Just went through the manual and didn't see this covered. Can you set this machine to freeplay?

I believe you have to have the Alltek MPU board, to have free play....i don't think there's an option on the original MPU.

I wondered about that. Have to run a crapload of quarters through it so I can build up some credits. Thanks

Just set the credit limit in the settings to be N more per quarter.

Pinwiki has a few methods: http://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Bally/Stern#Setting_Free_Play

I had to open the door and flick a thing on the other side of the door that would load credits. I believe I could do it up to a max of 40 before it would stop.

Then play, reload as needed.

I have my replay set low, it will award a credit even on ball 1 of play. That's been the easiest way for me.
-Mike

I got it up and running tonight. I set the ball count to 3 and the credit/coin ratio at 14/1. Ran a quarter through three times and now have 40 credits. Not the concern I thought it might be. Thanks for the pointers. Have done nothing more with cleaning than spraying the playfield with Simple Green and a quick wipe. I think it should clean up pretty well. I have to fix the top right of the backbox where the t-moulding fits, and the front cabinet leg mounting area. Going to follow Vid1900's fiberglass resin method to repair. Pretty confident it will work well.

I have one burnt pin on one connector on my High Power board in the backbox. Someone had soldered one wire onto the back of the board to bypass the one pin. I would like to replace the connector one the wires and the board. What size pin connectors are they in the backbox? They looking smaller than what is used on my Rollergames. These are like a needle compared to a larger pin. Thanks in advance.

Getting there with the resto on my cab. All the yellow was faded to white and a lot of the black was scratched and bits missing. I've got a nice set of shiny new rails to go on also when i'm done with touching up the artwork.

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From Big-Daddy if you want to make it all new.
ebay.com link: Bally AS 2518 18 Stern TA 100 Power Supply Connector repair kit pinball
-Mike

Awesome, thank you Mike for the link. Mancave, what are you using to touch up the artwork? I thought mine initially was in better shape as far as fading, but after looking at other's pictures, I realize both sides of my cab are faded to some extent.

Okay, I'm a little confused. Connector J3 is definately smaller than connector J5 as far as pin size. J3 is the connector that has the burnt pin. What size connector and board portion does J3 use? .62, .1, .156?

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J3 is .100 and J5 is .156.
-Mike

Thank you Mike. I knew they were different sizes, and figured J5 was .156, but needed to confirm. Now I know what I need.

The black is just straight satin black enamel house paint although i found it was a bit too matt to match the existing cab decals so i added a small tin of Humbrol Gloss enamel model paint and it worked out pretty much exact. The yellow is also Humbrol model paint...Number 99 Lemon yellow which was a really nice match to the original yellow (going off pics that is). The red i had to do some colour matching back and forth until i got fairly close to what was still there. I'm basically just masking up sections and using my Aztek model airbrush for the small work and a regular sized spray gun for the black. It's sure not perfect but better than what it was The blue is going to be the difficult part to match cause it's several gradations of colour.
Attached is the cab before pic.

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I plan to do a partial restore on a Spy next year. Nice pf with factory mylar and near perfect back glass. I got new plastics and a new set of cab decals from retro refurbs over seas. We added a checker board pattern for the front of the cab around the coin door that inspired by the side art. At he bottom front will be Spy Hunter wording below the coin door. I rebuilt the flippers before putting it in storage until after my move to a new house. I was also thinking of going with a blue or purple T molding to add some curb appeal.

I didn't see Spy Hunter on his list of cab decals, know if he still has them?

I would email him and ask. IIRC, his name was Pete.

Does anyone have a scan of the spinner decal? May just repaint the white on mine, but if I had a scan, I might print one out instead. Thanks

Classic arcades has the decal

I won't try to buy anything from classic arcades again. The last time I tried to buy stickers from them, they never sent them, and I had to get PayPal involved to dispute it and get refunded.

DITTO!

This mob have them also.
http://www.ministryofpinball.com/en/game-specific-items/spy-hunter-spinner-decals.html

I've been cleaning up the Spy Hunter over the last month or so. Removed most of the top of playfield, cleaned plastics, buffed out playfield, touched up at the end of the shooter lane. I have done the ground mods, replaced C23 and C26 caps, and had to repin J3 and J4 due to a burnt pin on J3. Added Comet LED's and the Bally LED boards from them. Tried to fire it up tonight, the game boots, I have sound, no GI, and my solenoids don't work. All fuses test good. I have got to do some troubleshooting. Arrrrgggghhhh.......

check fuses first

I have bought hundreds of things from Jeff at Classic Arcades...he has tracking available on everything he sells...so I would think it would be easy to get a tracking number to see what happened. I remember he sent one thing priority mail to me...and it took 5 days to arrive and he is just 100 minutes away from us! Other things arrive the next day...but the tracking number showed they were shipped right out. Todd

Getting a bit closer to finishing the restore on my machine MMM nice shiny rails

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Very sharp looking. I took a quick peek this morning at mine before work and what do you know. I found an unplugged connector under the playfield that I hadn't seen prior. Hooked it back up and things work. Gotta tweak a couple switches and lights but we are up an running.

I'm a little confused. I had my playfield out and on my rotisserie to clean and inspect. Noticed several of these green capacitors have one lead broken off. I figured that I bumped several of them before attaching the playfield to the rotissierie so I have resoldered them back on. Now that my playfield is reinstalled, I just noticed several more that are broken off on other switches. Enough of them to make me wonder if someone intentionally broke the lead. Any thoughts? I think every switch that they were resoldered to works properly.

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The caps were there to help the mpu with the signal from the switches. Sometimes when switches only randomly work this method of adding a cap helps.
-Mike

So regardless, I should resolder them back on. Probably just a coincidence that a bunch were broken. Thank you.

Those caps were cut for a reason, don't reconnect them. As they age they dry out and begin to fail which causes a bunch of issues like phantom switch hits or pops firing. The game will work fine without them. You can buy replacements for about $0.15 each from great plains or other sources if you want to keep the game original.

Ok. They definitely look like they were cut. I will make sure they are all cut. Thx

Attached a new lockdown bar bracket and handle as the old one was rusted and crappy looking. Is there supposed to be a return spring on the handle? my machine didn't have one when i got it but i got curious when i spotted the hole drilled in the handle. I've also had a go at a fresh look on the apron playing cards, the surround could be done in other colours but i was thinking something lighter wouldn't be as over powering... Thoughts??
I'm also considering designing some target decals as well but first thing is to get the restore done and dusted

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I like those instruction cards!!

None of the Bally games I have seen had a return spring. The Sterns of the same era do have a return spring. Of course you can always throw one on if you want.

Cheers, yeah i just wasn't sure. Seemed to be set up for a spring with that hole in the handle, guess it was just for looks or weight saving

The lockdown receiver looks great, where did you get it?

From this place here in Oz, it was the only place i could find them.
http://www.rtbb.com.au/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=45_297&products_id=3903

And remember, that's $140 in Oz dollars so at current conversion rate that's about $106 US.

There is one of these for 1400.
Nice bg pf and new mpu board.
Never played this. not sure if it's a deal or not.

So as kid it was my go to arcade game and lots of quarters left my hand to play it, just obsessed,maybe it was the music.
So I had to get the pinball machine as it just made sense. Having a good BG is major points. Led it right away to protect it from heat. The Alltek mpu is good as it's a no headache type board that you can switch out or around if you should choose. This machine is hard and don't let anyone fool you otherwise. The left out lanes will have you swearing in a made up jibberish language that's unheard of, still I keep coming back. Mine is on five ball to try and keep my sanity and to at least score in the millions
Offer $1200 to 1250 and good luck, this thing will punish you like Flash Gordon!
-Mike

I think it is. Good backglass is rare for this game. MPU $200. If it has a nice PF, I would bite. I think Marco has new plastics for this game, just the tops, no clears. I think a guy in Germany sells the clears but are a little thinner than original.

Got a link for this?

He was selling them on ebay but I don't see them listed right now.

Is there a flipper rebuild kit available for all 4 flippers, or would I have to buy two separate rebuild kits? Any recommendations?

Thanks.

A friend of mine actually owns the original painting which the backglass was based upon. In person, it's very cool and very outstanding work.