Mine doesn't make it all the way up to the pops, never has.

Mine could make it to the pops depending on how fast it went into the outlane

Mine often does make it to the pops. When it doesn't, I'm surprised.

Mine only makes it up to the pops maybee 10% of the time. Most of the time it rattles around in the orbit about 2/3’s up.

I know this is an old thread, but I recently purchased a T2 and have some details to share. It was shopped when I bought it, so everything was right and tight. The kickback would send the ball into the top 3 diamond lanes every time. I took this to be a little 'bonus' of the kickback, and expected it every time it fired. Slowly, after 75-100 games, the ball wasn't travelling as far up the 'chase loop'. The coil and kickback lane itself were fine, so I inspected the 'chase loop' lane the ball is sent into. The ball kind of slams into the outer wall of the 'chase loop' when it comes in, and ricochets off the inner rail with enough energy to make it up to the diamond lanes. But I noticed the inner rail looked like it had been replaced and was askew and slightly loose - resulting in a loss of energy to the ball when it bounced up the lane.

I removed the rail, wrapped some fine tape around each end to 'thicken' the post, and tapped it back in. I also tightened the screws on the outer wall. Voila - it travels back up to the diamond lanes. IMO, this is how the kickback should function.

Hope this helps.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Sounds normal if the ball speed to the kickback was fast as well, so yep u r all good

In resurrecting this thread, I’ve been on a mission to figure out a way to adjust the T2 kickback to feed into the rollovers and pop bumpers every time. Not sure if SR originally designed it to, but I feel it only makes logical sense… (E.G. Getaway kickback into the mountain). In fact, most T2 owners say their kickback just feeds into the chase loop and falls right back down. Well I finally got it to work 100% of the time.

I replaced the kickback coil, plunger, and return spring (not sure if you would have to, but I did it before I figured out the solution). Basically, I installed 2 small thin washers under the red screws and 1 under the yellow screw in between the coil bracket and PF. Also, the coil needs to be adjusted as far left as possible without the plunger hitting the bend out in the side rail right before the coil. The idea is that the plunger hits the ball at dead center along with pushing it left for a smooth feed along the kickback left guide rail.

Under the cannon, There’s 2 screws on the side rail that need to be removed (marked in blue). Lightly hand bend this side rail towards the right, flexing it towards the cannon base and GI Bulb (green arrow). Unfortunately in order for this to work, you have to leave those 2 screws out to allow the guide rail to essentially flex during the impact. After bending the rail to the right, I tried drilling new holes in the PF and screwing the rail back in using the newly drilled holes, but unfortunately it doesn’t work…. it acts like a solid wall and doesn’t allow the ball to move up into the chase loop. The rail must be able to lightly flex to mitigate and sponge the impact. I’m not really concerned about PF wear along the rail, as it barely moves when the ball impacts it anyways. Worst case, maybe I’ll put a thin strip of Mylar under the side rail.

Good luck!

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Thank you for your kickback research. I tried your suggestions. My kickback unit already had some washers but I added some more and made sure that it was as far to the left as possible. I removed the two screws under the cannon plastics and didn’t really need to bend the ball guide it moved to the right by itself.
Testing with glass off the ball made it to the upper roll overs around 80% of the time. Big improvement. It was making it maybe 5-10% of the time before.
I’ve had T2 since the mid 90s in my modest collection and it always bothered me that the ball wouldn’t make it up to the top. Working the bonus roll overs to get an extra ball should be much easier now. We’ll see how it goes with play testing which is different than testing with the glass off. Thanks again.

Have you recently cleaned or changed out the kickback coil sleeve? May want to even change out the coil if it’s original… It’s only $10-$12. If the plunger tip is worn out or mushroomed it will most likely affect the ball impact…. Installing a new one may give you that last 20% you need. Good luck!