Hi everyone,

I recently acquired a BTTF that I thought would be fun to share my restoration journey.

First up, getting this puppy in the house:

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Initial Observations:

1. This pin had sat for a long time and was pretty discarded from a maintenance perspective.
2. The cabinet was solid, but the paint (especially on the right side of the cabinet) was pretty roached.

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3. Great news is that it looks like everything is here!

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Although there's some screws/posts that are either missing or not correct, those items can be fixed in the shop teardown.

Other issues found:
* Battery acid on the MPU board
* Fuse clips broken on PSU board
* Right Pop bumper doesn't light or work
* Some PF wear spots (see below)
* Green circle inserts below each ramp look melted
* "A wild Williams flipper bat appears!"
* Did I mention this thing is dirty?

Prior to getting started, Lonzo did a great BTTF restoration thread that I'll attempt to follow some of his work/suggestions. Please here that here: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/back-to-the-future-restoration

Day One:

I went through the MPU board, and found that Q9 (the drive transistor for the right pop) was shorted. After replacing, I looked and indeed the coil was melted as well. It was so melted that the coil sleeve had bubbled and congealed to the coil/linkage like glue. That was fun to get out. I replaced the coil.

Also, I noticed this:

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Hooray battery acid damage. Since I'm not as experienced with clean up, I decided to replace the board with another 520-5003-03 that I purchased from a good friend and fellow pinsider. Note, BTTF is a two ROM game and there are jumper settings that need to be set when pulling boards from a one ROM game.

I pulled the PSU board and replaced some of the worn/broken fuse clips. I found the fuse ratings to be wildly off (15A fuse where a 4A should be). This makes game 9 of 9 that I have purchased that did not have accurate rated fuses in the correct places.

(No pictures here, super boring work)

I fired up the game. Everything works 100%. Noe it's time for the real fun to begin.

Day Two:

I pulled the PF and took it down into my workshop:

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This brings me to another point. I really like this rotisserie that I built from Vid's guide. The only problem I have with it is that it doesn't seem very stable/rigid if you're applying any type of force to the PF (removing parts/pieces/etc). I've seen some other rotisserie s (specifically Skypilot's one made of wood) that I may have to upgrade to in the future. However, you can't beat the price/performance of mine.

So I'm beginning the tear-down, which is going pretty smoothly until I run into this flipper bat:

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I went to war. And this flipper bat almost won.

So, I'm pretty sure this is an original bat. The hex screw holding the plunger link to the bat was SO INCREDIBLY STUCK. I attempted the following:

1. Regular hex wrench (I actually broke this in my hand from force)
2. Impact screwdriver with hex head
3. Copious amounts of WD-40 (I hate using this stuff, but it was late and impatient)
4. A butane torch direct at the compression link/screw

Nothing would make this loosen or even turn. I resorted to the Dremmel.

I cut the screw head off, then attempted to drill the hex screw out. I broke two titanium drill bits.

So, I went back to the Dremmel, and this was the aftermath:
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I have never been so angry in anything in pinball before. There will be a special place in hell for this linkage.

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So planning for the next couple of days:

1. Complete tear-down of PF. I need make a decision whether or not to remove the mylar. It's pretty cloudy.
2. To clear or not to clear. I've never done any clear coating (although I've read every thread on it). I may look into using the SprayMax solution.
3. PF touch ups. I do have an airbrush and some Creatx paint. I may try this for the first time.
4. Cabinet work. There's a lot of sanding still to come.

On order:
1. Cabinet decals
2. Pop bumper rebuilds
3. Flipper rebuilds
4. New stickers/decals for stand-up target, spinner
5. Titan pinball silicone rubbers

If anyone has any input or feedback, I'm happy to oblige.

Haha! I've never cursed out a pinball inanimate object more than that linkage (ST:TNG gun motors are a close second). My hands are so torn up.

That doesn't surprise me. I thought all flipper bats from DE had the DE on the flippers, but just wasn't 100%.

I'm pretty sure they are supposed to be white DE flipper bats. From a quick Google image search, that seems to the default.

I was told (but can't verify) that early run DE pins used a cheaper plywood for their cabs which is part of the root cause on the planking/flaking.

Weekend Update:

Lots of things are going on this past weekend, but had the chance to get some key things done:

1. Cabinet tear-down

After pulling the PF last weekend, I started the general cabinet tear-down. Nothing surprising here. Just dirty.

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Taking the rails off was fun. I'm always impressed with the double sided "tape" used on the side rails. The left one was a struggle and removed part of the plywood as seen here:

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I use a utility knife to break the seal on the tape from the rail and used a bit of force. That's the only way I can remove those without too much damage.

Speaking of a struggle to remove things. The Dremmel made another appearance this weekend. This time it's victim was a stuck nut on the leg levelers. This once even required me to make a trip to Home Depot to buy more metal cut-off wheels:

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Finally, I dropped off all the armor to my powder coat guy. It's wonderful to have a contact who lives less than a mile from you!

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2. Playfield tear-down #2

After the battle with the linkage (see post #1), I got back into the disassembly mode. Here are some picture highlights:

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One thing that I noticed is that I started finding small bits of glass. It looks like this pin suffered through a glass shatter once in its life:

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Here is some damage spots:

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From Lonzo's thread. He mentioned how his green flasher inserts were burnt. On my BTTF PF, all 4 green inserts had serious burn spots as well:

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I wonder why the green inserts suffered this fate and not red/yellow. Anyways, another thing to replace.

My final point is the mylar protector. I'm really interested in learning how to clearcoat. However I currently don't have the setup to spray. I'm going to have to decide if I want to drop the $$$ on the air compressor + tools soon. From what I have read, it's really difficult/impossible to "polish" mylar to bring back it's original shine. Below, you can see the difference:

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So now I have a decision to make.

1. Invest in clearcoating (makes the most sense).
2. Polish mylar somehow.
3. Pull mylar and replace with new mylar (worst option).

While I am working on that decision. I'll be starting on the cabinet sanding and prepping for the decals (when they make it through US Customs).

For those doing restores, two things I learned.

1. TAKE THE FLUX CAPACITOR RAMP OFF FIRST. It's somewhat difficult to do to get to the disconnects on the harness, but make this a first priority. The wire ramp may look sexy to remove first and you think life will be easier, but it is not!

2. DE was using these "pivot-only" PF rails inside the cabinet. You have to tilt the PF at 90 degrees than pull straight up. I needed an extra hand due to one of the tabs was bent slightly.

Look what showed up today!

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Yeah, it looks like one side is aligned appropriately and the other looks off.

I don't see any major pixel action up close.
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Note I took these under a low lighting condition. These are from retro refurbs.

Yeah, they may not be perfect, but they seem to be the only horse in town.

OK so some fun stuff done today on my day off:

Worked on basically completing the disassembly. A couple of hings left, but not in a hurry to remove.
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Sanding setup. I don't think DE used lead paint, but being cautious.

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After many hours of sanding with a crappy sander:

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Next up the head.

I enjoy working on pins. It's not always about the money.

Weekday work!

So, I've been struggling with what to do about the playfield. Here are some of my reasons on that sturggle:

1. The mylar is in decent shape, just a bit cloudy.
2. The problem areas of the playfield are not visible or hidden from sight.
3. I don't own the right size of air compressor, HVLP gun, HP 4670 scanner, or spray booth.

Due to the above, I've decided to move forward with the mylar and not clear coat.

I looked around the web for ways to "polish mylar" but most pople have had mixed results with that. I decided to try one of the ways I saw which was to use a "headlight restore" kit. So, I bought one off of Amazon:

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I did NOT use any of the sanding disks, but I did use the rubbing compound with the foam disk. After working over the entire playfield for 10-15 minutes, I was left with a better outcome:

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It's not perfect by any means. But I would say the cloudiness of the mylar went down by 40%. I'm sure there are those that cringe at this, however this was the means I had at this time to attempt to improve the playfield.

Here's a quick before and after when using the headlight restore kit:

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Also, tonight I decided to clean/flame polish the flux capacitor ramp. This thing was dirty:

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I started with Simple Green, but that wasn't cutting it, so I switch to Purple Power and WOW. That. stuff. rocks. It ripped through all the dirt and grease without any force at all.

Here's the cleaned and flamed polish complete:

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The difference was completely night and day. This was the first time I attempted flame polishing and although intimidating, it's rather simple to do. I used a butane torch that I purchased at Menards and just went over the ball trails (after cleaning) and watched them disappear.

Sneak peek on the powdercoating:
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Wife decided to do her own thing last night, so I had some more weekday work updates!

1. Powdercoat pickup!

Oh man, I'm excited for these. My powdercoat guy (https://www.facebook.com/jscpowdercoating/) did an amazing job on the powdercoat.

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2. Cleaning plastics

Here are some snapshots of the plastics before cleaning. It may be hard to tell but they're filthy:
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Here's the before/after to show how much filth was on these plastics:
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3. Stand up targets clean and new decals!

I went with some new cushioned decals from ebay. I also cleanedall switch contact points with DeOxit.
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4. Drop targets clean and new targets + decals!

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5. General cleaning, new flasher bulbs and comet LEDs

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Hopefully within the next week!

Hi everyone,

So it's been a while. Work was in such a frenzied pace that I've had to put off the BTTF project.

However, this week I took off from work and outside of yard work, I've been able to make some progress.

1. Tumbler time Pt 1!

I always tumble any metal that comes from the PF. For some smaller screws, I will use just the ultrasonic cleaner as well. Here's the finished PF parts after a 2 day tumble. I used crushed up walnuts shells + Flitz polish:

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2. Rebuilding Pop Bumpers

I love rebuilding pops. In my opinion, it gives you the most "bang for your buck" from the restore. If you're familiar with DE models, you'll know that they preferred the "stranded insulated wire" lamp modules over the older solid wire lamp module. In Vid's "How to Rebuild Pop Bumpers" thread (which is amazing and you should go read it), it talks about a trick that I had to use after purchasing the stranded wire lamp module.

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By using the zip tie, it give the lamp module more "strength" to stand up and fit into the recess of the pop bumper body. I did attempt not doing this trick and, well, it just doesn't work well. I could have used the solid wire lamp modules, but underneath the PF, the GI connections were so far away, I would have needed to run more wire to connect to the solid wire lamp module.

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Clean pops are the best pops.

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I'm always amazed that the different old yellowed pops look compared to the new white bodies. It really feels like the first place of the entire transformation.

3. Reassembling the playfield

Some keys points that I want to point out when reassembling any playfield is organization. I use sandwich bags to keep all my screws, posts, etc neat and tidy during disassembling, cleaning, and reassembly. The more time you take to do that, the easier reassembly will be. I also make a note during disassembly to not any broken, rusted, or incorrect parts and replace them with an ordered part. Again, one less than to worry with...

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And here's some final pics (missing flipper bats, but ready to go):

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All in all I'm happy with the playfield. Sure, there's a couple of minor issues as stated above. But, I've accepted those and now able to move the project forward.

3. Back to the Cabinet

I've really struggled with the cabinet. As stated above, I decided not to purchase an air compressor that would be needed to do 2PAC. However after some nights of research, I stumbled into the world turbine sprayers.

For someone new in the world of pinball restoration, I found this as a good alternative if you are looking to spray stains, latex, oil-based paints, and some clear lacquer. Unfortunately, these will not spray 2PAC. Since I was able to secure a turbine sprayer for $100 (1/4 the cost of the appropriate sized compressor), I decided to give this a shot.

Here's a link to the unit I bought: http://www.harborfreight.com/high-volume-low-pressure-spray-gun-kit-44677.html

More on the sprayer later. I still have more to do on the cabinet first. it was time to start sanding the head.

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After some long hours on getting that together, it was time to start the bondo process. Most of the corners were not bad. So since there were not going to be any major globs of bondo on corners, I felt relatively safe that it would hold.

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One of the largest spots was where a lock down bar bolt had once been.

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Finally, another interesting thing about the cabinet are two inserts built into the cabinet. For this I used some clear lacquer to bring them back to life after a good cleaning with naptha.

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As long as the weather holds, I'll be priming both the head and the cabinet. After drying and curing, I'll then be able to spray the cabinet with the oil-based enamel which matches the decals from Retro Refurbs.

Great idea. That may be worth doing....

Sorry for the delay. Working on a huge update coming later today!

Hi everyone!

So, it's been a while since I have been able to give an update to BTTF. I've been traveling a ton for work. Also, I've had some setbacks in the process which caused me to take a break during my last update:

1. Light board refresh

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After removing alphanumeric board, I used some Purple Power to clean most of the light board prior spraying. After cleaning, I left in all the old bulbs and sprayed multiple coats of white gloss spray paint. The best part is that I am planning to remove/dispose all the old bulbs anyways, which means I didn't need to mask any of the sockets.

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After removing all the old bulbs, here's the final light board with new flasher bulbs and LEDs.

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2. Wiring Harness Ultrasonic cleaner

I purchased a new Vevor 6L Ultrasonic cleaner to clean larger parts, including wiring harnesses. Quick note, this is probably the smallest ultrasonic clear that you can buy that will clean wiring harness. Mine barely fit into this unit.

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I pulled out all my cabinet wiring harness (which were the filthiest ones in the pin). I ran 5/1 purple power to water ratio in the cleaner. After cleaning each harness, I hung them to dry for 3 days. Here's some pictures of the harness cleaning in action:

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That's some dirty water.

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Also, larger parts (like the plunger) I went ahead and cleaned and rebuilt with new parts as well:

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I still have more cabinet parts to tumble and clean, but that's on the schedule for this week.

and now, for the most frustrating part....

3. Cabinet work

If you've followed so far, I've mentioned that doing major cabinet re-work is new for me. Well, I found out more frustrations that I needed to work through for this. So let's recap the original plan:

1. Buy this HVLP gun
2. Setup a shop to spray
3. Mask & spray primer
4. Spray oil based paint

Well, I did buy this HVLP system from HF: https://www.harborfreight.com/high-volume-low-pressure-spray-gun-kit-44677.html

I did some testing, and I can tell that I am not a fan of this system. But since I bought it, I thought I would try it on the primer.

So, here's my setup for spraying:

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During the spray, I knew this wasn't going to work out. I thought I had the viscosity nailed on the primer, but after I started spraying it, it was not going on smoothly, lots of orange peel, and all in all it sucked.

I was frustrated and had to walk away for a week to regroup....

After coming back to the project, I decided to abandon the HVLP sprayer. I went back and sanded all the old primer so I could try again. This time I settles for Killz spray primer and had a much better result:

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For the blue paint, I decided to use a very low nap mini-roller. I used some Flood to thin the paint and hide brush strokes, which did an OK job. I used two coats of blue paint before doing an overall coverage with the same blue paint in spray can form. It worked out well and I'm real pleased with the outcome

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Coming up next week are the retro refurb decal installation and the final tumble/cleaning of cabinet parts.

PS: Thanks to good friend ypurchn who helped me out with some BTTF plastics! I've got a nice Doc Brown pop bumper plastic that looks great!

Thanks Aeolus!

BTTF is an odd game. It has a low production run so game specific parts are hard to find or really expensive!

1. I did use Purple Power to clean both top and bottom of plastics. Note, PP works well for these plastics, but it does have the probability of ruining plastics (especially if the paint is compromised). I had no issues with my plastics and they all come out so much brighter.

2. For stand-up targets, I turned to PP again. The decals had taken most of the brunt but it was good to get them back clean prior to installing the new ones. A couple of Ebay sellers make repro decals that are cushioned and I went for those in the restore.

You could do that once the plastics were cleaned if you were experiencing paint loss on a plastic. Some people use Triple thick to protect backglassess from flaking.

Thanks pin64!

I should be putting on my Retro Refurb decals this week. I do agree that the blue in the decal is lighter than the original pin. However after talking to @Lonzo, it seems there were quite a different level of variations of blue for BTTF.

The blue paint below matches the R-R decals really, really close.

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Hi everyone,

A mid-week update. i talked the wife into helping me out with the decals tonight. After around 90 minutes we were able to get them on. Many thanks to my friends Jjsmooth who was able to give me some pointers on getting these on correctly. I did have a minor issue on the one side of the cabinet, but it's in the very back and not noticeable.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the decals. As I noted above, the blue is a bit lighter than the original color. However with putting in the work, I think it came out great and by matching the paint to the decals, I believe I got it as close as possible.

(Please note that it was dark outside when these pictures were taken. I'll take better ones in the light tomorrow)

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Later this week, I'll be tumbling the final parts and preparing for re-assembly!

ASSEMBLY DAY IN 90 DEGREE HEAT!

8 hours of assembling from bare cabinet to "everything but the playfield."

Here are some of the highlights:

1. Setback: Issue with metal cabinet protectors.

For whatever reason the metal cabinet protectors didn't fit on the back of the pin. So, I cut them down around 1/8 in and got them fitting much better.

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2. Backbox Assemble!

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3. Glass Testing: One thing I've learned overtime is to always check the glass and make sure it slides correctly before applying rails.

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4. Lunchtime break progress (3 hours in)

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5. Rails: After sand blasting and powdercoating, the rails were a bit warped. So, I used some trusty clamps to get them back into shape.

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The left rail needed some more "encouragement" than the right.

6. Backbox major assembly completion and the "remarriage"

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7. It's dinner time and time to stop for the day. But we got legs!

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OMG I COULD EAT INSIDE THE CAB.

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Tomorrow, dropping in playfield, the turn up, and play testing...

For fun, there's two dumb errors I made during assembly above. Let's see if anyone can guess what they are....

*Hint* check the third picture and the last picture.