Well, nothing much seems to be happening with the 5 days of DeepRoot ...

I have 5 days at home, so let’s see what I can get done in 5 days!

It’ll break up the monotony of disk-gate and trunk-gate, I promise!

There’s always something to do around here ... and if you don’t keep up with the broken stuff, you get into a big hole.

DAY ONE

I’ve been meaning to fix my Riverboat Gambler for some time. But it sort of worked ok, so I had put it on the back burner. Today’s the day!

Issues:
Floppy right flipper
Needs LEDs
Needs rubbers
General tidy up

I bought this machine about 7-8 years ago off some builder dude in Hamilton for $1100. After the cash had exchanged hands, he told me he was working on this old building in the Main Street down there, and the machine was abandoned there. He’d got it for free. Oh well ... the machine was pretty tidy, except for the mouse nest that was inside the headbox (no keys to check it out when I bought it) and the boards were covered with mouse piss.

I’d given it a quick tidy up back then, cleaned all the boards and got it working all good. It hasn’t really missed a beat since I got it. But how’s the time to finish it off.

Getting off the large plastic assembly at the back was a bit of a mission. Like all Sys11s, the PF doesn’t slide forward ... so I had to lift it up and out and balance it on the bolts and secure the front so it didn’t fall off. Eventually it came out - it was pretty dirty after 30 years of neglect.

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While I was off cleaning that, and the rest of the plastics, I roped in the sorcerers apprentice to clean the PF with simple green. Her face says how dirty it all was ...

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While I had the big plastic assembly off, I flame polished the clear ramps. They were opaque before ... they came up pretty good.

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All the plastics went back on - along with all new rubbers.

All the light boards came off under the PF, and were cleaned with Simple Green, as were the light inserts. The under PF was surprisingly clean, maybe a sign that the game hasn’t seen much play. The playfield surface is also mint, especially after its deep clean.

My LED installs are low key. I use LEDs to enhance the playing experience rather than to blind the player. I use white Comet 2LED in white and yellow inserts, and I use Comet 2SMD colours in the coloured inserts. The slightly brighter 2SMD shine through the darker inserts better than the equivalent 2LED bulbs.

I keep the incandescents in the GI.

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All came up pretty good!

The floppy flipper was a loose flipper bushing. All 3 screws had come out! Sorted that out, and she plays like a champ. First game, GCd it with 50m. Nice.

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DAY ONE continued

My Nitro Ground Shaker has been crying out for some love since I got it.

It’s a tidy survivor ... but the years have taken their toll.

The GI was dim ... no wonder when the molex looked like this. I replaced all of them while I was at it.

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The main issue with this game is the inserts have dished. Pretty common on the SS games. You can see the ball sitting in the insert ...

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So let’s put this on there!!

A playfield protector from www.playfield-protectors.com

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This was a super easy install.
- remove 2x flipper bats
- undo spinner and swivel
- undo ball gate and swivel
- remove 3x pop caps

Super easy job. Maybe 20 minutes from start to finish? And wow, what a difference to play. Smooth and fast. Winner.

Finished it off with a basic LED install - again, 2LEDs in the inserts and incandescent in the GI. I use Siegecraft LED apapters on the lamp board - $40 USD and your flicker problems are over. There are a couple of lamps off/stuck on - will be faulty SCRs on the board, I’ll get some spares and fix it up later.

Cranked it up - plays fast, straight and super smooth, 650k first game. Noooice.

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Deep Rooting for allllllll when Ryan C is around .....

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Yeah, it’s a funny one - you don’t see many of them around.

It’s a good looking game. Game rules are quite good, however they’re ruined by lots of random awards which sort of makes it a bit useless for competitions.

However, a fun enough pin to have around!

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DAY TWO

Diners coin door was looking pretty sad .. so off it comes to be tidied up and painted. I’ve got the Riverboat Gambler door off too, I’ll do them both this morning.

And how sad does this shooter rod look? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one this mushroomed before. I’ll have to grind the end back to round to get it out of the housing.

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Thanks man. It’s a full time job.

That shooter rod would be the worse I’ve seen. I’ve had a couple almost as bad .. but that one, the flared off bits of metal at the end actually broke off with your fingers. Pretty crazy.

Imagine how many ball launches it’s done since 1990 to make the rod go like that?

Yet the rest of the game is in really good condition. No playfield wear at all ...

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Had to make a quick trip to the city today ... I rented my GnR machine to NZs largest brewery for a few days for a trade show. Today is the collection day.
And they agreed to sponsor my upcoming pinball competition!
So here’s the Offical launch of the Macs Interstate Beer Pinball Classic!!
Niceeeee!!
(If anyone wants some cheap beer, you know who to see ...).
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Added over 6 years ago: THAT WAS DAY THREE!

On the way, I dropped into Dallas’ place.

He bought CSI and No Fear off me 18 months back.

The CSI centrifuge had been giving false signals so I went and sorted that out for him. I gave them a quick clean while I was there.

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Dallas owns a bee/honey business, so I got a tour of the Factory while I was there. All NZ honey (and most other natural things) are regulated to a certain standard, to ensure the best quality product. The natural honey tastes as sweet as .... honey!

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Picked up the GnR from the Auckland Showgrounds.

One of the Macs Beer guys says “man it’s a cool game! One guy was playing it and like 8 balls came out!”

So there you go! Even more balls came out than are in the machine. Sweet!

Pinball was the winner on the day!

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Back home again after an hour in the Auckland business traffic. Not quite LA - but heading in that direction.

The coin door had 4 coats of black satin paint. Came up nice.

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All the bolts are also done at the same time. My little cardboard box bolt holding device has done probably 100 sets of bolts ...

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One tool I use probably more than most, is my trusty bench grinder. It has a grinder one end, and a wire wheel the other. I use the wire wheel to buff rust off chrome legs, they come up mint!

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Here I’ve ground off the end of the Diner shooter rod so I can slide it out. Hopppefully I have enough parts here to rebuild it. That’s the issue with living on the other side of the planet ... parts take weeks to get here. And cost $$$ to ship.

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Popped the door back on Diner, along with new chrome legs from PBL, and new protectors from RDs hand made stash.

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DAY FOUR

This morning, I noticed half the GI of the Diner wasn’t working.

Check out the GI plug - pretty common on Sys11 machines.

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Bunged on a new one, and away she went.

Then, I noticed that the machine was pretty dirty and a little bit sad. I’ve had it for a long time, and it’s never been shopped up.

So down the rabbit hole I went ....

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Yeah, nude switch wiring looks ugly.

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This Diner has a full playfield Mylar. Which is why it’s in such good condition after 28 years.

However, the Mylar is dull. So let’s shine it up!

I use a 3m product (maybe a bit fine for this job, could be a bit coarser) and a buffer in my drill. Usually I use my electric drill but I left that elsewhere.

Came up pretty good after a 10 minute buff. The cloths are to stop the stuff flicking everywhere.

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End result was pretty good.

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This wasn’t a full restore job, just a top side shop up.
- new rubbers
- new pop caps
- ramps removed, cleaned, flame polished
- all plastics stripped and cleaned
- playfield Mylar buffed
- molex replaced
- GI incandescent bulbs replaced
- LED flasher bulbs added
- LEDs added to pops and around the cup
- LEDs in the jukebox and cash register
- cash register removed and polished
- cliffy colour posts added
- chrome habitrail cleaned and polished

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This job took the whole day. I knocked off at 6:30 for dinner and to watch my team the NZ Warriors play some rugby league.

And of course, the day wouldn’t be complete without a pinball injury. Those thin metal flaps up above the lifting ramp are verrrry sharp.

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It almost is a full time job.

Being a property owner/developer, I have intense periods of work, and then a lot of down time between projects. That down time gets spent working on pins.

At present, according to Pinside at least, there are 124 pins here (some at my apartment) and most are up and running.

These ones are folded up:

Skateball - waiting for new PF
Evel Knievel- waiting for new PF
Banzai Run - waiting for full restore
CV - waiting for full restore
Shadow - waiting for full restore
Scared Stiff - waiting for full restore

The others are all set up and working.

I’ve sort of got it to the stage where almost everything works sweetly.

There are always things to repair though. And when I get some decent spare time, I can do upgrades like the Riverboat and Diner projects you see here. Both machines played fine ... but now they look better and play better after some TLC. Same with NGS - it played fine - now it is so much better with the protector on it.

The numbers would rarely go past 1 or 2 around here. I’m always cutting myself on something or other.

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I use the IDC ones. Same as original.

My thinking - they lasted this long, mainly running 12 hours a day in an arcade, they’re gonna last forever around here when they’re only on maybe 7 full days a year.

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No doubt!

At the end of the day, as long as they make good contact with the male pins, and the flow of current/signal is correct, then that’s ok with me!

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DAY FIVE

I got my Hercules up and running two months ago for Pincade. We actually used it as a competition machine in the Classics Comp!

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I got it from a lady who bought it 20 years ago from a bowling alley that closed down. She lived in a warehouse with her friends and they played it. When they moved out, she stored it in her mothers house only 20 Mins away from me. She saw me and the pinballs on TV one day, and emailed me to see if I wanted it.

Of course, after being in storage for 10-15 years it didn’t work. It took me and my electronics guru 2 years to get it running. Lol

Back in February, Danni and I shopped up the PF and I got a new sheet of perplex for it.

I wanted to get the rusty metalwork powder coated up. So today I stripped it all down, I’ll get it done next week.

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You can see how much longer the rails are next to this WPC rail:

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Do you vote black or purple powedercoat? Purple to match the purple on the cabinet. Could look quite nifty.

I can tell you, it was f**king heavy to lift up on the saw horses ... the power of one!

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Just finishing off Diner and Riverboat.

Testing showed an issue with the lift ramp ... after 5 minutes mucking around with it, I found it was binding a little up the top. The big red plastic needs to be adjusted “just so” so the lift ramp is centred.

Now I can play test it and put the glass back on .. slide her back in, and call her done.

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This one plays ok. The ball makes it around the orbits OK up to the top.

Not sure what the ball is that’s in there, but it doesn’t look like a billiard ball to me. Feels more plasticy. Whatever it is, it seems to work well in the game.

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Now you’re taking Art!

Diner and Riverboat are now finished!

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Now on to the next project.

Split Second arrived from Los Angeles about a year ago. It’s never worked properly, it had all sorts of weird issues. I think it had been stored for some time.

I’ve been working on it over the last year as I have spare time.

Finally seem to have got on top of most of them.
- weird switch matrix issues - clipped all caps and replaced some diodes and she seems to be working ok.
- MPU200 seems to mix up all the audits and the high scores on the displays. Most likely the 5101 RAM chip I’m thinking, I just need to get another one.
- 3 of the 4 7 digit displays had the first digit out. I thought it would be MPU related but it seems to be the displays. I had a set of UK made LED replacements on hand, all digits are working now.
- Factory lamp board had a number of SCRs or a driver chip out .. I had a Barakandl lamp board on hand so I just slapped that in there and called it done.

I completely shopped the playfield when the machine arrived.

So aside from the 5101 chip, hopefully this one is done!

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Oh yeah ... if anyone has a lead on a nice Split Second backglass, let me know ... my one is pretty average.

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Cheers!

It looks like the 5 days of RD is going into overtime ....

Still lots to do!

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I’ll work towards another one of those later in the year.

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DAY SIX - season extended!

Finishing off the Split Second this morning. Put 10 test games on it, found a few switches needed adjusting so did that.

“Hurry hurry hurry hurry hurry”

I’ve ramped the back legs up so it plays mean. Otherwise you can just play it for hours. Short ball times are the order of the day around here.

A few lamp holders were flakey so I replaced those.

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Day six has proved a little lax on the pinball front. Had a couple of other things to do.

But I went back and finished Split Second.

Stick a fork in her — she’s done!

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Dirty
Dirty
Dirty old Nicks Figggggggureeessss!

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DAY SEVEN

Started off by fitting the Stern Node Board Stabilisation kit to my Aerosmith Pro.

You have to use a cable tie and a spacer to hold the components in place on the 2 node boards. Evidently vibration was causing failures.

This second part of the fix is to fit new plugs with capacitors ... but this machine already has the capacitors fitted from the Factory. Must have been the first run of games that came with them ... as my BM66 that shipped at the same time didn’t have them.

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Next on to Mr and Mrs PacMan.

This arrived a few months ago from Los Angeles. It arrived on a Friday, I converted it to 230v and quickly shopped it Saturday, and it was in a big competition on Sunday!

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Over the Pincade weekend, the left lane guide came loose. By the marks on the PF, it had been coming loose for a long time. It’s now glued in.

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One of the yellow LEDs on the maze board isn’t working. I removed the board and swapped around some of the small LEDs — found the LEDs to be fine. So the problem is elsewhere.

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Metered the traces back to the molex and back to the lamp board. All ok.

Tested the voltages at the board molex - no voltage on the pins. So an issue with the lamp board — likely a faulty SCR. (Silicone controlled rectifier)

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Made a mental note to fix that one day. Not really a big deal, I can live with it for now.

Put it back together and move on to the next one!

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Bally Star Trek - this machine came from Boston a couple of years back. It has a new CPR playfield and plastics, looks pretty sweet.

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During Pincade, players reported the flippers were switching on and off.

Often this is an issue with the relay you can see on the left side of the solenoid driver board. The MPU sends a signal to the SDB to turn the flippers on. Often the solder joints on the relay are cracked, or the molex joints to the flipper can be cracked. I removed the board — couldn’t see any cracks, but the solder was a bit dull so I removed all the old solder and reflowed the lot.

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Reinstalled — no difference. Relay would click frequently and turn the flippers on and off.

So I tracked the issue back to the molex connectors on the MPU board. If you wobbled the J2 connector from left to right, the relay would click on and off. The MPU molexes have been replaced at some stage, and they didn’t look too bad.

To test, I installed my spare Altek MPU and the problem disappeared. So the J2 plug is fine .. must be an issue on the MPU around the J2 molex. There’s one for another day, the Altek can stay in there for now to see if it faults again.

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She’s done! Sexy looking pin!!

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DAY EIGHT

Day 8 has been a little truncated as I had to run up to the city to do some business.

Got back at 2:30 - slam a coffee and back into it!

My WCS94 came from LA as well. It was in some old ladies basement - it had been there sitting unused for a long time. Maybe been there since new? It shows no signs of being routed at all.

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When I got it, it had the famous WPC reset issues. It had been unused for so long all capacitors had dried out. After we replaced every one, she went fine.

A few weeks before Pincade I was adjusting the spinner and it broke off in my hand. Haha. Again - downside of living in NZ is you can’t overnight one — it takes 2-3 weeks to arrive. So I just keep a list of all the stuff I need and order it all together.

Popped in new spinner, and lubed it up so it spins like a whirling dervish!

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The ramp diverter was little funky, sometimes it wouldn’t go all the way over.

I adjusted it at the bottom, and found it was a little loose up the top, so tightened that all up too.

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All done!!

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On to Paragon.

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Same issue as the Star Trek - intermittent flippers.

I had replaced the relay a few months ago — the old one was looking pretty crusty and not clicking over. Thought that had fixed the problem, but after extended plays the flippers would shut down again.

Found the same problem as Star Trek - bad connectors on the MPU. Put my other spare Altek in there and she doesn’t miss a beat.

So I have another original Bally MPU to fix at some stage.

While I was in there, I thought I would pop some LEDs in the controlled sockets. Again, I used the Siegecraft boards to eliminate flickering.

Looks pretty good ... there are a number of bulbs out which don’t show any voltage, so again, either bad SCRs or maybe a bad IC on the lamp board. I’ll look at that tomorrow.

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Thanks Darin!

If I didn’t learn to fix them, I’d have a very large room of static art pieces. Lol!

I must give credit to Clays pinrepair guides. Without the knowledge learnt from those, I’d have to employ someone to fix the things ...

Actually, that’s why I learnt to fix them. Many years ago, I had 3 pins that needed repair. I got a guy down to fix them, it was $220 from memory. They worked fine for a day and then they were broken again. I thought “oh well, I may as well not fix them properly myself and save $220 bucks in the process” haha

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Good to see that my little fun thread got some podcast attention!

Thanks for reading.

Hopefully you’ll pick up some repair and maintenance tips ... which is the whole point of the thread. I’ve already got PMs saying these tips have helped to fix a few games.

It also gives an insight into the work required to maintain a large collection of games - which are made available to the community **free** to play many times a year.

Hopefully that gives you an insight into why this thread was started.

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Right - back to the game room to fix some more games AKA stroke my ego according to some!

Tell you what - how about I don’t fix them, then the 70 people who are coming here in 3 weeks to play them can have a bunch of broken-ass stuff to play.

But I must continue!

Continuing on with Paragon ...

I find it extremely helpful to print out the schematics from the manual. Most are available free on IPDB. I have downloaded the ones for most of my pins and keep them on the PC for handy reference.

Here we have the light board schematic.

I’ve marked all the lamps that aren’t working in yellow.

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At this stage, you have to make a call ... (remembering I’ve already tested for voltage at the lamp sockets, so we know it’s the board..)

1/ do I put time and effort into doing major repair work on a 40 year old game

2/ do I just spend $90 USD on a brand new board that’ll likely last forever.

In this case, seeing as Paragon will be one of the last games that ever leaves (one of the best pins ever made IMO) then I will just buy a new board and she will run forever.

Free plug time!

barakandl makes excellent boards - I have bought a bunch and they are highly recommended. Plus he’s a nice guy.

https://nvram.weebly.com/new-pcbs.html

If I get my order in today, the boards should arrive here before my big Macs competition on May 20.

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Paragon update:

On a wild hunch, I tried a new set of LED adapters in the game. All lamps now work!

So I don’t know what’s gone wrong with those adapters. I’ve got like 20+ sets of them, never had a problem.

I’ll talk to Hans about it and sort it out. He’s a really helpful guy.

Upshot: Paragon fully working!

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Right. Fiona’s birthday is coming up, so I better get on to fixing up her favourite game. Funhouse!

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This is a really tidy example, but it has the common Funhouse issue of raised inserts, mainly around the clock face. Of course, the ball hits these raised edges and diverts, generally SDTM when you’re about to start multiball. And the ball wears the art off as well.

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I’ll tidy up the edges, give her a quick tidy up, and put on the playfield protector I bought some months back.

This will smooth out the PF and protect the touch ups.

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A fair bit more tricky to install a protector on a newer pin.

The whole job on NGS took maybe 20 Mins.

This took about 30-40 Mins just to strip down.

Replaced some rubbers and put on cliffy posts while I was at it.

Protector is on! Shiny!!

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Thought I’d tidy up the ramps while I’m at it.

Before:

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After a flame polishing:

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I use a small soldering touch.

It’s not really the ideal tool for the job. It’s far too hot. I have to be really careful not to burn the plastic. You have to move the little flame quickly over the surface.

If you remember Black Rose, he put up some videos a few years back. He used a hand held butane torch with a huge flame - but it would have been a cooler flame than my soldering torch.

His video was amazing - he had this 10 foot long flame in one hand and a ramp in the other - you think he is headed for disaster - but the ramp comes up mint!

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Here’s a Black Rose vid - unfortunately not the 10 foot flame version.

Looks like he upgraded to a flash version of the gas torch. He flames like a boss!

Takes me 10 Mins to do a ramp with my tiny soldering torch. But the same process.

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DAY TEN

This morning I had to take all my old legs and the Hercules stuff from the blaster to the powdercoater and sort out the colours etc.

While I was in town, I finally got a piece of glass cut for my old NZ made Skill Ball machine. I’ve had this for years, it sorta got forgotten in my office. So time to get it running!

I got the glass ... and away she went. Just needed to tweak a couple of things and she’s a runner!

Totally manual - no power required!

- The 20c falls down a tube.
- Triggers a lever.
- Lever releases metal ball.
- Player flicks right lever to launch ball.
- Ball goes round and round and falls into one of the holes.
- The WIN holes trigger a lever to give you your 20c back and a free ball.
- If you get another WIN you get another free 20c!!

Gambling before we had gambling here!

When I was a little kid, I used to play one of these at the fish and chip shop over the road from my grandmothers house. It was only 2c back then ....

Now I need to figure out where I’m gonna mount it ...

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Then I got on to finishing the Funhouse.

Put all the ramps back on, and fitted LEDs to the inserts.

Looking pretty swish!

The Mrs will be happy!

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Nah man, they just sit there.

This one is held down by the ball lanes. That’s about all.

You can’t notice any sunk inserts - they disappear and the ball guides over them.

In this case, the clock hands sit a little above the PF - the protector smooths them out.

Good alternative to a complete PF swap. And certainly a lot cheaper. This PF is mint except for the raised clock arrows. Would be a shame to chuck it out.

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Yeah, I ended up going black gloss too.

I was going to match the purple on the side, but I couldn’t get a powder anywhere close.

So black it is!

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Not really. The rails are really thin.

The orange dominates the machine.

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You know he wants to see that ....

For certain.

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Yep, I think so. With the head off of course.

It fits 2 pins wide - and 2 pins long.

So Hercules would be smaller than that.

Just.

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DAY ELEVEN

My stay at home is almost done. This morning started with mundane property work.

Fix a leaky tap and re-bulb a building with LED bulbs. I had them made in China to suit my current 12v halogen transformers so I didn’t need to change out the transformers like you normally do. These ones are only a couple of years old so silly to replace them.

Bulbs were $2.80 USD per each from memory. Cheap lighting upgrade. More light, less power use. Nice.

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On to pinball chores - what do we have here?

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Banzai Run is the only one of my System 11 collection that isn’t up and running.

I bought it over 10 years ago ... it was in storage after being taken off route 10 years before that!

Back then, I put it aside as I didn’t consider I had the skills to do it up as nicely as I wanted to. And it’s been sitting there ever since ...

I’m 90% sure this is the actual game that Fiona and I used to play in an arcade when we started dating in 1990. According to the guy who used to route it, it is the one (he had 2, my buddy now owns the other one)

Which is pretty cool.

Playfield is protected with a full mylar so she should come up pretty sweetly.

When I bought it (around 2006-2007 from memory) it was missing the top glass that surrounds the displays. I went on EBAY and a guy in NYC had two of them he was selling! He agreed to send me one, and I have it here still in the USPS cardboard it came in.

This won’t get finished in the couple of days I have left here ... but I can make a start on it.

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I also bought 2x BR playfields from the operator from a 3rd machine he had parted out back in the day.

That’s what you had to do before you could log onto Pinball Life and buy all the goodies like you can do today.

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On the Funhouse? I touched up the edges with my trusty paint markers.

They didn’t respond to a whacking. Often they will - tap them back down and glue them from the underside. These ones just sit 0.5mm high all the way around. Without going drastic on it, easiest way to combat it was to use the protector.

Lame ass I know - should have ripped it all out and cleared the PF etc etc... but I just don’t have that amount of time to put into just one game, which is 98% sweet as as it is now.

And boy, does it play like a champ now. Fast as hell, and no ball diversions any more.

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Guess it depends on what you paid for it - and what it’ll be worth if you decide to move it on.

Flash is a classic title, but the game play maybe isn’t the best compared to other games of its time. Mine came and went pretty quickly — others will think differently and that’s the beauty of this hobby. Different strokes etc etc.

Oh, it gets the love .. have you seen the prices of them lately? Gone crazy!

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Sure!

The basis of what I use was the Treasure Cove polishing set that I bought over 10 years ago.

Yep, you can get small discs/pads too - check out the pics on Alan’s site which is still up:

http://www.treasurecovepinball.com/polishing-kit.htm

Alan passed away, so you can’t buy them from Treasure Cove anymore ... but you can get the same drill polishing kits up on EBay or amazon. Actually I think I saw something similar at Walmart in the car section.

Alan had his own 1,2,3 polishes which were evidently 3m products mixed up together (so they say ...) .. so I use 3m stuff I source locally.

Hope that’s of help!

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Next on the list.

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DAY TWELVE

Banzai Run topside is almost stripped down.

Plenty dirty!

The curse of my Sys11 life is frozen T-nuts — after 30 years, the bolt locks in there tight. And the tangs on the T-nuts aren’t long enough to bite into the plywood, and they just spin. Grrrr.

The only way to get them out is to grind them off with the dremel. Painful.

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Right Buzz - here’s how we do it!

Playfield was cleaned thoroughly with Simple Green (50/50 mix) and rags to remove 20 years of crap. Came up pretty good.

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Main issues are a little paint removal around the pops (no mylar there) and the PF mylar is very dull.

I veer away from removing mylar. There’s a really good chance that the playfield will be damaged or the inserts ripped up, and it’s just not a chance I want to take. So I make the mylar look like it isn’t there!

Firstly, I covered the PF with some high cut polish. I used some Treasure Cove #3 that I have left. It’s pretty gritty, you can feel the grit on your fingers as you spread it around. Then I got stuck into it with the drill and foam pad.

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Already, the un-mylared sections are looking shiny. However the old mylar was still crappy so I did it a second time for good measure.

Next, the PF was smeared with a finer polish. I still have a little TC #2 left, so I used that.

At this stage, my trusty drill pad broke! The shaft (oh my!) just spins inside the pad. Oh well, I’ve got my moneys worth out of it!

So time to break out the big guns!

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Finally, I used a finer polish - some Mequiars #7 Fine Glaze I picked up at Walmart for $7 last time I was there. Good product!

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It was smeared on the PF and buffed with the car buffer for a few minutes.

And here’s the result:

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Came up pretty sweet!

I’ll need to repaint around the pops and mylar them to protect the repair.

But Banzai is off to a good start!

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Thanks.

When I buy a pin, my preference is what I call a “tidy survivor” ... this Banzai is a perfect example.

If a machine needs excessive work or a PF swap, I’ll generally pass. Unless it’s really rare or something.

Main issue is living down here. Spare playfields or parts are simply not available. We need to find them in the USA. So first you have to actually find the part, then hope the guy will ship it to LA to my buddy’s place (rare) ... then I can ship it from there. Which all adds up to being crazy expensive.

In the case of the 77-85 Bally machines, getting a new CPR playfield to NZ for it costs more than the machine is actually worth. Ha! So it’s not worth doing it, financially anyways.

So making the most of what we have is sort of the NZ way of life.

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I’m sorta ambidextrous. Except for writing, can’t write left handed.

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Hi Jeffery. Hmmmm all depends ... with all the frozen t-nuts on that one, I’d say it took me 4 hours yesterday to get it to where you see it now. Longer than usual due to all the stuck nuts.

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Cool! He played Rugby League which is a little different to rugby. I prefer League to rugby myself. As you saw in his tape, League is pretty tough! No pads or helmets either!

PS I think the NFL should remove the helmets and the padding ... I’m sure the helmets make the concussion problem worse, due to guys smashing heads together so often. If you don’t have a helmet on, you’d avoid doing that!

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Yeah ... look at the drill above ... it’s the same brand!

I got that drill like 10 years ago for $40. It’s built 2 business parks and it still runs like a champ!

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DAY THIRTEEN

Man, the 5 days has long been and gone.

Started today with some good games of Aerosmith with Danni. We play all the time, generally best of 3. Light night I wasted her, this morning she wasted me 300m to 50m. Haha.

I pulled out the next restoration job to have a look at it. This will be up after Banzai but I wanted to make sure it worked ok, because if it needs parts or board work, that all takes time, which can be done now while I’m doing other things.

This Shadow came from Europe in a container in 2010. I kept it because it has a reallly tidy Sanctum area and will come up really nice with a shop job.

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What’s funny with this one .. it has a plastic patch screwed on the side of the cabinet. I always presumed there was a hole under the patch.

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Today I unscrewed it ... no hole! It was just covering some art damage. Weird!

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I have new cabinet decals to make it look good again.

As presumed, the machine doesn’t boot properly. 5v is low. And the GI molexes are crispy. I’ll get the board off to my board buddy to do over the next week or two.

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Everyone likes a great looking entrance!

Yep, the Funhouse inserts were pretty stubborn. So I left them and used the protector. Chicken.

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Got in some more work on the Banzai.

Got the top playfield cleaned and rerubbered. Did new LEDs in the feature lamps ... Ryan from Comet is talking me into trying LEDs in the GI so I’m waiting for those to arrive from Colorado.

I got the targets and the slings back in on the main PF. Again, parts on route from PBL to finish it off. The under PF is all cleaned and LEDed up. Just the flippers to do down there.

That’s it for now! The 5 days turned into 13 but tomorrow it’s back to my regular routine.

I’ll post a pic up of the Banzai in a few weeks when all the parts arrive and I get it all finished.

Thanks for reading! I hope some of the info was handy.

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I already use other 3m car cutting products - which is what the TC stuff is anyway, so I heard.

Here’s the stuff which is about equivalent to the #2 ...

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Good tips!

I didn’t highlight the different pads. The TC kit came with 2 different pads plus a sheepskin.

Yep, the plastic disk was pretty old. Probably 10 years? It’s done a lot of work. I had 2, I’ve already repaired the other one. Time for some new ones.

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Gloss black powdercoat came back for the Hercules. Tidied it up nicely.

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It works! For the first time in probably 20 years.

Almost finished - couple more things to do:

- fit reconditioned coin door (just finishing it off)
- clean backglass and fit it
- make a longer ribbon cable cpu-displays so the head can lift up without it coming off
- couple more little cabinet touch ups

That’s about it!

The very last of my complete System 11 collection to get up and running. Niceee

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Yep ... we went overtime.

I said I’d follow up with the Banzai. So there she is!

Since the end of this thread, I’ve
- run the Macs interstate Comp with 55 competitors. I won it too!
- rebuilt a Bow and Arrow (Danni did the playfield shop all by herself)
- did the Banzai
- redecaled the Shadow cabinet with Warwick doing the strip down
- taken over the running of IFPA NZ
- organised the Southern Hemisphere Pinball Champs for October

So it’s been full on pinball overload here for the last couple of months .....

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-
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Neither can I.

Haha

rd