We made some more good progress today. The 3 grooved outer fascia board was glued into place and clamped. Test fitted the section of ball return channel and will hopefully be gluing it into place tomorrow after test fitting the lane section in place. It has to be fitted into the machine to make 100% sure the ball return lanes meet up perfectly with the other 2 pieces.

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Believe me Ron I am way ready to be done with this project. We will be working on it again this afternoon for a couple hours but there is still quite a bit of little things yet to do. We still have have to cut 2 of the lower fascia boards that go below the 3 grooved piece that the legs attach too. As an end lane section that fascia board was only a couple feet long but now as a center lane section you have to make 2 new pieces that run the full length of the lane section (I'll take pics of exactly what i'm talking bout later).

Here we go the mystery of the tool is solved I took a picture of it today at Walmart. It is called a Tack Lifter tool and it's $2.76 in the tool aisle at walmart. I would recommend you get one it is a very handy little tool.

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Well once again we are slowly making progress on this lane extension. We were able to mock it up and put it in position. Still quite a bit more small things to do but at least it is progress. I took Clays advice and got some small angle iron to attach underneath the lane itself to keep it from ever bowing. We routed 1/4" grooves as you can see in the 3rd pic so the angle iron would recess and not make the lane section higher. Will be screwing the angle iron down to the lane later on today and crossing that off the to do list. Here is the link from Clay's site to straightening warped lanes in case anyone is interested http://www.pinrepair.com/bowl/straight.htm.

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Finished up mounting the 2 new wooden lower mounts. Had to cut these down to fit how I needed them. They are mounted to the end that had the rubber shin guard. I had to build a mounting area to support them because this end never had the brackets since it was the end piece. Stay tuned more to come !

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Again some more small progress being made. I picked up a couple boards from home depot and a few cuts later the lower side fascia are done. These will eventually get painted but right now we are only going for 100% functionality. I gorilla glue and either brad or finish nail most things but sometimes use deck screws for structural support pieces. For these fascia boards I glued and used 1-1/4 finish nails and clamped for a couple hours also.

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I finished securing the 1/2×1/2×1/8 angle iron under the lane section last night. Turned out to be more time consuming than I originally planned. I drilled the angle iron every 6" on the drill press 1st. Then pre drilled every single hole which made me nervous as hell cause I didn't want to go too deep and blow through the laminate on top.

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Since I wanted each lane section to have its own piece of wiring harness I searched ebay and found the original stayle plugs. Definitely a little pricey for 2 lousy little plugs but i'm a stickler for keeping things as true to original as possible. Now as soon as they arrive I will solder on the wires and have an unhacked section of wire harness.

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Too much hard work involved to not try as hard ss possible to make it 100% as correct as possible. Ultimately this harness will only see the light when it's taken apart so it's not imperative but it is the right thing to do for me personally. Mopar sent me some great instructions how to do it if I couldn't find these plugs and I would have went that route if needed be.

Thanks Ron and everyone else who has chimed in with the kind words and positive reinforcement. I know I have said it before but damn for something that looks so easy this truly has been quite challenging. Still a ways to go but definitely in the home stretch now and the light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter. If all goes right I will hopefully be able to report a structurally complete project by the end of the week. Again I said Structurally not Cosmetically complete that will come later. Like you stated Ron, I have been waiting patiently to roll the ball 19.5ft but my patience is about up

Heres a little teaser. Got some tweaking to do but this is the new center section butting up to the rear section. So close now I can almost hear that Strike bell dinging in the backbox

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Not a whole lot to report but I did resolve my issue of the lanes not butting completely up to each other. I had to drill the hole that the alignment pin slides in another inch and a half out. Also had one of the long 2 foot securing bolts that had a slight bend which was giving me fits. It wouldn't line up with the hole on the bracket of the other lane piece but I eventually got it in by twisting it round and round with some pliers. I also have not secured the lane top yet I just set it on the frame to see how it aligned. My plugs for the wiring harness have been delayed now till saturday apparently due to a hurricane. I can only go a little further as there isn't much left to do. I cannot secure the lane sections together until the new wiring harness gets built. Once it gets built I will secure the lanes together and glue in the last section of ball return lane. After final adjustments to where the lane sections meet I will tack in the new ball return lane rubber that my man RonSS hooked me up with. The end of the road to this project is clearly in sight now.

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I can't wait to share that moment with everyone who has followed me on this project. I hope it will be as rewarding for everyone else as I know it will be for me.

What a silly question big fella. The real question is will there be bowling involved with my bourbon drinking?

I would really love to find something like this that Clay posted 6yrs ago over in the neon signs thread. Decorating will come next I need a break after being consumed with this project since Easter of 2020. I did find an original sales flyer for my machine that I still have to frame and hang. I want to decorate my bowler area as tastefully as possible while including some eclectic and unique pieces as well.

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Well I had to amend my plans. In order to align everything I had to glue in the final piece of ball return lane in 1st. The last and final piece of structural functionality is now complete. All thats left is to level the lane pieces and swap out the way they secure to the frame pieces. Anyone who owns one of these knows the way they mounted the lanes to the frame sections sucked. You have a screw with rubber washer that goes tbrough a metal sleeve leaving onky a quarter inch of thread to attach it. This is almost always stripped out which causes people to remove the metal sleeve and inevitably poke through the formica top. I took this idea from pinballrepair.com of using threaded wood inserts into the lane section which then allows you to use a machine screw to secure tbe piece to the frame. I will be getting to those and building the new wiring harness in a few days. Mailman just showed up with my new plugs to make the wiring harness 2 days earlier than expected so I now have everything I need to finish this up. Got to take the next 3 days off this project but will be finishing it up nxt week for sure. Also I wasn't 100% clear the whole machine will be 19.5ft long but the lane section will be 17.5ft cause I know someone will ask. Making good progress for now check back nxt week. Stay tuned!

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NOS plugs to make my new section of plug and play wiring harness.

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I just feel like you have to have some to complete the whole theme

Gotta take a few days off the project I pulled a muscle in my back splitting some wood and it is setting me back on everything. As soon as I can I will get back to this and post some positive progress.

Hey Dan feel free to post a pic of your machine with that new backgkass in it. I'm just really glad I could help someone else who was in need of something I had laying around. When I get this project all wrapped up I want to post each backglass and lower backglass to the whole community. I'm only keeping a few for wall art and would love to be able to find some others who could use 1 of these that I have.

Not much I can do with an injured back but I did manage to get the inserts set into the new lane section. Did have to make 1 adjustment but everything eventually lined up and I got the lane section secured to the frame.

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No pics cause you wouldn't be able to see anything but I got all the lane sections all installed back on their frames. This was a big pain in the ass trying to get all the pieces to almost the same level. I say almost the same level because you have to have the next piece slightly below the 1st piece so the ball doesn't hit the edge and crack the formica. So it's essentially a descending pattern starting at the 1st joint all the way down to the pins. Now that is done I will be working on the main wiring harness today since the most of the parts finally showed up in the mail yesterday. There is also a small 3 wire harness that I have to make but those connections are still in the mail. Hopefully they will be here in next couple days and I can knock that out and be done. Man I am just ready to be rolling some games here and put this project in the finished for now category. Finished for now because the next chapter will be a complete refinishing job. I am about as artistically inclined as a pile of rocks so not looking forward to that. Also not sure if this guy is a pinsider but I stumbled on his page where he refinished his bowler and it is such a beautiful job. https://www.petesgameroom.net/1964-united-matador-ball-bowler/

Well this is definitely a good day. I just finished up soldering the new plug on the wiring harness and it is now finished. Now as soon as the other connectors show up I will knock that out and then bolt these lane sections back together. Not even sure what the hell this 3 wired plug does really I know it goes to the coinbox so could have something to do with the credits.

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Had a small setback that cost me a couple days on my main wiring harness. I had it all finished and installed and nothing happened. I finished fabricating the 2nd smaller 3 wire harness and installed it and still nothing. After scratching my head and my ass for a while I went over my work 1 final time. Ahhh ha bingo! The wires for the new plug were supposed to be soldered into it counter clockwise and I put them in clockwise. This obviously reversed every wire and so I had to cut them all and resolder all 10 in the correct pattern. Hallelujah it works!! The plug has 11 pins but only uses 10 so there is a blank hole. I put the blank hole in the wrong spot it should have been 1 position to the right but it's all good. Now I just have to staple down the new ball return lane rubber and attach the 3 lane sections together.

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Just goes to show why you should never get in a hurry and rush. Now I just need to put in an order for some of these tshirts so I will be ready for our maiden game

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Here yeh here yeh!!!

Thanks Dan. Crazy how much it changes the game. I jave been waiting till this was all said and done to break out the new balls also. Big thanks to Mopar for hooking me up with these months ago. Time to put these bad boys out into service.

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It is really hard to describe actually. The length is entirely one seperate issue from the new balls. The length really makes it feel like real bowling. The new balls are just absolutely amazing they are so quiet and smooth its just crazy.

Thank you. I'm really glad I could do something that others were interested in and followed me through the process and kept up the encouraging words.

Well its official I still am not any good even with the addition. It is super fun though but I can tell you I am definitely going to have to make sure it is leveled better. I have found some shots are much tougher to make now because the angles have changed but damn it is so much more fun. Don't want to sound like a broken record either but these new balls are just amazing. I can't imagine not keeping much better balls in thr machine as these get worn out also