I was just looking at this a few weeks ago... I believe the "I (1 : 1)" switches, which control the pop bumper "1000 point when lit" lite and the corresponding 1000 point relay, ride on a cam inside the target spot relay (the I relay). Every other advance of the I relay results in 1000 points on the pops. The I relay is advanced when the 10 point or 1000 point relay fire in 5 ball mode and when the 100 point or 1000 point relay fire in 3 ball mode.

That said, hitting the pop when it is lit (and receiving 1000 points) should result in the pop light turning off and subsequent hits should receive 100 points. Yet that does not happen on my Abra. Some more testing is required when I get the time... I'm still not understanding something... or my 1000 point relay is not firing the I relay due to a bad switch contact.

Are you getting points (10 pointers or pop hits) just by whacking the cabinet around and/or pushing the flipper buttons? If so, check the gaps on the scoring switches nearby...

Are your pops staying lit and scoring 1000 more than 50% of your game time? They should be alternating on and off with 10 point hits in 5 ball games...

Set to 3 or 5 ball?

When you hit the 10 point switches, do the spots behind the targets move? Spot target lights and 1000 when lit bumpers are both controlled by the "Target Bank Spot Relay" or the "I" relay, located on the underside of the playfield near the left pop. Is that relay firing and rotating when the 10 point switches are hit? If so, maybe the switch stack that rides on a cam in the center section of the I relay has a short or bad gaps - this center section controls the 1000 point bumper scoring and lights.

Do you have a schematic?

As background, @ccotenj has a great thread - https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/gtb-as-match-stepper-rebuild-step-by-step . It's a good reference for this type of relay - the match relay is a slightly simpler version of Abra's spot relay.

You can search for topics such as EM repair, safely working on pins, schematic reading, etc.... many great references on these boards.

The simplest explanation may be that the "I" relay is not firing, there is one switch to check on the "N" (ten point relay). Both that and the 3-5 ball jones plug are in the circuit that fires the "I" relay solenoid. The relevant portion of the schematic:

Spot Relay (resized).png

Once that wire is soldered back on (and assuming it doesn't fix the issue), I think you should observe the "I" relay (pic below) while hitting one of the 10 point switches. Lift the playfield, start a game and hit a 10 point switch repeatedly (there's a small rubber directly above the pop that's 10 pts). Does the relay move? Is the arm with the points (red arrow in pic) moving smoothly from segment to segment on the circuit board?

I_relay (resized).jpg

There's a switch on the 10 point "N" relay that fires the "I" relay, it's the lowest switch in the N relay's stack. Can you see if that is gapped correctly? You can also *momentarily* short the two wires going to that switch (YellowBlue and BlueWhiteRed) and listen for the I relay clicking.

No 10 point chime either? We want to look at that N switch stack for that as well... do you know how to simulate the N coil firing by pushing on the white switch armature on the relay?

What's the thread etiquette for the ACD'ers - should we open up a dedicated repair thread or keep going here?

My scores were creeping up on Abra these past few months (and not because of my ever-increasing pinball skills). The 1000 point pops were staying on waaay too long. Traced it down to an armature issue on the “I” Target Bank Spot Relay (an AS style relay with an additional 1 : 1 cam).
I took it apart and cleaned it this week and, when putting it back together, noticed that the armature had too long of a travel due to the relay coil pole mushrooming. This increasingly caused the drive pawl to travel TWO teeth on the ratchet spindle, skipping ahead two positions and leaving the 1000 point pops active. Correct operation in a 5 ball game turns off the 1000 point pops after a 1000 point pop hit. Now, no more machine gun 1000’s, sigh… I’m back to the time honored technique of running up the bonus and sniping at the lit spot targets.

Incidentally, Pinball Resource has a great tech note “Gottlieb AS Style Relay Adjustment” in their AS relay parts section. It gives all the tolerances and alignment instructions for correct operation.

I suppose I should also confess that I haven’t gotten around to ordering a new relay coil yet, I just raised the existing mushroomed coil with a piece of fish paper (a washer was too thick) so the armature now travels the specified tooth and a half on the ratchet spindle. I know, it’s a bit of a LEP man fix, maybe this post belongs in that thread.

Also, some obligatory AS relay porn (dirty):

Spot_relay (resized).jpg

The standard Gottlieb white caps with a red "1000 POINTS WHEN LIT"

Rebuilding the flippers as part of the swap? Considering orange/yellow dot coils?

How do owners protect the lower plastics? The ones in point blank range of the flippers and, almost always, broken. (As Blitzburgh99 's is in the photo above, and both of mine are...)

I've seen the small sets and wondered about the color [mis-]match with the plastics that aren't being replaced. Assuming the remaining plastics aren't terribly faded, are the new ones noticeable?

Hmmm... mine looks clean.

For a Gottlieb production run of ~2800 machines, I wonder how many batches of playfields they run?

I have Abra Serial Number 3041, do the playfields have any production info stamped on them?

Abra keyline (resized).jpg

are your serial numbers higher or lower than 3041?

You have quite the eclectic mix currently, approximately 30 years between each of your pins!

I think I have a relatively early pin... if I registered my s/n at IPSND, it would be the fourth lowest s/n of 70 production Abra's registered. The two largest registered clusters are s/n's 3500-4500 and 4700-5500. Keep in mind that Gottlieb (and others) inserted gaps in their serial number sequences to hide production quantities from competitors.

So the key line was there for early pins and late pins. Probably not the first time (nor the last) that a few minor imperfections showed up in the screening process during a long production run. Based on stashyboy 's info, roughly 70 sets of screens would've been used to produce 2800 machines.

Interesting, are replay awards are turned into "inhibit add ball count unit" (extra ball) awards? How is it communicated to the player? Or is it more of a Team One or Wizard approach?

I have a Spirit of 76 that came wired sorta like that. They took the "Add Replay" signal and used it to trigger the Extra Ball Feature. It was easier to do, obviously, because S76 already has the Extra Ball feature and they just added another trigger.

On your machine, they've either added a relay to cut off the "Add Ball Count" signal and/or are using the Credit Unit in some creative way. Sounds like a fun project to figure out what they did! Let us know if you want help figuring it out.

I'm pretty positive that the schematic will still be accurate regarding the target lights. Pop bumper scoring/lights are controlled by the same unit as the target scoring and lights - the AS type, "I" Relay. I'd think that logic will be unchanged.