by having "strong flippers", it's a $20 fix.

F14 is a hard machine when setup properly. I bought one now because I couldn't afford to play it when I was a kid. I'm still working on mine but is very near completion (it's playable). I'm thinking that if you get skilled and can play F14 with full control, you can do anything.

Great first pin. Yes it's hard, but that's what keeps you coming back for more. Never get bored of it.

You should find the app to level it properly and then see how it plays after that.

Yeah pretty much it's perfect for training . Other pins can seem slow after long periods on this.

They will not get it playing like it does in real life. Waste of time, don't bother.

Well , with those minor issues it won't take much time or $ to fix, clean up , new mylar.

It sounds like a good players machine to me from description, you have also played it.

If they ask $995 for it I wonder why you haven't got it yet? It looks like an absolute bargain to me.

Here's a picture how my PF after the mylar came off: https://instagram.com/p/1EuU4JDWHg/?taken-by=dri374 As you can see, some insert top coat along with the print came off . Removing mylar can be quite difficult, I used upside down compressed air and it's a work of art how to rip it off cleanly. The glue was sticky as f**k on this one and I think half a bottle of wildcat went into it.

Here's another picture of the upper playfield: https://instagram.com/p/2NVCPIDWNT/?taken-by=dri374 You don't really notice the shitty inserts once you put something glittery things above it.

I also added color matching LEDs (Comet non-ghosting clear dome) in all inserts and it gives the machine a good sting, the light show on this pin is beyond anything else from the same era (). I kept incandescent bulbs in the GI for now, I'm still on the fence on that.

Don't worry about peeling stickers, those can be easily reproduced.

F 14 is a ton of fun and always has you coming back for more! You always want to play one more game. I'd say $850-950 you'd be looking pretty good, I picked up an F 14 about a year ago and am still having a lot of fun with it. F 14 also makes good trade bait and sells easily if priced reasonably should you want to move it along in the future. I say take the plunge and put in an offer!

If you can find a way to get in the backbox and verify there is no battery corrosion I would buy it. There is a lock on the head that has to be unlocked before you can lift the backglass up and remove it. If the owner doesn't have the key to the backbox look inside the coindoor, there is almost always a hook with a backbox key on it here.

Seriously try to get that backox open. If the batteries have leaked all over the board that's no Bueno. Gets pricey quick trying to fix/restore/replace boards. It's pretty easy to get it open. Hopefully he has the key that goes right above the back glass. Then just lift out the glass and set aside, then lift and release the little silver latch on the right hand side and then the backboard SHOULD swing out o the way haha. Sometimes it takes a little lifting/wiggling on my system 11 Pool Sharks as well.

I would offer them $900 PRONTO. Why: It's not far off from their price, and if someone is absolutely dying for F-14 nearby they may snatch it up at the asking price with no question before you can even close the deal.

My other thoughts, overall it isn't terrible. If it is booting and running, well - you know corrosion hasn't damaged board (at least not enough to kill it) if the batteries are still onboard and leaking. Get them offboard right away and clean up any corrosion if they have started to leak. The mylar bubbling is fixable by careful removal, but if the inserts are raised under that mylar you are going to have a lot more work to do.

F-14 can get you angry. Got to have the tilts a little loose to save those screamers STDM. Yagov will throw the ball over your flippers just as the flight insurance expires. DIE! ...then you beat him back with a right handed backhand shot careening the ball off the backside of the the upper right flipper to enter that multiball mode with fireworks of red white and blue, sirens and music. What's not to love?

A rather broad statement since there are a lot of electronics in the backbox. Since it plays...that in itself speaks volumes. I'm not saying it won't need work to make it reliable (power supply filter cap comes to mind, for example)

Mylar is fixable. Tricky, but fixable. Leveling inserts - that's a wayyyy bigger deal. You need to be able to run your finger on the mylar bubbles to figure if the inserts are raised (or depressed) underneath. That's the difference in whether I would offer $900 or not, probably shoot a little lower out of the gate with my offer if I had to do repair the inserts as well as the mylar.

I understand your caution, but I feel the price is probably within the ballpark for the stated condition. If you like F-14 and are not afraid of doing some work, shoot a reasonable offer out that isn't a low ball. If you wait too long you may miss the chance entirely. The worst they could do is not respond with a counteroffer.

Ugh, this thread is a MESS.

Sounds like the game has been ridden pretty hard for a "1-owner game".

Do not buy the game until you get the backglass off and inspect the boards.
I did this once. Learn from my mistake.

Personally I would save up a couple hundred bucks and find a nicer example around $1,200-1,300. If you really think you're gonna put in the effort to remove the mylar and fix any damaged inserts, paint, etc then it's not a bad deal.

I hate to be a butt-head but the facts are few, the questions are many, you have received good sound information from knowledgeable F14 owners, the pictures in the listing are not very good, the "issues" you state you are worried about are extremely minute, the coversations are going in circles, and for this area almost any working half decent F14 is worth at least 1k.
HUO - with the issues listed and the drill hole I doubt it. Yeah maybe they bought it new but replaced all the electronics (huh, why) and not BG keys...yeah right.
If there is no chevrons broken or lifting the pf is in pretty great shape, the cab looks extreme nice, appraised(?) if it was really appraised by someone other than their neighbor it would have a listing at a much higher price. I guess I should just let it go...
Like I said, take the good advice you have received and make a decision. For your area and CA that is a real deal at the list price...

F-14s in good shape are 1200-1400. 900 sounds fair, just buy it and figure it out. all F-14 inserts have issues and removing the mylar can cause more issues than what you start with.

-c

Electronics fail. You really don't know what was replaced...and don't worry if boards don't "look new".. Old boards can run fine, an old board can be replaced with a new original board - and still "look old". Mine had a new Rottendog power supply board in it and Pinscore displays, I consider those huge positives in terms reliability. In this case, with the game running, I highly doubt the boards are anything close to trashed. I've bought Bally games with DEAD boards in them. You might have to relocate batteries and clean some surface corrosion, repair some connectors and replace some power supply parts - all typical servicing to bring a game up to reliable play around this price point. If there was no boot up and corrosion, I'd factor in the cost of a replacement CPU board, I don't think you'll find that the case here.

Good luck man! Let us know!! And with BETTER pics if you get it hahaha!

You might have waited too long. Don't sweat it, the next time you'll just be more prepared to make a timely decision.

That thing is looooooong gone.

I think that was a routed game, I think the holes in the front are from a coin box lock bar

Usually Gotta jump quick on the deals.. Interesting that it sat so long though on cl before just dissapearing in the last 24hrs while you considered it.

Future reference opinion -- I wouldn't split hairs over a couple hundred dollars of parts and a little work. On the other hand (for me at least) play field wear is hard to fix correctly and swaps are either expensive and time consuming or impossible if none are available.you could certainly pull the Mylar and touch up and re Mylar over the touch-up or just live with any art loss but if you like fixing things it's hard not to start to throw more time and money into the project then you meant to..

FYI on the key issue as well -- I had a sys11 with same issue. Key was just sticky and you had to really push it in for it to engage all the way and release the lock on the bg completely.

Enjoy! See above post about key. And good luck with Mylar removal -- hope it's a success!

Congratulations! I think you got a nice machine at a fair price. My advice is before you start on the cosmetic work, assess the electronics health thoroughly.
Get a DMM.
Read thoroughly the repair docs online (especially section
Before turning on the game for the first time)
http://techniek.flipperwinkel.nl/wms11/index1.html
http://techniek.flipperwinkel.nl/wms11/index2.htm
http://techniek.flipperwinkel.nl/wms11/index3.htm

Have fun, kill Yagov!

I second Way Outs sentiments. Game does not look all that bad. Price seemed reasonable enough. The hole in the front of the cabinet is not unusual. Mine had the same thing. Filled it with wood putty and color matched the red. Not so bad. Question though...If it was HUO, why the need for a lock down bar?? Unless it came from the dealer with that already installed. Who knows/cares. Enjoy getting it dialed in.

G

Congratulations. You got a working f-14 for $900 bucks. That's plenty good. Now you can have a blast. If you want to enjoy it, just wipe it down and play it for a few days. Get to know the little issues. Then you can tear it down and really clean a it up nice!

Treat your self to about $25 bucks worth of handy items. Some Novus 2, new pinballs, replace burned out lights with cheap incandescents (with the power off!) and a cheap screwdriver that reverses with the built in 1/4 socket.

Have fun!

Yup, same thing here. Little wood putty and match the color, good to go. If you think about it, pinball 30 years ago was mostly commercial, not likely a very high percentage of games went directly to personal use...not like today. Most games were made to be on route and make money. The high volume of F-14's production is not because everyone wanted one in the home, but because F-14 was making people money.

Regardless if routed or HUO, the condition of the game is all the matters. It could be in mint condition with lockdown bar holes, or it could have a playfield worn to the wood and no lockdown bar holes. Play on.

Boooo. Don't do that. LEDs will correct for washed out lenses, and give you all the benefits of low power consumption, immunity to vibration (no filaments) and longer lifespan...and they simply look killer in this game with all the flash lamps

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I agree 100%. My suggestion was for a cheap and fast start to enjoying the game.

Good. I was just running a sanity check for ya, Nevus.