Most of this was posted on rgp ages ago...but bought my first Firepower in 2000, non-working, in an operator's storage unit bulk deal (along with an inop Time Warp and a bunch of classic vids & parts) - decent playfield and cabinet, typical crackled backglass. Spent some time getting it working, bought an "NOS" backglass for it that turned out to be a repro (the original ones with the thinner glass and wrong color/opacity inks that had hot spots from the GI lighting). Really fell in love with the game though. Spent the next few years upgrading/switching pieces around as I'd owned several more examples of the title, including one I bought at auction that looked like it had been in a fire, literally.

Around 2004 I picked up the best original example of one I'd ever seen, and still own it. Great cabinet (although it's got a few very minor touch-ups), very nice playfield, and even a great original backglass.

It's an early production game with some hints of "prototype" features; it has the cutouts behind the middle standup target banks for the extra leaf switch that would have been utilized if the game had shipped with drop targets (prototype design), dimples in the underside for drop target mech mounting screws as well. The extra leaf switches are wired. Had the target bank plastics without the blue border at the leading edge, which was added later when the design was changed to standup targets; I took those off and set them aside for regular plastics with the blue edge as they cover the targets better.

Got tired of the constant hassles with the ball trough so I converted it to microswitches. No more trough problems! If I recall, I used a spare trough plate from a T2, and some other misc. spare parts. Also converted the flippers to modern WPC style baseplate/bushing/coil stop design.

After rolling the score over a few too many times I decided it was time to do the 7 digit conversion. Installed a level 7 MPU, display controller board, and displays - and burned a set of Oliver Kaegi's excellent custom game ROMs, giving the game 7 digit scoring and the multiball award/skill shot enhancements.

Richard

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It's actually crazy easy. Just get a trough plate and ball 1 switch (really just a generic submicro with long flat lever) from a newer 3 ball Williams game. Newer games are microswitch. The trough plate itself will just have 2 switches, as the 3rd, which is a submicro with the flat lever, mounts separately right to the playfield and still uses the trip wire from the old leaf switch. It's been years, but if I recall, a couple of the original trough plate holes got re-used which helps position the newer plate.

I took a couple fresh pics and have uploaded them in as high of resolution as the forum will let me, so hopefully that helps.

This old Williams document hosted on IPDB for retrofitting a microswitch trough plate may help, too. I don't recall having seen it before I did my mod, but it's probably the same exact setup: http://mirror2.ipdb.org/files/310/bkmicroswitchkit.pdf

Richard

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They are 3D shapes, just like all the other inserts. Not plain flat plastic. If they were flat, they would warp far easier. The lip around the edge also facilitates its mounting into the beveled hole in the playfield.

Richard

Interesting! All my previous FP's are long gone but the one I have now being the very early production model, I dunno if it would do me any good to pop it open again and look (just had the pf up yesterday for those trough pics.) It may have the very same flat hot dog inserts you speak of. I could have sworn they were like all other regular inserts (including hot dogs on newer games) but I've got doubts now, since your post.

Another issue is that the repros generally use mostly jeweled inserts, don't they, since that's what is available? They look nice but they're far from authentic for a game from that era.

Richard

BK had some really unusual jeweled inserts, too. I liked 'em.

FWIW my Solar Fire is a mix of jeweled and smooth; the opaque white inserts in the bonus count are old school style smooth. The playfields were formerly NOS but considering the extremely low production number, I don't think there was any re-run of those.

Bringing this back on-topic for Firepower, curiosity got the best of me and I pulled glass to lift the playfield and check the hot dog inserts. They are indeed flat, and thick, as setzkor mentioned. Not as thick as a regular insert is when you include the "side skirt", as the hole in the playfield isn't as deep when you compare it to the inserts around it.

Richard

Maybe. Who knows what their supply of that insert consists of? Plus that's red; Firepower also has a blue one. If they're using up old stock...that's one thing. If they're having them made new, that's another subject entirely. Now as setzkor mentioned though the insert is flat plastic so theoretically it should be much easier to have these made than traditional inserts.

Richard

A lot of times this is due to backbox sag. Try gently pushing upwards on the top edge of the backbox, while you turn the key, see if that helps you turn it all the way back. Of course be gentle with every step you take as you don't want to rake a dragging lock assembly across the top of the glass, especially if it happens to be missing the protective plastic channel.

Richard

This should actually be a 2.5A slo-blow fuse. Someone incorrectly put a 3A fuse in there, so be sure they also didn't substitute an incorrect type of fuse - a non-slo-blow will not last. Get the correct 2.5A SB's and see how it does. If it's blowing those, you likely have a boardset issue. If the boards haven't gone through the typical "bulletproofing" measures, they'll need to be done - replace interconnects, any other sketchy headers, resolder all the headers, and more.

Richard

Assembly error. Haven't seen one like this before but it's not out of the question. They made 17K of these so there are bound to be a few variances over the run! I myself have seen two examples where the 3 blue "Power" target inserts are incorrect. I believe I saw one in this thread that the middle was blue, and outer two were a pale maroon color. I had a playfield similar but opposite - outer two were blue, middle was maroon. I think it's the one I removed from a burnt machine (playfield was untouched but backbox, boardset was ruined; lower cab had minor marks and it went on to save another game.) Playfield was pretty nice other than minor wear up top above the rollovers; if I recall I sold it on ebay back in '05. Wish I had better pics but you can see those inserts -

Richard

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Back in '05 I had a spare Alien Poker that I gave to my dad to keep in his house. I ended up trading it off maybe a year later for a beater Firepower figuring they would dig the multiball and that it would have more replay value for them. Well, the FP ended up having numerous problems, but the biggest was that someone did the "memory capacitor" hack to it and it wouldn't keep the CMOS more than a few days. Explaining to the old man how to open it up, cycle power, add credits, etc. was a bigger chore than you might imagine, plus they had lost the coin door key. Game needed some upkeep anyway so I had him bring it to me on a trip he was already making (they live about 700 miles away.)

Since then I've redone all the boards, replaced the balls, tweaked a few switches here and there, got the game up and running and figured I was done. Instead of relying on the cap hack and didn't want to put batteries back in that they would forget to change, I hooked back up a credit button that someone had drilled into the coin door ages ago. Just now I replaced the 5101 with a Pinitech NVRAM and removed the cap hack from the battery holder area.

Thought I was good to go, until I decided to run a few more test games on it while it's been sitting here in my office going on 2+ years now - anyway got multiball (even though I had some jackets and crap piled up over the top half of the playfield!) locked one of the balls again and it never kicked out. OK, fine, more switches to mess with. Propped up the field and discovered I had forgotten to deal with all the backwards-assembled switches in the game, except the trough, which I had originally done when I got the machine.

ARGGGGHHHHHH

So I just finished the ball lock switches and now I'm off to do the rest...they're ALL backwards...all of them...except the locks and the trough.

Richard

Indeed, I already set the games for free play. I had just hooked back up the hacked-in credit button previously because it was there. Once someone drills a hole through the coin door...ugh. Anyway..

I think credit button hacks are common once games made it to home use many years back, done by people that did not understand the settings menu. It is a bit cryptic without the booklet, and even with, it's somewhat tricky at first on the early Wms games until you understand how it works. Then there's all the games (typically video games, other brands) that simply don't have a freeplay setting, so some people probably assume that's how all of them are.

The trough microswitch upgrade is definitely worthwhile. Williams figured this out back in 1981 with BKLE since they doubled the trouble with two leaf switch troughs in the original BK. I can only imagine what kind of attention BK needed on route once the switches started to wear. What stinks now is it seems that microswitch trough plate with the wireforms and all can be a little tricky to find, much like many other older parts. I pirated mine off an old playfield; wonder if I have another in storage somewhere for my dad's Firepower.

Richard

The old repro backglass (no idea who made them, got it in the very early 2000's - maybe Mayfair?) was very bad about hot spots from the lighting, with regular old 47's in the backboard. This was years before anybody was messing with LED's in pins, so I didn't try any. Didn't go for bulb condoms either as eventually I ended up with another machine that had a nice original glass in it.

On that old one, you could actually see the filaments of the bulbs if you looked closely. The one in your game looks much better, at least from the pics!

Richard

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I did the level 7 upgrade years ago using Oliver Kaegi's "home ROM" - 7 digit scoring is where it's at for Firepower!

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/the-firepower-club/page/39#post-4215289

Richard

Don't forget the system 7 display board, since it doesn't use an integrated display board/credit-match display like system 3-6. And, the associated cabling.

Richard

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You can download the divide by 10 modified ROMs from IPDB or just net search 'em. They're the way to go if all you want is to avoid score rollover and don't want to hack up your game for the 7 digit display mod.

Richard

I'm only familiar with the offerings from many years back by Oliver Kaegi. At this point there are other ones out there and it seems some members in this thread have mentioned them.

I've looked over his page and it -seems- he offers a version that will do the divide by 10 so you can continue on the 6 digit hardware, but also has the altered gameplay extras. Either I've had too many beers tonight or my brain is soft for whatever reason but I'm uncertain if I'm reading it the right way, you may try contacting him. His page: http://www.pinball4you.ch/okaegi/index.html

Richard

Updating to 7 digit displays makes this custom ROM set all the better.

Richard

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Yep! The spinner skill shot is a tough one; I find myself needing to launch soft enough to miss the jets, or the spinner times out (or bails apparently because of a certain number of switch hits?) - my jets are really active so if I launch normally the ball gets tied up in there before I can get a chance at the spinner skill shot, but it's cool when I do get it.

I definitely try for the multiball mission but I have to admit my skill level has fallen off greatly over the years as I play far less often. I work stupid long shifts so my free time is pretty limited.

Richard

It is very common for Firepower to have leaf switch assemblies that were manufactured wrong - one blade is upside-down, causing the contact to be made on the very small "rivet" instead of the intended larger contact. They can work like this for many years before problems arise. Once they do start acting up, they can be intermittent, and fool you in switch test mode. They can be particularly problematic in the eject saucers (and ball trough) because these are things that will stop gameplay, unlike scoring switches which can be intermittent and not be noticed right away, depending on their location.

Get a good look at the switches. It's a little bit of a pain in the ass to flip that blade over but if the switches are built this way, it's critical to the proper function of the game they all get flipped.

Richard

That post is on every Firepower I've seen/owned. Here's a close-up top-down shot of it that should help position it if you're looking to add it to your CPR playfield.

Richard

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And whenever troubleshooting individual switch problems on a Firepower, always check that the switch was assembled correctly from the factory. If the large side of the contacts aren't facing each other, you have to disassemble the switch stack and flip a leaf then re-assemble, clean, and adjust.

If you can get hold of the parts, the real solution is to convert the trough to microswitches as they are far more reliable; the leaf switch multiball trough was problematic from the start and it wasn't much later that Williams began using microswitches for that very reason.

Richard

The very early games have the wood routed out for the scoring switch that goes behind the drop bank, as well as the wiring in place on the playfield. Also, the playfield is dimpled for the drop bank. The plastics over the targets are different as well; they're slightly shorter at the front edge to clear the drops. You'll notice on regular Firepowers there is a thick blue edge at the front of those plastics where they simply added material and did not change the original artwork other than to add that blue edge.

Richard

Here's a pic showing the drop style target plastics, and the cut-out in the playfield for the switch behind the drops. My game was originally made for drops but shipped with standups.

Hadn't noticed that! My game does not have the TRY on the target plastic.

Also included the pic showing the drop bank dimples under the playfield. Pretty sure I've posted both of these earlier in the thread but since we're back on that particular subject, here they are.

Richard

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The "knocker" from that era is pretty tame so if your friend's bar is loud, you might consider some modification. It's more of a...thumper. Not a neck-snapping jolt of WTF like one from a system 11 game...

Richard

For the kickback reacting too slowly, you probably need to clean and adjust the switch, as well as be sure the coil sleeve is good and plunger is free of any lube or crud. The coil is not a very strong one, doesn't need to be, so it doesn't exactly whack the ball across the playfield. It just gives it a good thumping.

Richard

I'm unfamiliar with the RottenDog boards, I prefer originals. But I would say assuming "open" = "on" is a bad assumption. Open would be off, closed would be on, speaking of switches.

Richard

This is pretty significant. So once it's out of warranty, it breaks, throw it in the trash? Or did they provide you a list of third-party repair people that will work on Rotten Dog boards since the people that made them won't?

Richard

Not really a fair comparison; especially the Stern example as we're talking 40+ years. Can't speak to Apple products as I know nothing about them. The dealership example is not a good one either as in 2018 they will still work on your 2005 model car as long as you're willing to pay.

In this case we're talking about a current product that the maker will not repair because it is out of warranty. Defend them if you like; personally I'm not impressed. Good thing I know how to repair original boards* and will continue to use those.

Richard

* I am not a board repair shop and this is not an advertisement for board repair. I work on my own stuff only, as a hobbyist.

Sure don't! That's why I was wondering if they were kind enough to direct you to any professional board repair shops that will.

Richard

To elaborate further, if the game doesn't detect all 3 balls in the trough, or 2 in the trough and 1 in the shooter lane, a game will not start. Be sure those switches are all showing closed.

Richard

Skip Flash and Gorgar and go straight for Alien Poker. Unless you've got unlimited room and funds...

Richard

By the way your ball #1 switch (on the right in your pic) is one of the notorious "backwards assembled" switches of the era. Notice the contact has the wide part facing outwards towards you. If you carefully disassemble the switch stack and flip that blade over, and clean the contacts (nothing abrasive! - I use Wenol metal polish) your ball trough will be much more reliable.

For the wiggle issue either the header connector on the board has bad solder joints, or the connector is bad. Those IDC style connectors simply strip the wire as the wires are punched into them and can become unreliable over time. You can try as a shortcut just pushing the wires back down into the pins from the top side using a small flat screwdriver...or go ahead and replace the connector using crimp terminals and appropriate connector housing. But if the headers on the boards haven't been resoldered yet, that's your go-to job.

Richard

If you look at ball #1 switch in his picture, the blade is clearly upside-down. So regardless of where it may or may not be more common.. that one needs attention.

BTW it seems very common with Firepower.

Richard

Just mush those wires in there tighter with a pocket screwdriver and carry on. Hell, it works a lot of the time anyway.

And in the end, we replace properly with real live crimp connectors.. trifurcon preferred

Richard

Check the whole playfield...though I'll say I am surprised to see two examples where only the one switch in the trough is wrong! I've opened up Firepowers where practically EVERY switch on the playfield was wrong. That's a bear of a job to disassemble each one and flip the blade.

When you get sick of chasing trough problems converting to microswitch (a la BK LE) is the way to go.

Richard

Ya know, a lot of them worked fine for a long time. Once they start screwing up, you'll do nothing but chase them.. cleaning doesn't really help. Gotta flip. You can ease into it by only doing the ones that are really giving you trouble, like trough, ejects, etc. but think of the potential scoring losses you may not notice right away.

Richard

Don't overlook simpler explanation; may have nothing to do with anything else that has happened to the game recently. Might just be a sticky relay on the flipper enable...you could try carefully prying the cover off and see if you can clean up the contacts. Nothing abrasive.

Richard

28.5" and originals are smooth chrome, no ribs. They look just fine with the ribbed legs too, though (and they're stronger.)

Richard

The large tab at the top which is the same as the collector pin...just far easier to access.

Richard

Yes...the system 7 power supply is really weak in the GI connector area. The power connector to the board burns up, the header pins to the GI strands burns up, and the single fuse holder for all four strands burns up. Lotta burnin' going on.

Some may think it's a hack, but I solder a single large wire in place of the fuse holder, replace the power-to-board connector, replace the header and mating connector with trifurcon (square) pins, and then inline with the harness I solder in a four position fuse holder with a 5ASB fuse in each position, isolating each GI strand. Later Williams games have a similar setup.

Also BTW...why is there no Firepower 2 club thread? I don't own one but I know it's different enough from Firepower that discussing both in the same thread can get confusing. System 6 vs. System 7, different playfield, artwork, gameplay, part #'s, etc... ...perhaps someone well-versed with FP2 should start a club thread for it?

Richard

Thank you...much more reasonable response than the apparent eye-rolls I was getting otherwise for making the suggestion.

Richard

That would work exactly the opposite in the case of Oliver Kaegi's home ROM where the spinner is temporarily lit after launch as a skill shot.

Richard

Coil either works or it doesn't; they don't go weak.

Richard

More than a few early FP's came with the dimples, wiring, etc. for the drop target setup. Mine had the correct target bank plastics, too - shorter to clear the drops; the standup style ones have that added blue border at the front.

Pics and story in this older post: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/the-firepower-club/page/39#post-4215289

Richard

Most likely "prop" is just short for "property" ... it's an asset tag.

Richard

I would have started with the speech ROMs and their sockets, and the interconnect cable between the speech and sound board (known issue.)

All that shotgunning of parts is unnecessary work, IMO. The transistors can be tested, and the amps are obviously working.

Richard

Sounds like the MPU has crashed. Typical behavior of an old Williams pin that hasn't had the basics covered yet. Re-solder all headers on the entire boardset - you'll find lots of bad solder joints. Hit the pins afterwards with some DeOxit contact cleaner voodoo magic. Reassemble, be sure you're not missing any screws as that's where your boards are grounding. Give it a shot.

I know, I know, I'll be burned at the stake for saying it but you don't always need to replace all the headers and connectors. Yes they are notorious for being bad, often very bad. But at absolute minimum you need to re-solder them all, take your time and do a good job, then hit them with the DeOxit, and you'd be amazed how solid the game can be with just that effort. If not, then you can go ahead and replace the 40 pin.

Richard

Hey Mat,

Is the blown fuse the only symptom, or did the game crash as well? (controlled lamps locked on, sound repeating if one was playing, etc.)? If it crashed, it may be time to address the 40 pin interconnect between the MPU and driver board. I can't recall but I'm fairly sure it's original on your FP. The boards have had all the header pins re-soldered which is necessary on these older games, but I don't replace the 40 pin unless the game acts up.

Richard

Give it a look; if it still has round pins they're probably original. Most replace them with the square pin design. The sockets are a little more work than the pins, and of course the ones at the ends that are in the larger solder pads take more heat/work to get them loose. You could simply try separating the MPU/driver and give the pins a spray of DeOxit then re-assemble; it may go for a long time without trouble that way.

Another possibility are the ROM sockets on the MPU. If they're SCANBE they need to go. You do run the risk of breaking chip legs removing them to check the sockets, so beware. The SCANBE sockets are easy to identify as they don't have the skeletal framework of regular sockets; the area underneath is solid plastic between the pins. They're trash.

Richard

The old school way of getting more score out of 6 digits was the "divide by 10" custom roms, but they don't change the game rules to allow multiball goals. I *think* but can't recall if Oliver Kaegi has 6 digit-compatible custom roms; vague memory says yes. Search for his page. I've got his 7 digit custom roms in my FP and dig them, but I do understand not everybody is down for the hardware conversion needed for this.

Richard

If you do so that's certainly your choice, just please don't trash the originals as some have. Many boards are repairable and they aren't making any more originals..

Richard

FWIW, all the FP's I've owned, seen, played...red bullseye targets for the right hand ("POWER") bank, and the top single target. Fire Power flame logo stickers on the middle banks, and IIRC those are applied to plain red targets but I'm not certain - can't recall if I ever peeled any to see if they were plain red or red bullseye.

One variation I have seen on several FP's would be the inserts for the POWER target bank - usually all three blue, but occasionally a sort of magenta-toned one mixed in. I've posted a pic in this thread of a playfield with one in the center of those three.

Richard

Probably saw some discussions I was involved in; I had the "2nd run" which is as you described - pinkish lettering instead of red, and thin glass. Regular 44/47 bulbs hot spot the crap out of this glass. I hated it. I let it go when I sold a previous FP machine and retained the nice (albeit mylared) original glass in my keeper FP instead. Hard to beat the deep red lettering of the original.

For what it's worth, the "orange" dithered area on the original glass is actually quite red...at least on my early run original glass. The rest of the colors seem more vibrant to me. Pics attached - large one is the original, smaller one (date stamped 2004) is the Williams "2nd run" and the hot spots are very obvious.

Richard

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I did the 7 digit mod on my Firepower using Oliver's ROMs. I don't recall having to do anything with the sound board harness; it reached fine on its own. Maybe it just needed to come out of one of the harness routing clips?

It was *slightly* tricky coming up with exactly where to mount the display controller so that (1) it wasn't going to interfere with the GI wiring, and (2) the cables would properly reach the displays.

It's been so many years I can't remember what my solution was for locating the credit/match display.. IIRC, I made reference marks on the GI insert board with the original master display in place, showing the location of the glass, then pulled the display and mocked the 7 digit in there so I could see it with the backglass in place. Came out nicely. It's not an exact fit, but the spacing of a 7 digit doesn't allow it to fit perfectly in the divided windows for credit/match.

The point of no return though is when you start cutting holes in the insert board for the display cabling...I used a bit similar size of the old longer slots in the board, but shorter of course for the small display ribbons, and hid them behind the displays.

Posted these pics before in this thread but it's been a while; maybe they're useful to someone as references:

Richard

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Pretty sure you're gonna be disappointed hoping a replacement MPU would fix a problem that is very likely elsewhere. I'd keep the original..

Richard

It's a super common problem for the immediate timeline of Firepower and a few other games around it; one of the blades is flipped upside-down so the small point is facing the other blade, instead of the nice large contact side. They'll work OK for quite a while but once it gets funky then nearly no amount of cleaning will make it behave. And he's right; it's...excruciating...to fix ALL of them. But once you start, there's no point in stopping.

Pic attached from pinsider mwsmith who had posted it in another thread regarding this issue.

Richard

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Hey; what's $900 when you're outta work? Peanuts..

Surprised to see they brought that title back. I bet it was a good seller, though. So many trashed Firepowers out there, and such a great game.

Richard

Maybe one of these days I'll assemble some old school drop banks and swap 'em into my early run Firepower. The rear switch, dimples, wiring, etc. is already all there, and mine came with the shorter target bank plastics...

I guess I've avoided even thinking about it in the past because so many people said it slows the gameplay down vs. the standup targets. I dig the fast gameplay, but I also dig drops. Hmmm

Richard

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I *probably* do? Unfortunately if I do, it'll be in one of several boxes/containers crammed into my storage unit which I recently downgraded to a smaller size, so it's even less accessible. If you don't have any luck soon, you could throw me an occasional PM as a reminder and the next time I go to the unit I can dig through the boxes. I parted out a burned Firepower decades ago but the playfield was still decent; I kept all the hardware off it so that piece is very likely in my stash. It's been long enough that I've forgotten what all I kept, so I can't promise that I do have it.

Richard

Agreed, converting the trough to microswitch is the long-term solution for reliability. They go bad eventually too, but are a lot less trouble. Williams of course figured this out as well for BK LE

Richard

I've had several examples of both games and even scored an NOS playfield for F14. I let all of the F14 stuff go. Even had a few spare beacon motor assemblies and domes. That stuff isn't very easy to find these days..

Speaking as someone who's had both, I'd keep Firepower. It's had longer lasting appeal to me.

Richard

All games can lose their appeal if you play them enough. As far as production numbers, yeah, they made a bazillion Firepowers but many of them got played to death. Finding a nice one is tough, in my experience - and a nice one should command a price to match condition.

Richard

Beats me.. I didn't realize we were talking about the customized example. Speaking strictly as my personal opinion - it's cool what you did with it, making it yours, but if I were looking at it as someone that prefers originality then it is worth less than an original game. If you find someone that digs your mods, then obviously it would not be an issue with them. People that customize classic cars run into the same pitfalls. It's a little tougher to find those that enjoy the same mods that you do.. while an original example appeals to a wider audience.

I'm not 100% stuck on originality, for example, my very nice early-run FP is modified - I did the system 7 MPU swap so I could do the 7 digit displays and run Oliver's home ROMs for the 7 digit scoring and "missions" in the gameplay. Mostly easily reversible other than needing to source all the old parts (I don't think I hung onto any of my 6 digit stuff) and the not-normally-visible extra holes in the backbox insert for the display changes.

Richard

Pics of what areas? I've posted several in this thread, if that helps...if not just let me know.

Richard

What he didn't mention is that both of his posts were about his FP2.

Richard

Yeah.. playfield pic with the glass off, please, seller..

Richard

Don't overthink it. It's a smaller job than you might be imagining. I've done full playfield swaps on more complex games (Pinbot, T2) in a matter of a day or two, without rushing. Pinbot was done on a sheet of cardboard on my office floor, and T2 was done on my kitchen bartop. No jig.

Richard

Easiest way to spot them is the drop target plastics don't have that extra blue border at the leading edge. When Williams decided to go to standup targets, they did it quickie-style and didn't alter the artwork to enlarge the plastics to cover the gap, they just added that solid blue portion up front.

Richard

Maybe not the answer you're looking for, I don't know the Gottlieb assemblies so I can't comment on that - but I hate spending effort and money on something I know I'll just replace later. My choice would be WPC-era flipper mechanism replacements since they have the bolt-on coil stops vs. the original parts which are integrated to the bracket, so that's an upgrade from original right off the bat. They fit correctly, work great, aren't expensive, and aren't a hack.

Richard

Mind you, you still need the correct coils for your game, not what someone might supply with a "fully loaded" WPC flipper assembly. SFL-19-400/30-750, and be sure you have the correct EOS switches, too. The regular WPC style EOS switches will burn up quickly in a Firepower. On games with the high current EOS switch they are normally open at rest.

Richard

Sorry. I might have my info backwards as it's been many years since I've had to fight any flipper issues. Clearly I got it right back then though because the games still work! LOL.. I do have WPC style flipper bases in my Firepower, btw. Thanks for any corrections.

Richard

There are several 7 digit conversions out there, I did Oliver Kaegi's utilizing a system 7 MPU. It's been so long ago that I can't remember if it was necessary to swap that or not, so forgive me there.

The one piece of advice I can really offer here is to carefully place your display controller board so that the mounting screws won't hit any of the GI wiring, but also will be positioned correctly so that all the ribbon cables reach the displays. If you make your own cables that's obviously less of a concern, but I transplanted all original system 7 stuff including cables from my parts stash.

Your FP looks pretty solid, playfield looks nice from the above-the-glass glance. Great game and worthy of saving regardless of condition! The only FP I ever junked out was one that had been caught in a fire.

Richard

I've used a small amount of Wenol metal polish (red tube) applied to a business card, for the real pain-in-the-ass switches. Works pretty well, with no disassembly required. Regular business card method of cleaning switches, just with a little Wenol added. It's nearly magical.

Richard

Kinda. A few more passes through with a clean portion of business card seems to remove the polish from the contact surface. I'll keep moving over to a clean portion of card until it no longer comes back with any funk on it, before moving on to the next switch.

Richard