This is the very beginnings of a Terminator 2 Restoration I will be documenting. I know for a lot of people T2 is not a top choice when it comes to a pinball machine. But i'm a huge Arnold fan and have been looking for one locally for quite some time. So I'm pumped to get this thing back to better than new condition. Additionally, I was able to get ahold of the LAST reproduction playfield that Peter at http://www.buthamburg.de/ had!! Buthamburg

Picked up a T2 in fairly decent shape, little rough around the edges (literally haha) but the price was right at 1800.00.

The good:
• Playfield is actually in pretty decent shape
• bottom of the playfield looks excellent, no burn marks, no evidence of re-soldering
• Cabinet interior is amazingly clean
• Plastics all intact and appear to be in really good shape, I have not found a crack yet
• Boards are all in really great shape, rom labels fully intact, no evidence of overheating

The bad:
• Getting an error of "Gun can not find home"
• Cabinet is pretty rough
• overall really dirty, as it was in storage for like 5 years
• Batteries on main CPU board leaked, not too bad, think the board is salvageable and will still work.
• the ball through does not appear to be registering balls that return to it.

Here are some of the before photos.

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Have to be honest @mschonbrun I just love working on these things, more importantly, its just really rewarding bringing something back to life!

I'm thinking of doing the chrome style decals, I personally like them much better, it's more timeless than the blue and also more in line with the REAL T2 movie marketing posters etc...

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Aeolus7 yes sir lots of sanding and work will be required, but all good , funny you should ask about the playfield as im very lucky to have found the last reproduction run with 5 coats of clear on it!!

Coming from Germany should be here in about a week. I got a killer deal because it was the last one and it was "B stock" as one of the lock inserts has the wrong color, but I'm fine with that.

If you look close you will notice one of the lanes has the insert colors swapped on the left (orange and green)

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AlexSMendes yes Peter is great RetroRefurbs I got all ththe decals from him for my POTC retire and they are super quality and great pricing! And right now he had a special on the chrome ed decals, translate, and apron / playfield decals!

Got the harness all labeled (with blue painters tape my favorite ) and removed the playfield! Playfield will find a new home in my rotisserie, and going to start dissassnling the cabinet for removal no decals and fixing the wood

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After running through a lot of tests I came to the conclusion (with some pinhead help) that I think my main board MPU, was just not working... most likely due to the battery acid that leaked. So ordered a rottendog with remote battery holder So this will never happen again.

I am going to attempt to fix mine, and if I mess it up or can't fix, no biggie

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Wel, the most import part to me restore arrived today, and WOW what a beauty, brand new reproduction T2 playfield 4x cleared!

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AlexSMendes u don't say!? Yes please

shovelhed thanks for following! Oh yes my friend I have some goodies planned for this one

Cabinet basically cleared out time to start taking off the decals

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Decals off the cabinet

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Really excited I finally made the jump and ordered a compressor and some great tools for my restoration projects! Long nose stapler and a Brad gun to start

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So I tried to upload a gif no support for .gif's on pinsinde man, major bummer. here is a link to me removing decals in super speed!

Finished sanding the back box and cabinet Time to fill some serious holes and damage where the coin door lock was

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Well after 3 rounds of wood filler and sanding I fixed the lock at damage on ththe front of the cabinet, patched some minor holes, and fixed some edges on the back box. It's not perfect but I'm proud of it and it's 100% better than it was

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Got to test out my new staple gun to install the ground wire, works awesome!! The long nose is totally necessary and made this a breeze.

I also purposely did not paint over the date stamp on ththe cabinet

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The top of the playfield is basically cleared, I'm actually pretty amazed at the condition of this playfield. Only one plastic was cracked!

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Well went at it hard both Saturday and Sunday got a ton done!

- Removed and labeled basically every part.
- Started cleaning harness
- Cleaned and polished all ball guides and wire forms
- cleaned and polished plastics, amazingly only one broken!
- flame polished ramp came out great!
- Installed new t nuts in the new playfield.
- moved harness to new playfield and re attaching everything

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Sinistarrett the clearcoat on these is beautiful. One thing I noticed on mine they forgot to drill a few holes for the GI

tezting I have only 1 hole that needs to be drilled out, unfortunately, I noticed the hole as I was reinstalling the wiring harness... A lot of stuff is already mounted. So.. going to buy a drill guide to ensure I go straight through.
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Milescraft-AccuDrillMate-Portable-Drill-Stand-for-Use-Almost-Anywhere-13180003/206520394?cm_mmc=Shopping|THD|google|&mid=sb5qX5Nwc|dc_mtid_8903tb925190_pcrid_195274179091_pkw__pmt__product_206520394_slid_&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIjNqKtI3B1gIVgYZpCh2JJwOTEAQYASABEgKfyvD_BwE

tezting nope ball guides (so far) have gone right in no problem

My Serial was in pretty bad shape and then got sanded off. Recreated almost 100% to the original.

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snakesnsparklers lol guess I did a great job on that haha, I mean does it really matter? As far as showing a serial on a game ?

Well finally got the guts to drill out the gi hole, and all went well, went straight through.

Also put the last of the new drop targets on and completely disassembled, cleaned and re assembled the drop target assembly. What a complex device.

The mini coil bracket was bent to crap, and was not even working to release the drop target. Now we are all good just like new!

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