Very nice! That old PF looks like it never saw a single cleaning and the touch up was done over all that dirt and grime. She turned out to be a beauty, good job!

Excellent work. I hope to do this someday, though I am completely intimidated y the process. Do you have more documentation of the project? I would love to learn more about how you managed drilling the holes and getting everything lined up properly.

Shawn

Sweet!

I thought my firepower playfield looked bad.

Well worth the effort, well done.

I have a TON of pics of this teardown/swap. Approx 500-ish from mine.

I am curious what condition the balls were in, by the look of that old PF I am guessing they threw in a few lumps of coal and called it good.

Excellent work.

I know what you mean about the new heavy duty ramps fitting.

Here is the solution I had to perform on a bunch of Space Shuttles:

http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/space-shuttle-repo-ramp-modification-guide

The un-powerball.

Very nice work!

Damn, can't believe I still haven't found a good project Space Shuttle.

I'm going to post a WTB thread.

I'm always keeping my eyes open for another one to pop up but all that is listed in Northern Ca is one near Sac and the guy wants $1700..... Seems a little high, perhaps that's the reason it's been listed since last October. If I see one pop I'll post here or send you a PM RobT.

That's very cool, I appreciate that!

Nice resto on the Space shuttle pin!!!!

Rob I am also looking for one also, and saw one on Craig's list northen Ca. a while back for around 300.00 or so. I tryed to buy it but he never responded back to my E-mails. I remember it was missing the backglass but I have a spare NOS one, so I was excited.

Good luck on your hunt soner or later one will come up for you.

Rob

That's because I bought it. Got it for $380 and poured about $600 into it, needed a new main board, a few switches, extensive cleaning and translite but it has a great PF and plays beautifully! Let me know if you want to part with that NOS backglass, my Ed Cheung repro looks great but I'm always in the market for a NOS at the right price.

Toddwino do you have issues with the ball wanting to go into orbit when striking that Shuttle ramp drop down target? I had my PF glass off one day when I was doing some cleaning and the ball launched about 2 feet off the playfield and landed 4 feet behind me, I don't dare play it without the glass in place anymore.

Do me a huge favor. I need pics from you guys of what posts are SUPPOSED to be there in front of the ramp? I have these wierd posts that have bigger area at the top, and the ONLY way I can get the tapered bumpers on there is to cut them to the hole, pop them on the post, then superglue the cut back together. It works. It works great, actually, but that can't possibly be what's supposed to go there.

That's a good idea, LOL. I tried pliers and such, and I always just ended up tearing the stupid thing. If the superglue trick didn't leave a thin visible line where dirt can make it stand out really bad, I would just keep doing what I'm doing.

I just don't get what on earth they were thinking, or if modern replacements just have a tiny aperture compared to what original rubber parts were.

I have the tapered yellow posts as well with the wide taper at top, never had a problem with the ball defection from the posts though. I get the wild deflection when I get a hard hit on the drop target, seems I get the most deflection when I strike the target when shooting from the left flipper, it must have something to do with the offset angle of the drop target.

That sure looks sweat, great job. What did Williams use for the playfield clear coat? Mine is worn around the inserts and has worn off in some spots and I would like to keep it from getting worse. Do you know what I should use as a clear coat after painting these spots. Thanks

I used a tiny bit of dish soap on the rubber to help it slide over the post, It seemed to work really well on my Space Station post by the ramp. Not sure if it's kind of the same thing going on with the shuttle post or not.

Brian