Thanks! I find it enjoyable to put on some music and break out the tools and put a little elbow grease into the game. The ball trough is coming along

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I have made some progress, the pop bumpers are in! 4 powered and 1 unpowered pops. All cleaned, polished and adjusted. They should work great once power is turned on (hope, hope, hope)

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Today was target day. The blue on the targets was pretty wornworn targets



so I used my Cameo to cut out a paint masktarget mask



painted them with rattlecan red and blue. Although not perfect, they came out pretty good. A coat of clear to protect the new paint and they are ready for installation!repainted targets

thanks!

Today was flipper day. The LAST set of parts to put together on the underside of the playfield. It did not take too long to clean/polish the parts and put them all back in, making sure everything was adjusted correctly.DSC04755 (resized).JPGDSC04754 (resized).JPG

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I soldered the last 2 sets of wires to the coils....and that was it!! the underside is done...woohooo!!DSC04758 (resized).JPG




tomorrow I am going to plug it in and turn it on........

thanks for the kind words!

Today was "plug in" day..... I set the 3 main pieces up on tables and connected the jones plugs, crossed my fingers and turned it on. Things went fairly well. The fuses did not blow - which I consider a major win! and the GI is working everywhere.

However, very little else works:

The bank resets on the main board, but won't reset under the playfield
The big 5195 ball release coil is on continuously and is buzzing. Not sure if its supposed to be on all the time or not.
The hundreds and tens digits will turn when I manually hit the appropriate relay, but the ones won't move at all
no attempt to reset the score reels happens
player unit runs continuously.

I obviously have a lot of work to do!

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thanks guys! this has been a long process and the encouragement means a lot.

I don't have a lot of progress to report. though I have found what I hope are the root causes of the score reel problems...

"ones reel" - I spent an hour on the ones reel trying to figure out why it wouldn't work even when I manually tripped the ones relay. I spent considerable time checking voltages and tracing wires because it all looked ok. Finally I disassembled the reel assembly (what a pain that is) and found it was a mechanical problem. When the assembly is "clicked" by my finger it works perfectly, but when the solenoid pulls back on the plunger it pulls it all the way to the end and it binds up. I could not see anything out of alignment and took it apart several times trying to figure out why. The sleeve slides in and out of the coil easily, the plunger slides in and out easily. It must be that the plunger tips slightly at the end of the stroke. Finally I switched to a different sleeve and that seems to have fixed it (I hope) - here you can see the plunger stuck most of the way into the coil.DSC04768 (resized).JPG


Working on the reels is a massive pain when the head is in place as the wires are not long enough to lower it to a table. I solved it by repurposing a mobile laptop stand, lolusing a laptop stand


"tens reel" - the tens reel was acting strangely, sometimes it would not work when I manually pushed the tens relay, sometimes it would rotate several positions on its own. I spent quite a bit of time tweaking the switches thinking they were misaligned. I finally discovered the tens relay was missing its spring!missing spring


"Hundreds reel" - the hundreds reel was also acting strangely, sometimes it would not go and others it would cycle for a long time. After checking the spring! I spent considerable time trying to adjust the switches - a massive pain as the assembly is quite difficult to work on. After disassembling it and reassembling it several times while tweaking the switches I noticed the switch did not look right. Checking carefully, the inner side of the dual switch is missing both sets of pads on the inner contacts!missing pads on the contacts


so now I wait as parts are on the way

major progress has been achieved! The replacement switch arrived, i plugged it in and gave it a try.

Sadly, every time the ones reel was triggered it would stop. Interestingly all the reels reset to zero at game start, but even manually triggering the ones relay caused the whole game to shut down. Lights stayed on but thats it. I thought it was hitting tilt somehow but on this game, tilt turns off all the lights as well so it wasn't that.

After a couple days of work I disc0vered the problem. From the picture in post 215 you can see that the playfield is upside down. Since I could not put balls in the trough, I simulated it by jumpering the switches in the trough. The problem is that after the ones relay is triggered, the game starts checking the trough switches and when all 5 balls are in the trough it knows the game is over. Since I had all 5 switches jumpered, as soon as I hit a one point target or fired the one point relay it went game over....Took me a couple of days of work to figure it out.

At this point a full game can be manually played on the table so most things are working....however the playfield GI fuse keeps blowing, even with no bulbs in so I have a short somewhere - that is where I am looking now.

rather bizarrely the short dissapeared. I unsoldered every one of the GI lights and verified the fuse would not blow, then soldered each one back one at a time and checked, I got every one soldered back and working and no fuse problems. I can only assume something was touching that I moved during the process.

Oh well, the playfield is almost done - a couple of times I get a double-score when a target is hit but other than this bit of adjustment, the playfield is done!!!

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I took a closer look at GI lighting today. Specifically in the head. I wanted to make sure the lights were working so I threw a bulb into each area, started a game and took a look. None were working....sigh
lights not working in head


I checked the fuse and then started digging in a bit more. I put in additional bulbs and found that some were working and some were not. It took me awhile to check the schematic to see if it had any clues.head lights schematic



Wouldn't you know, there are a set of flasher lights in the head connected to orange/white wires that only come on when the game-over switch is tripped. Checking the lights in question - yep, they had orange/white wires. I was able to verify by running through all the balls and verifying the lights go on...lol

thanks for the info - I will put bulbs in all the slots and verify!

Today I started putting the playfield back together and realized I needed to get the wood sides fixed up. They were in "acceptable" condition but easily fixed up.originals

So I sanded down the wood, applied a light stain and put a couple coats of clear on top. They look pretty good!
sanded downstaininginstalled

Work progresses slowly. I had a tough time putting in the outlane guides. I neglected to dimple the playfield graphic with the tiny holes the studs under the plastics use. I didn't want to just start poking holes through the playfield. It took some work but I finally got itDSC04876 (resized).JPG

The upper curved apron did not get a lot of restoration. It was not in too bad of shape and I specifically wanted to preserve the Manufacturers certificate stuck onto it. It is still legible and is a great piece of history. DSC04877 (resized).JPG

I spent the last couple of days running down some tricky problems and I think I have it all worked out. The game is running well. Next up is the main board.

Today was the start of the main board

Part 1 - initial cleaning.

I will not be doing a micro-polishing of each switch leaf for the main board but I do want to get it cleaned up so I am using the "scrubbing bubbles" technique I saw on YouTube.

First off, the transformer is removed as it can never get wettransformer is removed

The main board is then taken out to the driveway and sprayed down with a good coat of scrubbing bubbles.out on the drivewayscrubbing bubblesscrubbing bubbles

After a few minutes to let the bubbles eat all the dirt, oil and grime, it is rinsed off with hot waterrinsing

Repeat, blow dry with the air compressor and let sit in the sun and wind for a couple hours to dry it all offsitting in the sun

The result - 90% of the work is done for me!cleaned boardcleaned board

Work continues. Once dry, I carefully removed all the pieces from the wood itself, keeping their original configuration for ease of reassembly.DSC04932 (resized).JPGDSC04933 (resized).JPG

Then 60 years of gunk was removed and the board given a fresh coat of stain and finish.DSC04935 (resized).JPG

Finally, all the pieces were cleaned, polished as best as I could and reassembled back onto the wood.
cleaned main boardcleaned main board

The last step was connecting up the transformer again. This time with a new 3-prong plug. I plan to add a plug for the ground braid, allowing the board to be removed at a future time without having to disassemble.new power plug installed

I have made significant progress - it feels good. The main board was powered up and tested. I found some weirdness happening but a close check showed a broken solder connection on the reset bank. Once it was resoldered everything was good and I put the main cabinet back together.DSC04990 (resized).JPGmain board installed

And with that - the main portion of the restore is complete. I still have details to finish up, particularly the front door but I felt it was time to give myself a reward and repopulate the playfield.

Placing the chrome standups and pure white rubbers gives such a feeling of accomplishment.partially repopulated playfield

And with a final doublecheck, the playfield is done!DSC04992 (resized).JPGDSC04993 (resized).JPG

Next up, placing the playfield into the cabinet and taking a look at the apron. Its a custom designed piece that has additional parts to direct drained balls into the ball hole. Then the front door, then the plastics.

I put off working on the apron and focused on getting the machine to the point where I could play a game. I got the flipper buttons and assemblies cleaned up and in place. Interestingly, the tolerance is so tight on them that the thickness of the paint prevented the buttons from working. I had to scrape off the paint in the hole.

I also put a little effort into the plunger. I suppose I could have purchased a replacement but it was just scratched up, so work on the drill with various grits of sandpaper and a final touch on the polisher and it looks pretty good.
original plungerpolished plunger

Although a bunch of pieces still remain to be done, I was able to put the playfield in the cabinet, wire it up and play a game!

There are some issues, the "ones" digit still sometimes stops between numbers, the lower right pop bumper sticks, a couple of bumpers chatter when hit but overall, it is working!!!
playfield in place

Thats awesome. What a fun game, those outlanes are brutal. The first ball I played on it, I got 3 points - true story!

I am still struggling with the pop bumpers. I rebuilt all 4 of them as part of the restoration and using finger pressure they work perfectly, however when the plunger fires they tend to stick in the "down" position about 3/4 of the time. 3 of the 4 of them seem to be doing this.

I've double-checked the plunger (no mushrooming), the coils, the coil stops, put in new sleeves, replaced the spring on one of them - all with no result. It works great when manually pushed but sticks most of the time when fired in-game....sigh.

Here is a quick video showing what is happening.

I removed the pop bumper and drilled out the holes without any change. Just to double-check I've removed the skirt assembly completely and with just the plunger, it still sticks. I stretched out the spring in order to get more force with no change.

With a cleaned and polished plunger (no mushrooming), new sleeve and cleaned stopper, I am now thinking either the stopper may be magnetized (probably not as it NEVER happens when manually operating it) or possibly the spring is getting caught in the plates somehow. I will have to do some more digging.

Here is the video of it without the skirt.

Thanks for the ideas guys. I have to admit, today was a frustrating day. I spent it chasing down ideas that ultimately did nothing. I checked and neither the plunger or stop was magnetized. The issue has nothing to do with anything electrical or with the "above the playfield" stuff as I got tired of removing and reattaching the assembly under the playfield over and over (it never has a problem when pushed manually so I have to test it in-game) so I removed the assembly to my workbenchDSC04998 (resized).JPG DSC05005 (resized).JPG
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I thought perhaps the nylon or metal yokes might be the wrong size but careful checking showed they didn't touch anything. I did remove them one at a time to reduce the number of things down.

Even though there are only a couple of parts, I was able to verify it is a simple mechanical problem as it stays stuck even when power is removed.DSC05007 (resized).JPG

I thought it might be the stop as the little plastic piece is slightly larger than the metal stop. But removing it made no difference.DSC05000 (resized).JPG

I also thought it might be the bracket itself as it is not quite at 90 degreesDSC05004 (resized).JPG

But bending it to 90 didn't make any difference.

I tried a longer and shorter sleeve with no result.

It sounds like the metal stop might be the only thing that makes sense. The hole in the bracket does not allow much wriggle room for the stop but I will experiment with it tomorrow.

I actually had them backwards on a couple of the pop bumpers, I just didn't think about them. When I spotted it, I really hoped that would be it, but it was not the central issue though.

This turned out to be the root cause of my problem. I drilled out the hole on the bracket slightly larger and left the stop with a bit of wriggle. After reassembly, the pop bumper worked perfectly 30 times in a row. So I did the same to the other pop bumpers and then played 4 games on it without a problem. It appears the problem is solved. I don't really know why I had to do it - I didn't actually remove the stop when I cleaned the parts, just cleaned around it. I can only assume they are a hair off from each other and with 4 of them, I got them put back in different spots.

With the playfield about completed, it is time to make a list of what is left to do.

1) the "ones" reel is stopping between numbers sometimes.
2) the playfield apron is rusty and scratched and needs to be repainted.
3) the front door is bent and rusty and needs to be cleaned up
4) the playfield plastics are in good shape but the color is off and will need to be replaced.

For the playfield graphics, I actually thought they were in great shape. However, in checking my playfield against samples in IPDB and the flyer. With the re faded, the skin tone is completely yellow on mine but much pinker on IPDB and in the flyer. So part of the process will be to remake them.

My playfield with yellow skintonesFrom IPDB with pinker skintones

Things are coming together, the coin door is cleaned up and put back in place. It is non-functional. Actually I suppose it would work, but my plan is to cover the coin slots when I set it to free play anyway.

A couple shots of what it looked like, pretty typical for this age of machine.
original frontoriginal door inside

The door was disassembled as much as I could:disassembly
disassembly

Dropped into the rust remover while the smaller parts were polished and tumbledrust remover

The outside presented some problems. While the grain around the edges was easy to renew with a flapper bit, the center area is a smooth polished area. I used the finest flapper bit I had to get rid of most of the scratches but then it had some grain to it.front door in progress

I tried using my big polisher which I use on playfields but because it is inside a depresssion (and it is metal) it didn't work very well. I ended up creating a mini-polisher by taping a polish foam to the end of a flapper bit and using that. There is still some grain but it doesn't look too badDSC05042 (resized).JPGDSC05044 (resized).JPG

Putting it all together and back into the cabinet.. it looks good!DSC05045 (resized).JPG
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The door still has the 4 holes in it from some previous attempt at something - it was probably a security bar or something. My plan is to make a custom 3D-printed plaque that will fit over them and say that it is set to free-play. 2 birds with one stone!

two things are left. The apron repaint and the plastics.

The apron repaint has not been going well. I paint-stripped the old paint, removed the rust and got it in great shape. I painted it with KILLZ primer (from the spray can) and it came out as a flat matt surface that would not mask well. A couple of coats of gloss clear gave a nice smooth surface, but after printing out the paint mask and spraying the green, the paint wants to stick to itself rather than the surface and most of it came off with the mask. So its back to bare metal and I will use a different set of paints and see if I can get it to work correctlyprinting the paint maskthe green did not stickdetails come off

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The plastics have been coming along, I have recolored them to match what I think they were and I am ready to cut out new plastics, and stick them on.my original plasticrecolored version

The apron is finished (at last)

After the last disastrous attempt, I removed all the paint and redid it with a different white. This was a gloss and made a smooth enough surface that the green and blue worked well.

I have faithfully recreated the slightly messed up original (no corrections) and it came out pretty good. It looks great in the machine. I am getting close!

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