I’ve got a Gottlieb Top Score that’s been giving me issues lately. I’ve gone through the back box and under the playfield, cleaning contacts, steppers, and score reels so far. The game still has the same issues as when I received it.

Currently, I have the game set up for 3 ball play. I can play a couple of single player games and all seems fine, then the next game, it’ll go for a 5 or more ball game and maybe even play one ball on player two! Games after that can be of any sort or duration, balls or players... the ball count is lit sometimes when playing ‘correctly’, and when the game ends on a ball 3 or 5?, the game will match and lite game over, so that seems to work!

If I start a two player game, I’ll get player one doing ball 1 only and then alternating with player two for balls 2 and 3. Or it might be player one doing balls 1 through 3 and then player 2 doing balls 4 and 5 and then the game ending? Usually something different, I haven’t had a correct 2 player game.
The schematics that came with the game aren’t the most in depth for all things.

For those familiar with gottliebs, the KS relay is listed as an advance unit relay. Not much is shown on the schematics as to what it all does in relation to the number of switches on it. Does this relay also control ball and player advance? I’ve cleaned the wiper contacts but the unit seems sluggish. Not looking forward to it, but thinking off taking it apart to give it a thorough cleaning and possibly free it up more.

The player unit has been cleaned, spins freely and the contacts are centered with the feet when they stop. The FS relay in the back box has also been cleaned and appears to function correctly.

Thanks for any tips or tricks on where to take it from here!

I’ve gone through those switches along with the bx relay and the motor switches with no change in the original state of the game. Still can start a single player game that goes thru 3 or 5 balls, or sometimes doesn’t end (no ball in play light displayed), with player two active at random balls throughout a game. Also of note, sometimes at start, the game will not always reset player one score reels or sometimes player two score reels or both, but it doesn’t happen every game.

At this point I’ve looked at every relay and checked for freedom of movement and contact gaps throughout the machine. Not sure of doing the disassembly and through cleaning of all the relays on the lower board. The Ax relay seems pretty decent at this point but could still possibly be the issue? The issue is frustrating as a game is never the same twice.

Thanks for the info on this! First em game I’ve had with a spinner. The spinner works fine and tally’s points when spun, but the KS relay rarely(barely) moves, so there is no bonus advance or lights on the bonus going up. Looks like someone may have hit it with wd40 in the past. Cleaning that up is in the near future.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve made some progress with the game. I’ve gotten the score reels cleaned and functioning correctly. Had issues with the player unit, (broken coil bracket; rewelded that, stepper out of adjustment; often double stepped, plenty of gummed up wd-40 and white lithium grease all over the place, etc...) that seemed to be cleared up now.

Today’s issue is the score motor continuously running after hitting reset. I wasn’t working on any switches that I was aware of before this problem started. I seem to be missing some sort of continuity with the player unit stepper coil.

When I press the reset, the player unit will advance till the wipers are off any of the contacts (the wipers sit on the center of the contacts when correctly in position) and the score motor will continue to run. If I manually advance the player unit, it will step when it hits the next contact and then quit when it comes to another gap section. When I advance it to player one, it will reset the player one score reels, then I’ll need to advance it to player two, where it will reset player two score reels. From there it will advance by itself to the end of the start sequence, turn off the score motor, and be ready to play.

I’ll look over the schematics again to see if there is a particular switch on the Ax relay that might be my problem for advancing the player unit. I guess there must be a switch somewhere out of place. I don’t believe anything on the score motor could be causing the issue, or not likely on the player unit as well since it’s not advancing?

Thanks for any further advice for troubleshooting!

I’m trying to go the divide and conquer route with getting this game going. I’ve been working on just trying to get a normal start and reset for the pin first. Therefore, right now I’ve got the game setup with the playfield out of it and just concentrating on what’s in the cabinet and backbox.

The game makes it through step 4 right now. U and Q are de energized, AX is latched, the score motor spins and the player unit advances one spot and stops.

I simulated a game by starting it with a full reset to player one, ball one, Clicked the score reels to put a score on one, advanced the player unit one step, for player two, clicked the reels for a score and then tripped relays BX and Q to simulate game over. Then I started a game by pressing start.

From this condition, if I turn the game off then back on, the score motor still spins and relays Q, U, and H energize. AX and BX are still latched as well.

Bingo! Thanks for giving me that circuit to check. Switch at P4E was open, after it was adjusted, the reset sequence was correct finally! Installed the playfield to see how it played. The game was working pretty well, except that every game was a 2 player game. At least they all ended after the 3rd ball, as the game was adjusted for. Went through the schematics and found a switch on CX that wasn’t closed, adjusted the gap and solved that issue!

Next is to figure out why the lane lights on the right side aren’t alternating like I think they should? I’ll get a chance to look at that tomorrow.

Thanks for the help so far! More learning in store...

Looks like it’s back to normal and everything appears to be scoring correctly. It seems the majority of the issues were just that the pin needed a good cleaning and the removal of 40+ years of accumulated Wd-40 and other whatnot lubricants put on moving parts. Cleaning the AS relays wasn’t as big a deal as others have made it out to be. Cleaning one side of a relay at a time, and then putting that back together, before starting the other side, seemed to work out ok for me.

Thank you very much, HowardR!

Your patience and time were very much appreciated, and I owe you couple of beers for the help!