Hey guys, just looking for a little direction as I blindly stumble through the EM world!

I recently bought a 1949 Double-Shuffle. When I went to check it out, everything worked just fine aside from a few burnt out bulbs. When I got it home I put it back together (minus the coin door), fire it up and it blew a 10A fuse on the bottom board. I figured it may have just been because of the coin door so didn't think much about it. Since then, I've stripped it, cleaned and waxed everything. I've replaced the line cord and cleaned up a pile of hacks.

Now that everything is back together, I went to go start it and the same fuse blew again. I know my problem can't be too deep as it was working two tries previous, but I otherwise have very limit knowledge with this stuff and have been learning as I go. I fashioned up one of those 5A breakers, I own a DMM as well as the schematics (completely greek to me), but nothing is labeled on the game, coil warpers are toast, all the wires have faded and look similar.

Initial questions!

1) In efforts to try isolate my problem, I'm guessing a short, would the machine continue to blow fuses if I disconnected the back box? What about the play field?

2) Would turning it on with the play field up vertical cause any faults?

3) Does the coin door have anything to do with the start up? It blew the breaker with the coin mech pushing the leaver under the play field the same way it did when I tried it by hand.

4) I tested al the coils to the best of my knowledge. One coil right next to the 10A fuses read .8ohm. When I desoldered it to test it read like 30, then went back down to .8 when I reinstalled it. Furthermore, I couldn't see any loose strands, and it otherwise works just fine. I think. When I turn it on, it engages to hold a switch shut...

Further information
- All of the steppers and gears move freely when I trigger the coils by hand.
- All of the switches look to be reasonably gapped.
• When I tried to start it, I could hear the stepper firing about 5 times in the back box, and all of the lights would flash at the same time.

Looking forward to some clues and sorry for all of the ridiculous questions, I have more where they came from!

Jones plugs - scrubbed, cleaned, aligned and testing out with a good beep.

Coin door - Same issue regardless of being plugged in.

Coils - All coils have their plungers, and I double checked for shorts, still looking good!
Didn't know that about the plungers, thanks!

I had time to fool around with it further and I feel like it's beginning to narrow down.
When I plug the game in, nothing happens - Good. I press the big leaver under the playfield which disengages the Tilt then pop goes the breaker.

All of the bumpers, pops, and kickers still work even with the tilt off. I can hear the stepper working as well when I trigger these things. However, still no lights at any time.

I've checked all of the nipples on the sockets, and everything looks good. Who wants to come over for a beer!?

Wow, so two years have gone by and only now have I found time to get working on this ol' girl! I've made some progress, but still have some issues to iron out. I'm really just poking through everything blindly so any help would be appreciated.

Here's where I'm at:
- I plug the game in and nothing happens - Normal, right?
- I push the coin mech to start a game > A motor runs in the backbox, lights flash at the same time, then the same 10A breaker pops.
- I push the breaker back in, and it remains in.

Observations:
- Pop's pop, Flippers flip and Switches... switch.
- I have 5 warm-white LED's in the backbox where the title of the game would be on the backglass. After I push the breaker back in, these lights pulse on and off in exactly 1 second intervals. I went and put an incandescent bulb in one of those sockets and it hardly lights up, but pulses as well.

I put an LED where a character on the backglass would be and it lights up VERY dimly. I put an incandescent in the same spot and it hardly makes a glow.

I checked every single light socket on the game, albeit there's not very many, and they all look good. Hell, I looked over all the connections I could and everything seems to be in order.

Anyone wanna point me in the right direction?

Anyone have any clues as to why the lights would be flashing in a very specific pattern?

Yeah! The noise in the back is a stepper, not a motor. My terms are pretty limited right now.
Seems the breaker pops only during initial start up. I can manually run the stepper and everything goes well.