Hello all,

I am creating this so that I can document this massive restore that I am about to embark on. Let me start off by saying that I have never completely restored a pin before by the ground up. I am excited to get this project started and know there will be a lot to learn in this process. If you have suggestions along the way please, please, please post it! On to the description...

This machine appears it has been left outside under a tarp for quite some time.

The bad:
The back of the backbox has swollen up so bad that the screws holding in the mounting plate for the boards fell out! The cabinet paint is horrible, the Venom ramp is warped I believe, all the ramp flaps are rusted, coin door is dented and rusted, playfield inserts are no where near level anymore, the glass was absolutely disgusting, the pinballs are some of the worse ones I have ever seen, quite a few plastics broken and some missing, and chunks of wood missing in areas.

The good:
The machine boots and plays! Most all switches register. There are a few that are broken, but when depressed they work! I could not believe it. DMD works, boards appear clean and to have not been damaged by any water. The harness for the most part have not been hacked up. The coin door harness has been a little bit, but nothing that can not be reversed.

My plan is to get started Saturday night and work on it continually as I find time. After work during the week, and weekends as they allow.

I chose to try and look closely and compile a large list of items I knew I was going to need. I placed quite a large order and it all came in yesterday. It felt like Christmas! I have purchased a NOS playfield that was cleared by HSA in 2011 to use instead of attempting to restore the current playfield. I also purchased new cabinet decals from Retro Refurbs. Pics of all the parts ordered will come soon. If I can I would like to get some of the metal powder coated. Have not chose a color yet since the decals I purchased are not the same as what originally came on the machine.

I also purchased the Harbor Freight large 18LB tumbler and picked up some crushed walnut to try and save all the hardware I can. I have read in some posts that people are adding Novus 2, or Turtle wax chrome shine, or some other kind of product to the media. Input on that would be great.

Thanks for stopping by!

More to follow soon!

Well, it seems as though the pictures I attached did not post. Strange?! I had attached close to 20 pictures. I will post them tonight before I get started.

As promised here are the pictures that should have initially posted.

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Believe me now?! LOL!

Sure! I saw the machine listed on a buying/selling app called 5 Miles. There were only three pictures posted and you could not tell that is was actually sitting outside. I arrived to the location to see the machine and the lady met me outside. She told me the machine is under the blue tarp by the porch. Crappy thing was that it rained earlier that morning. I removed the tarp to see the backbox the way it was. I asked her why they did not bring it inside instead of letting it get like this. She said it would not fit through the door. I don't know if they even tried. In the lady's defense she is a double amputee in a wheelchair that has at least 4 children I saw. I don't know if she is married or has anyone to help her with the children. I made them an offer for the machine knowing that this will be one hell of a project for me. They accepted the offer and we parted ways. I did ask her who they got the machine from and what she told me was that they had gotten it from a friend of theirs. I packed the machine up and we parted ways.

Was not free. Money was exchanged.

Yeah, I do not think it was left outside too long, but long enough to damage the playfield and cabinet.

I made some really good progress tonight! Almost the entire top side is now dismantled. Every section I removed I placed in baggies and labeled them to make it easier to know where things go. I also took a ton of pictures. I have attached a few to see here.

All the rubber was dry-rotted, thankfully I did not see any mold or mildew. There were a few spider web cocoons under some of the ramps. How fitting?! Spiders inside a Spider-Man machine. Ha Ha

My back is pretty sore from doing all this tonight. If I am not too sore tomorrow I will continue and update the thread. Back problems suck!

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Well,

I hurt my neck yesterday. Bad enough I do not have full range of motion. I can not drive or pick anything up at the moment. I go in for another treatment tomorrow. Hopefully by the end of next week I will be able to post some more progress updates.

Hang in there with me!

Thanks buddy. I hope so as well! I want to finish tearing this thing apart!

I will say it is nice having a chauffeur pick me up for work, get me lunch, and take me home. HA HA!

Oh, and no way in hell is the coin door going to stay like that! HA HA!

If you like the way the coin door looks I would gladly trade you for your AC/DC coin door.

There are quite a few inserts that are not level. Some are sunk in, others are raised. It's most definitely a restorable candidate. I wanted a cleared pf though.

Yes, cabinet will be repaired and have new decals. Already have them in hand for when I get to that stage.

Hopefully will get some more stuff done today. Doctor said to take it easy so I can only do limited things at the moment.

Spider-Man cabinets did not have decals from Stern. To my understanding they used paint and screened it on. The decals I have purchased are far from factory. Follow my thread and when I get to the point of installing them I will reveal them. Everyone likes something to look forward to right?

UPDATE!!

I was able to work on the machine for about 2 hours tonight before my lower back started cramping. I unfortunately had to stop for tonight and will likely have to take a few days rest.

Quick funny story before we dive into the update. I had been taking pictures of my progress as I was removing things to update the thread with some good pictures. I went inside after I was finished for the evening and opened up the camera to find that the SD card was not in there! The camera does not have an internal memory. ARGGGGGG. I found the SD card in my computer from the last update! DOH! I went back into the garage to snap some photos for the update. I don't have as many to upload as I would like to but that's okay. The SD card in back in the camera ready to take pics for the next update. LOL.

Tonight I labeled all the connectors to the back-box and removed all boards, ballast connections, ballast transformer, backbox cam lock, hinges, and T-modling. I have the back box set aside to begin prepping it to strip all the paint off. After I get all the paint removed I will work on cutting a new piece of wood for the back.

I also got the side rails, coin door, all glass molding, and playfield back board removed.

Hopefully there will not be such a gap from now to the next update and more pictures.

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I should not really need reference pictures for the backbox. It is pretty simple in there. The plus side is if I get stumped at any point I can open up my LOTR and see where something needs to go. I left the ground strips in there for now so I can measure how much I need to order and measure for exact placement once the new piece of wood is cut for the back. I will also need to mark where the holes were for mounting everything. That should be pretty straight forward.

The warning screen will be interesting. I am not sure how I am going to tackle that at this point. I am sure once I get closer to that point I will have something figured out for it.

I personally feel like anything is restorable if you put enough time, and money into it.

New ramps were already purchased.

I'll take a look at the center ramp and send you pics tomorrow.

I feel confident that it will.

Got a few more items removed last night. Removed the shooter rod assembly, subwoofer, transformer, tilt assembly, flipper buttons, and power brick with on/off switch.

Since this is my first restore I would like to reach out to the community for suggestions on removing the wiring harness. Let me know your thoughts on this.... I purchased some of the paper tags that have strings. I tied and labeled them to a few wires that I removed already for the subwoofer, tilt, left and right flipper cabinet leaf switches ect. Is this a good way to label all the wiring to make it easy for reassembly on the new playfield? I do have a color printed manual so if something were to happen to a tag I could always reference back, but I have found in the past that the manual and wire colors are not always accurate.

More to come soon!

I have been taking pictures as I go. I had not taken many of the harness yet. I was tracing the wiring for the inserts and it looked to me that a lot of the wiring tracers are the same color. It is good to know that the harness will retain some of its original shape. If I can get stuff close to where it goes then I should be good when reassembling. LOL.

Thank you for your input!

It will definitely be interesting when I get to that point!

I am doing full cabinet restoration. Will start on that once everything is dismantled.

Oh cool! So you are able to scan and print stickers and such? I have not looked very hard yet but I will likely need a set of all the warning decals, and then if possible a scan and printing of the warning label on the back. Can your machine do this?

I have purchased all brand new ramps for this project. Do the replacement ramps come with stainless flaps? If they are the regular blue steel then I will definitely do what you suggested! Thank you for the knowledge tip!