Had no stainless spares laying around, so I had a roached DE bar that I had stripped and powdercoated dark blue along with the legs. I love the look of it, and I'm not big on powdercoating matching trim work. I would never do the coin door or siderails. If you want a pic, LMK.

Where is everyone buying flipper rebuild kits from? It seems the kits i bought from pinball life for my Seawitch 4-5 years ago are already starting to wear out. I began noticing at some point the flippers weren't moving back to their resting position sometimes. After trying a bunch of stuff, i swapped over the flipper mechs from my Nine Ball and that fixed the problem. Not sure if anyone else has had this experience with pinball life flipper rebuilds for these games, but it seems like a fairly short life span for the parts. Maybe that's par for the course these days, though.

I rebuilt my Big Game flippers 5 years ago and haven’t had to touch them since. Maybe one of the coil stops, but that’s it.

Pinball life for me too.

If you don't already know Pinball Life have complete Stern Flipper assembly's available now.

https://www.pinballlife.com/full-flipper-assembly-for-classic-stern-machines-031980-to-021982.html

Thanks man, I would love to see a picture. I checked your website yesterday looking for the part haha. Feel free to PM or email [email protected]

Thank you.

Coil Stops and plungers are about the only items that can wear out. Plungers take a lot of impact; They are going to mushroom at the tip and my opinion is that the shaft diameter can get larger by teeny tiny amounts, too. They are not the hardest of metals. Coil stops also take a lot of impact. You can file them down but it changes flipper travel.

It sounds like you have been playing your Seawitch a lot.

Well, i gotta say that's definitely the case .

I'm gonna go ahead and order new plungers and stops. It'll save me a few bucks instead of getting the complete rebuilds.

Thanks for the responses!

Oh, it's not for sale. It's on my personal Seawitch.

Seawitch Trim (resized).JPG

That blue does not look bad. I am a bling type guy but that blue ain't looking bad at all.

Oh yeah I just wanted to see how it looked. That does look nice thank you.

Anyone want a free catacomb Backglass?

5E49CF32-30AE-496D-B6DF-18292979FB61 (resized).jpeg

I have one like that. And just like mine the best part is still there.

It’s a wall hanger for sure

The PBL flipper kits seem to get magnetized really easily. At this point I recycle other copper coil stops from the pop bumpers and put the steel ones there; a long time ago Marco was selling a plunger that was correct (it was some gottlieb part for about $2) but they're sold out. PBR had some links on their specials page and I bought a pile of those.

Not sure what's up with the PBL kits but there's something off on them - slam tilt was talking about having to drill new holes in the plate as it was in the wrong spot.

I'm not one to do this at all. In fact, this and an ALI that we had, were the only two games where I had the lockdown bar and legs powdercoated a specific color. I really like how the blue turned out on the one on Seawitch. One thing that I will never do is get the siderails and door powdercoated. That's too over-the-top for me.

Doesn't anyone sell the links anymore? We have a pile of unopened bags from Wico. I use them when I end up using stock flippers on my personal Sterns. I forget where I pull the plungers from.

Yep, I used the PBL kits to rebuild all 4 on Lightning. I kept having an intermittent problem where the lower left flipper would not always return. Drove me crazy for about a month. Finally realized the holes in the coil stop bracket were slightly off. I just installed the original coil stop back in and zero issues since. Thankful that I didn't throw the old ones away.

Those has been sold. I lined up a pretty nice Big Game project at Coin-op Warehouse and it is paid in full waiting to be picked up. I lined up something else and will let it go for any interested party. I have the pics from Coin-op that I can share. $1450 PP friends and family.

So, had a question from Stu at CPR, as he works on the artwork for the Lectronamo plastics.

The upper arch plastics were used in about a half dozen games during that era, which is why the colors don't completely match the game.
He was asking if the community would like to make a color change on the top two arches, to substitute orange for the blue, in order to better match the other plastics in the game. Figured I'd throw the idea out and see what you guys thought.

-Hans

question on faceted post heights!

I'm restoring a Dracula and about a 1/2 of my posts (faceted or otherwise) are broken or otherwise maligned and needing replacement. Is there any FUNCTIONAL reason to use the 1-3/16 posts in this game? I'm thinking to just replace everything with the 1" posts - is there any good reason not to do this?

Thank in advance.

Well if I'm hearing you correctly you might not have clearance for the plastics since the smaller posts go under them + a screw on top

ahh yes. i was simplifying my description but i was thinking of using the 1" faceted posts with a washer (1-1/16" total) across the board and using whatever shorter spacer height is needed so the other posts sit under the plastics.

From what i can tell there is clearance enough with the non-negotiable top-of-playfield stuff like the slingshots, drop targets, and stand-up targets.

Or maybe I'm just being silly and I should go original. In general i like the plastics lower because then there are less "bare bulb in eye" moments.

Fair as I use LEDs, but will put incandescent in when it's in your sight line.
Maybe you're not being silly at all, maybe just try it and see. Anything that will take down the number of "Hey can someone tell me where the short posts go on my machine" is fine by me

Be ready to maybe take a hit, literally, on your plastics though if they're lower. More of a chance they could get hit but I don;t watch games in super slow mo so no idea what it really looks like.

I just use LEDs and paint the side of the bulb that is in your line of sight.

I went with the shorter posts on one of my Sterns. I have not had any issues at all.

Can anyone with a Dracula post pics of what the eject hole and posts are supposed to look like? This area on mine wasn’t populated when I bought it, but I do have the plastic for it

Three tall round white posts. The ball is supposed to be able to go between them.
Check the game flyer.

Thanks, i didn't think of checking the flyer!

A little info here:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/looking-for-part-for-post-sleeve-on-stern-dracula#post-3920288

https://images.pinside.com/0/99/93/09993d95a26998c7e91b95a55a324f51a2f5e5bb.jpeg
https://images.pinside.com/3/77/c5/377c5a6e79d937ff6328c0a36dc3d2cd69903c2e.jpeg

This tube from Marco looks like it might work. YOu would have to call and get the dimensions to be sure.

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/03-8298

listed on eBay Germany.....

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Flipperautomat-Stern-QuickSilver-1986/113866711491?_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20160908105057%26meid%3D99f52069a57143018d4603598acea92e%26pid%3D100675%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D15%26sd%3D113866711491%26itm%3D113866711491%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2481888&_trksid=p2481888.c100675.m4236&_trkparms=pageci%3A292f2038-c933-11e9-a534-74dbd180b290%7Cparentrq%3Ad5d6c66916c0a4d0c4f3da14ffe1f4b1%7Ciid%3A1

So stoked on this

2B5D8A44-BF16-4B6F-A563-484823FF1C8D (resized).jpeg

Used to be 'ya couldn't spit and not hit a galaxy.
Now where are they?

-Nice "outer space" trio btw.

Galaxy was always the "turn it over at will" game.... so I decided to make it really, really, hard, as in hair tilt, bottom guides turned around so you hit rubber (down the middle!), pull the outlane posts. Now, I don't get anywhere near 800k even.

I only bought it as a package deal to get Stargazer... fully planned on selling the galaxy but ended up keeping it. Seller wanted to move both games I knew at the time Galaxy would be a tough sell for him so I made sure I got there early and bought both... he got multiple (higher) offers on the SG but no one else wanted the galaxy....

I think I actually have all of the stern outer space games, stars, meteor, galaxy, flight 2000.... did I miss any? I guess Orbitor 1 - I don't miss that. If I had space for 229 games, one would be an Orbitor, but not before that.

I suppose Nine Ball might count?

I have a Nugent in storage that is missing the lockdown bar receiver. There is a local collector offering a free receiver, and thinks it’s for early classic Sterns but isn’t sure. Before I do the three hour round trip can someone confirm that the receiver in the picture will work in my Nugent? Thanks

173DEBFF-7757-4EBF-A7DD-2C5FF8F05985 (resized).jpeg

Nice line-up. How do you rank them? My rank is Stars, Meteor, Galaxy with Stars in front by a bunch.

Ha...that's a very fair and confusing point indeed. We'd probably like to just say wizard stuff...but very spacey on the PF for sure.

Doesn’t look like a stern receiver to me.

Agreed. That isn't a Stern receiver.

I will third that notion, it looks like what I bought from a collector hoping for it to fit Orbitor, it did not. I think they're old Williams lockdowns truthfully

Side note: Does anyone have a recommendation on a speaker to put into my Orbitor 1 build? I just wanna buy a new one and not sure what will work

That is not a Stern receiver. The locking lever looks like Gottlieb wedge head to me.

I think it is a Williams part.

That is a WMS receiver.

Still battling airballs from my seawitch center drop bank. I put it new drops and a new rubber and it still occasionally flies up. Looking at this is the rubber at about the appropriate level? Just higher than the center of the ball? Should I try mounting the drops farther back so there's less space between them and the rubber? There isn't a lot of play in the mechs or the posts but I can try to justify them together as much as the screw holes allow. The drops are about exactly level with the PF.

20190829_120518.jpg

20190829_120531.jpg

Don't move your drops. You don't have that much room; Too far back and they might not drop at all.

Get 4 of the shorter posts ( there is room for the shorter posts) ; get a piece of .020 poly/Lexan and make a deflector plate that kicks out about 1.5 to 2 inches.

It is almost like your flipper is too strong.

Thanks everyone. The search continues

You get airballs from the lower flippers or the upper left one? The upper left one is supposed to have a resistor to drop its strength way down - and cause a nice burn mark under the playfield. Much better way to reduce its power is to have the end of stroke switch open up WAY earlier.

I don't get the crazy airballs on mine that people see to get necessitating the protector on the plastic behind the flipper. I think ONCE a ball went up there in over 15 years of ownership??