I just fully restored my ST:TNG and finished putting it back together today. It has one really strange and devastating problem - the autoplunger isn't shooting the ball properly into the spiral wireform. The ball seems to be flying out of the catapult very early and hitting the top of the ball guide before it even reaches the opening. The plunger assembly was never moved during the restore so that can't be the cause and the wireform doesn't seem to have much play though I've tried favoring every position when screwing it back in. No luck and no improvement. It's driving me insane. If I manually move the catapult with my hand from under the playfield, it shoots no problem. Anyone have any idea how to fix this? Thanks in advance.

It wasn't that, even in test mode with the ball well settled it happened over and over. Here's the thing that's super bizarre....I let the game just reset and do its checks and load the two balls up top...and for reasons I cannot explain it shot them just fine. I'm baffled. It works fine now and I didn't even change anything.

I did a full restore. Every coil sleeve is new and everything is tight. I checked the trough mounts, the coils, the wireform. Everything. It shot it wrong probably 12 times in a row. I went upstairs to tell my wife how depressed I was that this game I just put back together over 2 days can't even shoot the ball. Came back down a few hours later and it suddenly shoots it perfectly every time. Weirdest sh*t I ever seen. Sorry to bother you guys.