I've had my game since around '97. It was one of the games used in PAPA at my old employer, and through a rather long and karma-involved story I was able to add it to my collection.

As of right now, the playfield is out of the game and stripped of just about everything except T-nuts. As I was taking this apart, I could tell that unlike a lot of folks here - I'm a player, not a collector. I'm ashamed to say it was horribly dirty. I've cleaned it in the past, but I can honestly say that the playfield has never been completely stripped before. This if the first time since the playfield was assembled back at the WMS factory, heh.

The wiring harness needs to be sorted out, and the assemblies will need to be gone through and cleaned. I'll be doing that while the playfield is off getting restored.

Overview of the playfield, front and back -
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(Ignore the traffic signal supporting the PF up..)

When the decision was made to change the location of the 'Gumball' light, they scraped off the light insert. Now, it's as much of a guess to me as to why they didn't stick the 'Spiral' decal on the insert, like other samples -
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As you can see in the following pics, the printing registration was out of alignment with the cutting, as most of the holes aren't centered..
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..Now, it's off to the playfield restorer!

So while I was sorting through stuff, came across two different hex screws.

Anyone have size for the smaller brass-toned one on the left?

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Yup! Figured that out as I was taking things off. The silver ones are just long enough to poke through the top of the field.

Ah thanks!

So I finally finished with the playfield and the mini-playfield. They got shipped out to *try* to get restored. However, they may be regulated to wall art if they're too far gone.

The playfield is extra soft - a problem at TAG, apparently. Some examples -
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The first picture is the top metal post on the left slingshot. It's hard to tell, but the full post was driven down into the playfield about 1/8" inch. Likely the post kept appearing to be loose, and instead of checking it, I tightened the nut - which drove the post down farther. The second picture is of the post between the two 5-Mil targets just below the hitchiker entrance. When I removed the post, it was at about a 25-degree angle back because the wood was compressing and splintering away. Then you can also see the ball drop around the switch mask - how compressed in it is.

The playfield is going to *the* professional, and if it CAN be fixed, it will be expensive. But since the game is mine, and won't ever be sold, I'm willing to put the money into repairing this field.

Over the last few weekends, I've also been working on the cabinet. Again, since the game isn't going to be sold and remain in my collection, I'm not going for "CQ" or "HUO", or perfection. The upper insides of the cabinet were scraped up something bad due to lifting the playfield up, so I had to repaint the insides.

I also had to re-tighten the cabinet - over the many years, the left side of the cabinet had bowed out, the glue on the transformer supporting plank had broken free. So I had to get a pipe clamp and get some wood glue in the supporting board and tighten the cabinet back up. (I also added some screws into both boards, to prevent future 'spreading'.

I painted the top insides of the cabinet, but I selected flat-black, and I'm not happy with the final result. I will likely repaint it using the recommended satin that I saw referenced in another thread. (I saw that AFTER I painted, of course. D'oh.)

Some befores -
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After spraying the flat black, starting to put the transformer and power panel in -
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So, despite being more of a 'refresh' than a restoration, progress is slow. Biggest reason is house issues (finally getting it over to my name..) and the two jobs.

Went over the solenoid wiring harness, and found some interesting things I'd make note of here. Curious if my game was 'hacked' at the factory.

First, and least interesting is the harness plug for the (lower) right magnet. Like all magnet plugs, it's the three-pin 0.62" Molex plug with the power/driver in pins #1 and #3. However, pin #2 has a reverse pin (male, as opposed to female) and snipped wire leading from it:
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Second, and the strangest, is the power feed to the Gumball motor board (Motor EMI Board Assy). The plug going to the board has Blue-Grey (driver) in pin 1. This is correct. However, it then has Grey-Yellow (+12vdc) in the center pin, pin 2. This is supposed to be a Key (no connection) pin. Then, the wiring harness had a jumper wire from the Power Payoff flasher feed (+20v) to the EMI board, pin 3. The wire was poorly snapped down into the IDC connector, and the board is marked +12v on pin 3. Evidently, the motor was originally going to be a +12v version, but it was upped to +20v, apparently. (I'm also wondering what other sample games have here - if they're like mine..)

Finally, my 8 High-Power Driver board had (of course) the 6th position populated for the upper right magnet. However, the 7th position was also filled at one point, though no wiring is in place for it.

Chris has the playfield, and is going through it. Interestingly (and I didn't notice this when I shipped it to him), my skill shot scoop hole has wear on *2* sides of it? How the hell did the wood get worn on the inside edge? The welds are fine (I checked), and no balls ever drop there (it's under a plastic..!) .. That just amazes me how soft this playfield was..
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Thanks guys. Yeah, the wear is really strange - since I'm the only owner after the arcade - where I was tech - it's possible that over the years there was a screw there. I just don't remember.

My game was delivered to the arcade with the magnet and all optos installed. What it didn't have - and what I found the part number for and ordered from my diet was the door flasher board.

Two pics, as I did a little miscellaneous things today

Did a good and full wipe-down of the speaker panel, and got a pic of the PAPA sticker on it from when it was a PAPA game back in '93 -
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And then had to do a little rewiring/wiring cleanup and cleaning of the metal autofire cage. This shows the two optos in use down there..
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Last two pics for today (mainly because not much noticeable progress was made - all cleaning and patching wires)..

Have to get a new trough ball guide. I was extremely surprised at the dent in this. The kicker? The ball never hits this with any strong strength. As far as I can figure, this happened over the 21 years with the ball being kicked out of the trough, into the autofire diverter, which then flexed and bounced it back into the corner here before rolling into the autofire kicker. Wow.

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Playfields got back last week from HEP!

Yesterday was spent reassembling the mini Power playfield, and today was spent mostly getting the playfield rails from TaylorVA on and the slide latches on.
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This is an early sample game. Along the spiral inserts, it IS red, not 'pink'.
Sample differences include -
Artwork around the upper right magnet
More green around the left ramp.
Artwork circled around unused post above upper right flipper
Blank 'SPIRAL' insert
Green 'LOCK' insert

Okay! Things have started. Put down the lamp & GI wiring first, screwed down sockets. This was yesterday's progress:
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Today I was able to get a little more done - switch harness is starting to go on, and other items at the low end of the playfield have been installed:
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Today's progress was stunted, unfortunately, as I had some heavy metal delivered that took up a LOT of time today. Two loads of 112 -thousand pounds of iron:
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--Mike

A lot more stuff mounted. Have to put an order in tomorrow for about $250 of small stuff.

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Hah - no. (If I were to use THAT iron, the rotisserie would weigh 300lbs..!)

I wasn't going to make one, for a couple reasons - first, I'm pretty much all alone reassembling this - if I were to mount everything on the playfield on a rotisserie, then it'd weigh too much for me to get into the cabinet. Also, since this it the only time I plan on doing this kind of strip/reassemble, so spending the time and $ - when added to the previous reason - wouldn't be worth it.

Sure!
I've been keeping track so far, including money spent.

The one thing I mentioned elsewhere - I'm doing 90% of this from memory. Due to an idiot mistake on my part, I deleted my stripping pictures, so have nothing to go on reassembly. Luckily, I've been working on TZ's since they were made, and have had this one since '95, so that has helped a lot.

Does he have pics of disassembly and such? Wasn't aware of that! So far, I haven't had many issues, but next is the coil assembly harness, and that will likely take the longest to go through.

Interesting - as I've been reassembling this game, I've been wishing I had large-view pictures - moreso than close-ups. (I mean, if I HAD the close-ups..) In a couple of instances, I coulda have used a full-shot, showing the location of a few things.

Finished the switch harness(*) and the solenoid harness. The coil harness took a looong time, as in the last 22 years many cuts were made (replacing coils, etc) so I had to patch some wires in places. Luckily, most of the colors I needed I had. In a few cases I didn't though, but it blends nicely.

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One of the wires I had to patch in was the +20v flasher feed. Apparently, the original design had +12v going to the gumball motor, not +20v. The 3-pin plug to the motor EMI board is *supposed* to be Driver, Key, +20v. Mine has Driver, +12v, +20v. The +20v was added at a later time, with a wire cut across the playfield to the power payoff flasher. I went ahead and routed it properly in the coil harness this time.

(*) One of the things I have yet to do on the switch harness is connect up the target switches. I plan on installing small molex connectors so that they can be disconnected more easily.

Ah, forgot to mention - Pop Bumpers aren't done yet. I'm holding off on those for now.

I've pretty much done all I am going to do to the cabinet. Since I treat my games as 'players' and not 'collectors items', I didn't do much:IMG_20150906_121414.jpg
I sanded the bottom to get rid of the years of black metal dust, and then painted the *visible* part of the inside of the cabinet. The part hidden below the playfield I didn't touch. You can see the line in the shot above. The paint I found is a perfect match, I'm quite happy with it. I didn't to anything to the outside of the cabinet - to be a 'collector', it pretty much needs all new decals.

(Why? Because the game has been moved professionally from Chicago to Atlanta Distributor, then carried in pickups from Distribtor to Location in Atlanta, Location in Atlanta back to Distributor, to Colorado, back to Atlanta, then to Canton Ga and Jasper Ga. The professiionals took it to Maryland, and then another pickup ride to West Virginia. So all this moving has put in a few nicks and scratches over the years.)

I don't want to put new decals on because mine has the white door on the backbox, and as far as I know, decals were never made of those!

Today not much was done, but a bit step was completed:
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Wife helped get the playfield into the cabinet! Pop bumper coil assy's were installed, and then slingshots and pieces were dropped in. A lot of time was spent doing two things:
(1) Messing with various LED lights for the GI. I decided on warm white frosted for almost everywhere, as they were plenty bright and were as close to 'spotless' as can be. Right now, ONLY the GI strings are plugged in. Switches, coils, and lamp matrix are still unplugged.
(2) Finding screws for posts. I have no friggin' clue what happened when I was stripping the top off (it was 11 months ago!), but I seem to be short of just about every screw I needed. It's amazing. I've had to take some from plastics higher up the playfield, so I know I'm going to have to order some. The thing is.. I didn't throw any away, so where the hell did they go?!

The single-rubber post seperating the left inlane and outlane doesn't come all the way through the playfield, so I had to put in a T-Nut. I'm going to ask on the owner's threads, but I thought those were held in place by nylon lock-nuts?

Anyways, I was pleased by this evening.

One of the downsides to having a sample game..
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The piece oh the right is NOS, from Williams, ordered in 1995 or so. The one on the left is original, 22 years old, and time to be replaced. Unfortunately, I have to cut it to fit it - I have an opto there that's in the way..!

Time to pull out the dremel .. And be REALLY careful..

Thanks Chris! I found a few that I saved, for reference later.

Again, I HAD taken a LOT of pictures when I stripped everything - but when I started the restore, my fat fingers deleted the folder, and I lost. them. all. So most of this has been by my memory (and common sense..)

I'm pretty much at a stopping point until October, unfortunately. Here's a wide-shot of it (mostly) lit up -
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Thanks to Chris - HEP - for refinishing this playfield. I'll tell you - the first screw that went in scared me.

I'm pretty much stuck here, for a few reasons -
(1) Waiting on another local pinsider to figure out if I can get blue flaps for the ramps. I have stainless, but they're stiffer than blued steel, and I'm going for original here.
(2) Wrong posts. Originally, sample games had T-nuts everywhere, and smaller posts. This was why I posted in the owner's thread, as I was confused. See here:
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Originally, all posts were like the smaller one, in the switch cutout. The threaded part is not long enough for locknuts. The problem with T-nuts holding posts is that the posts loosen up as balls hit them, and rebound off. I never converted my game over (at some point in production, it was changed over to the larger post, like the one standing up, and nylon locknuts. Unfortunately, I have to order the larger posts.

Next weekend I'll be out at a construction site, so no time for work. After that, I have a business trip to Milwaukee, so.. I may get some smaller things done, but no major work until I get back.

Nothing major was done yesterday or today, as most of my time was spent watching our contractor rip up old asphalt. However, I did get all the single rubber posts in (around the 5 Mil targets, etc) as well as one of the ball guides up the autofire changer, put in the slot cliffy, and installed the rest of the GI bulbs, and a few test insert LEDs.

I ran into a problem, however, and need help.

Somehow, I'm missing some screws or can't figure out where the ones I DO have go.

I need to know -
What size screws go into the single-rubber adjustable star posts at the outlanes? (The screws I have that thread in there are too short; the screws that are long enough are a size too large.)
What screws hold in the two star posts (that have rubbers around the two) above the right pop bumper?
Finally, is it the same type of screw that's in the lone star post above the left pop bumper?

I'll ask this in the owner's thread as well.. The next big step is installing the top of the pop bumpers, and then plugging in the switch matrix and checking the actuators.

Awesome, thanks!

I honestly have no idea how screws like this could go missing. I've even checked the screws I put INTO the game already, and those aren't right either - so it's not like I put them into the wrong positions. Oy.

Some people have big problems when restoring games.

I seem to have the annoying ones.

Since I'm waiting until this weekend to to some more assembly, I decided I'd plug in my switch matrix, and verify switches.

Apparently, I put ALL my new cherry switch levers on the wrong mounting tabs, and didn't notice. So I had to take almost all of them back off, and mount them the right way. Argh.

On top of that, my trough prox sensor seems to be shot. Not sure why, since it was working when I disassembled the game, but.. it's original to the game and I have two more NOS sensor boards, so I'm not that worried.

Yup. Despite whining about it, I'm glad I haven't run into larger issues. (Like coils shoring out switches or lamps, etc..!)

This past weekend I didn't get much done, as I was still managing a construction site, but I did get a few things finished (and found a couple issues..)

First, I got the pop bumpers finished. However, in final assembly, the ring of the amber bumper hits the rubber (top center of the pic) - either the rubber I got is the wrong size, or too thick. Will have to look into that. The other issue is that I bough wired sockets, not the metal leaf sockets - so they don't fit right. When I get back from my next business trip, I'll have to put in an order for the correct sockets.
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I connected up the coil harness and tested all coils. All but one worked - the right slingshot coil had a broken lead down under the wrapper, so it'll be replaced. Everything else worked - and everything was super fast. The rocket kicker - literally within milliseconds of firing, the ball was in the pop-bumper area.

While testing the outhole, however, the wire gate in the trough broke - literally in half. D'oh. So a new one will be ordered as well.

So, with over-active work projects, jukeboxes turned into parts, and family visits, I haven't gotten much farther along - although honestly, there's not much left.

Some things I noticed this past week - If you happen to have a sample manual, you may notice that the autofire ramp and the metal ball guide behind the UR flipper used to be all one piece. (And there was no post on the left side of the ramp entrance.) Likely they split it into two because of the complex metal shape. But since I'm getting ready to replace my ramp flaps, I studied the autofire ramp, and noticed that mine's been cut:
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So apparently my ramp was one of the proto ones made, which they had to manually fix up to fit onto my playfield since my playfield has the artwork cutout for the post. Also, between the ramp and the skill-shot scoop are two dimples - for something to be mounted there:
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And once the lights have been put into the game, I noticed *one* thing that Chris at HEP missed:
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Now, don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to give Chris a bad mark. Considering the shape that this PF was in a year ago, it's amazing he did everything he did. The wood CNC cutting was off on my playfield, so the art's all off. So much so on this one insert that when Chris did the black borders of the inserts, this one was off enough that it wasn't the black that needed to br touched, but the dark blue outer border. All other inserts are a-ok, JUST this one. If you can believe it, ALL inserts looked like this before Chris got a hold of it.

Everything's done - the only thing left is to re-do the ramp flaps, and then install the ramps.

The playfield's far too reflective to get a good image of it -
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Just a quick follow up -
I have my order of events wrong.

Apparently, production games have their autofire ramp be one piece, dropping all the way down behind the UR flipper. Originally, it was two pieces - if you look in your manual, you'll see that the metal guide behind the flipper is the same number as the metal guide on the right of the slot entrance.

If you look at pictures here, of LB1's restoration, you'll see the ramp and metal guide as one piece:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/another-tz-restoration-thread#post-2825193

Now, on mine, I put the post rubber on - however, I'm now thinking that I may have to take it off - with the entrance to the autofire ramp having two rubbers like that - the autofire kicker better have dead-accurate aim..! In fact, it may have been rubberless when I originally disassembled the playfield.

--Mike

After just over a year, the game's 99.9% done! Been a long time, and it plays SICK.
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One thing is not finished - I need a post. I'm not sure how the hell I lose single small items like this, but I need a 02-4611-2 to hold up the double gate at the skill-shot there. At the moment, it hangs a little low and can hang up the ball. So the metal habitrail is resting on top of the ramp at the moment.

Played a couple games - with a brand-new clearcoated playfield, and waxed, I ran into a few interesting issues -
Lock bounce-out - but not the usual way - shooting a ball into the lock hard enough would cause it to bounce out of the bottom of the lock into the spiral.
You know those plastics on top of the main ramp to prevent ball-hangs? Well, I don't have them installed, and I got the ball up there - twice. Impressive!
The power ramp - no bounce-outs of the diverter bridge - but a few times the ball was shot up there so fast that it bounced off the metal walls of the ramp, and ended up pretty much stopped at the top-end of the habitrail - making me wait for it to roll down to the bridge diverter and then have the game go into ball search to drop it back down by the flipper.

Some switches need adjusting, but it's pretty much ready.. Finally.

I never had the diverter magnet installed - never needed it. Before this rebuild, the ball would only bounce out maybe.. one in twenty times. Now, the ball's not even making it - once I fix that (find whatever's causing it), we'll see if I need to address any bounce-outs.
The plastics - for home use, I don't think they're necessary. Whatever's causing the issue on the right ramp is likely causing it on the main ramp as well, so.. for now, I need to find out what's causing it first.

That ramp was that was because I was waiting for a spacer to put in under the shill-shot gate.

--Mike

Long needed update..

Game's been together now - off and on - for 250 full-game plays.

First, let me say how amazing the small, tiny difference is in the game - shots that I could always make now are hit and miss.
I believe that the thicker - if even by millimeters - affects some things. (Specifically, see the note about the skill-shot gate below.)

Some unexpected issues, and interesting annoyances:
(1) The shooter gate. No matter what, it gives me a little trouble. When it sits normally, a ball will occasionally get stuck on it against the wood rail. I can fix this by bending the gate flap down - give the ball less to grab on. However, then, the folded flap of the game will hit the wood rail and not open enough, occasionally capturing the ball and holding it. Strange.
(2) My main subway was damaged while I was cleaning it. I had to get a new one. I did. Interestingly, the edge of it does not match up with the piano scoop very well- leaving just over a 1/4" gap at the close edge. This causes the ball - maybe 1 in 50 games - to get stuck here. I have even tried adjusting the metal scoop.
(3) The LEDs used.. either I have bad luck, or what, but after about 4 months, I lost two - they just died. They were replaced, and now I lost two more.
(4) I hate to say it, but I lost a chip on the playfield already. I don't have a pic now, but one of the repaired areas at the outhole is exactly where the third ball rests when two are in the outhole - and when the kicker kicks the two in the outhole, pressure from ball 3 is exerted there. So, it's now protected by mylar, and hoping that Cliffy makes a protector for that.
(5) I replaced old coils - not ALL of them, only the ones that were really dirty, broken, or otherwise. Many weren't replaced. Interestingly, the Lock Kickout coil was NOT replaced. It's worked fine for the first 200 games. Then, without anything up there changing, the coil now has trouble kicking out balls.
(6) Balls fall out of the lock. Not through the *entrance*, but through the exit. Apparently, a really good shot into the lock spins the ball around and into the lock trough SO FAST that it hits the metal wall at the scoop under the clock, and bounces out. Sheesh.
(7) One of my blue flaps - the one on the autofire lane - is loose, and getting looser. Originally, had no problems. Now, the flap's causing balls to launch up in the air and hit the main ramp. This will be replaced.

Anyways, I'll be taking the game to the York show, and I hope to have some of these issues fixed. (Okay, honestly, I hope to have them ALL fixed, but some - like the piano scoop, I don't think there's anything I can do.) The game will have the prototype BLUE powerball in it, since.. that's a killer.

--Mike