Hey all,

Just thought it might be worth documenting my newest (and coolest) project. I admittedly have a few too many projects right now, but this one popped up, and I absolutely couldn't resist, since it's a dream project for me. The original thread it was mentioned in has some solid "before" pics, so I'll let it speak for itself. Although I'd rather not mention what it was, I can say that most would agree that I got it for a fair price. https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/project-tz-pricing-advice

I picked up this up Jan 19th with a buddy of mine, and have pretty much been obsessed with it. I currently have a diner that I'd been bringing back from the dead, but kind of ran out of steam. I also just bought an awesome Bally Playboy project the week before, so I kind of stacked up a bunch of work for myself. Here's the current thread for the Diner - https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/diner-restoration-1

On a side note - Thanks to Pinside, I discovered the Silhouette Cameo 3 vinyl printer, and absolutely consider it one of the best purchases I've made in recent memory.

The first thing I did when I got it home, was completely document and strip everything off of the playfield. There were several messed up inserts that I'd have to redo, and I needed to prep it and clean it for my friend Joey to put down a base clear coat. I will say that this was the heaviest playfield I've ever had to remove from a machine. I pretty much just took the legs off, climbed in the cabinet, and lifted it straight out. Getting it on the rotisserie was also a challenge, but I eventually did it.

I've done enough playfield swaps to have what I'd consider a solid system of cataloging parts that I remove from the playfield, and of course taking as many pics as I can - that being said, there's always at least one shot that is missing when it comes time to put it all back together

Here's a pic of the underside, right before I lifted the harness off.
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The entire thing was filthy and smelled like cigarette smoke when I finally was able to strip everything. Although I absolutely don't want it to smell like a bar, I definitely felt a bit of nostalgia. I'm pretty sure this thing doesn't owe anyone anything, and has probably paid for itself many times over.

I spent a considerable amount of time cleaning it, and was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't too terrible underneath all of the crap. This is actually the first playfield that I've done that was factory cleared, so it was a nice change of pace. I was a little bummed that the wood areas wouldn't clean up a bit more, but for the most part, they won't show anyways. I may end up mixing a wood color to cover them eventually though (or maybe I won't).

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I ended up just lifting the remaining clear off of the ruined inserts, and sanded any remaining clear off. The Lock 2 insert was already kind of lifted, so I just decided to do away with it. The Camera insert, and the left Powerball inserts were also pretty much gone. Here's a pic after my friend Joey cleared, and eventually sanded it down to level it off.

Sorry for the flurry of info, I'm just trying to catch up to where I'm currently at ...

One thing I was contemplating was buying a new mini playfield, as the one I had was suuuuuuuuper planked, and really screwed up. I sent that along with the main playfield, and Joey was able to perfectly flatten everything out after clearing it. It still had plenty of lines from where the wood was lifted, so I ended up being super motivated the other night, and traced everything layer by layer in Inkscape. Here's the progression in pics. The last pic is everything resprayed except for the blue. This is before I send it back for the final clear.

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One issue I ran into was coming up with a decent scan of the areas that were damaged so I could recreate them. I took some pics of Joey's TZ, since I couldn't fit my scanner on his playfield without taking everything apart. The problem with that, was that I wasn't able to always get a flat and straight shot of the inserts. I decided to scan the areas of my own playfield when I got it back from the initial base clear coat, and fit the images I created from the cell phone pics into the scan. Here's a screenshot from inkscape. Thankfully it worked out pretty well.

Side not - It's totally worth upgrading the Silhouette software from the basic package that comes with the cutter, as you are able to directly import the svg files from inkscape, and easily resize them perfectly, so literally no measurements are necessary (which I am absolutely awful at).

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So quick update ...

I've really been obsessed with this project. It's given me the boost of ambition I've sorely needed. I finally finished all of the inserts, and I'm very happy with how they turned out. I'm still going to touch up some of the other inserts, and surrounding light purple and white, but here's where I'm currently at. Added the original pic of the inserts for an easy comparison.

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Thanks! Much appreciated

Nicely said! That's exactly how I feel

Just a quick update from this weekend ... Pretty much in the last 4 or 5 days, I've been knocking out the individual colors. So far, in order, I've done red, light purple, light blue, dark blue, white, and orange. Usually I do the white last because it's so easy to screw up after the face, but I was feeling ambitious on Saturday, so what the hell ...

Still have Dark yellow and black to go, and need to detail a few smaller areas after all is said and done. Not super sure I have the ability to do a convincing wood color, so it might just be what it is, I may give it a try though - it's not going to show either way once it's reassembled.

I can't believe how fast I've been going through this, although I'll say I've put a significant amount of time into it so far. I'm pretty much just going with it as I have a boost of ambition.

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There are definitely some faded spots on the playfield - this part I wasn't super sure about, but I decided to go ahead and do it anyway .. either way, it needed to be touched up. When I first started this playfield, I thought it was a matter of a few touchups, and that would be it. As I dig deeper into it, I'm noticing more things that probably wouldn't be a big deal, but they are going to annoy me if I don't take care of them. I had to trace every single brick, and once I print it out, I'm going to have to weed out every one of them as well. Although it was super tedious, I really didn't mind doing it.

On another note, I think I came up with a really good way of taking care of the bare wood areas (including wood grain) - hoping that pans out, will keep you updated.

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Thanks all, for the nice comments

So i went ahead and gave the brick road a try. I actually weeded approx 430ish pieces - took forever! I actually may have lost count at one point, but not sure.

Anyway, everything fit perfectly! At first, i was wondering if it had been worth it, but I personally feel like it now looks like a million bucks. The process was tedious, but it didn't bother me.

On to the next thing!

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So this weekend, I tackled one of the most intimidating (for me) things that I have left, the halftone gradient fade in the lower part of the playfield. The red itself was definitely faded, and I couldn't leave it the way it was. While I was at it, I needed to redo the black as well to make the fade happen, plus it had some issues anyways.

The hardest part about the entire thing was weeding out all of the parts from the vinyl stencil I created. Since most of them would come right up when I weeded the large part, I took each individual small circle, and placed them on the playfield separately. Tracing everything was a breeze after the brick stencil that I made (in an earlier post), I don't think there's a single thing that would be as tedious as that was.

Anyway, I'm very happy with the result. I think I at least did it justice. Really the only thing I have left (other than the blue part I need to cover on the bottom right, is recreating the bare wood areas. There at least will be a lighting advantage if I can brighten up each of the scorched spots, and even though no one will probably ever see most of them, I'll know they are there. I have a couple of options to brighten the wood areas, hopefully at least one is a good one. All in all, it probably won't end up being a big deal, but since it's an unknown, I'm dreading it a bit.

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So almost at the point where I feel ready to be done with the playfield. I still have a few small things to take care of, but overall I'm very happy with the artwork. My biggest issue was with the wood. As you can see in previous pictures, it sticks out like a sore thumb in several places, due to there being so much bare wood in the playfield. I tried painting all of the wood, and it just looked strange, so "Plan B" was looking into a super thin wood veneer that I'd have laser cut. Well ...

"Plan A" I mixed a solid wood color that looked good on smaller areas, but when I tried painting the entire thing, it really looked like doo doo, so I kept it in smaller parts at the front of the playfield, to help with the light in the lower area. The hardest thing for me was keeping in mind that practically none of the wood I've been stressing over is going to be visible when all is said and done.

"Plan B" Just as a backup plan, I decided to look into a wood veneer. If it was possible, it would be the best option, since it would actually have real wood grain. Apparently, they make them with real wood (you can actually choose the species), and can get them down to about .02" as a realistic option. My only issue was clear coating, and making sure everything would flatten out in the end. My clear coat guy thought he might be able to do it at first, but after doing the math, we decided this wasn't a viable option. I had to live with either knowing the wood (that mostly will not be showing) is ugly under all the stuff that would be covering it up, or having a super lumpy playfield. The choice was pretty obvious.

I'm trying not to update too often with every little thing I've done with the playfield since there are so many little details that I've fixed (that probably I'm the only one that would care about). On a side note, it's surprising to me how faded some of the colors had become (mainly red - like williams/bally sideart of course). Anyway, I'm going to drop both playfields off at Joey's (clear coating guy) house this weekend. Looking forward to the change of scenery when I start a new part of this project.

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Sure, the color actually looks pretty good in person imo, looks kinda different in the pics (from what i can tell), but overall I'm ok with it. I was shooting for a newer wood color in the painted parts as well (unlike the rest of the wood that looks like it sat in a bar for several decades) Overall, most of it still wont be showing when the playfield is repopulated. Thanks for the heads up on a few of the borders, ill touch it up before i send it off. Wish there was a better option on covering the wood, but alas Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated!

Hahaha, that's amazing! That's what I originally tried to do with mine, but the larger areas on top were just kinda strange looking without wood grain (for my try), so I cut the new wood color down to the smaller sections on the bottom of the playfield. I like your suggestion though, I may try to go a bit darker to match the bottom area and shooter lane section of mine. My problem, is it's so roached, that there's not a whole lot of wood grain that would still show through. Thanks again for that though, you've given me something to consider before sending it out

Awesome work, That really looks great! I think I'll give it another go, since that is literally the only thing I have left to do. I might just have to embrace the slightly darkened wood color, and try to match some stuff instead of going with bright new wood color in select spots, so that i don't have a billion different colors of wood on the thing. I can do a lighter coat on the bottom of the pf to preserve wood grain, once i have a good color.

So when I first messed with the wood color, I tried painting all of the wood parts, and since there was no grain coming through, I decided it looked weird. I wiped off all but the lower playfield portions, thinking it would probably look good with everything repopulated. I kinda knew in the back of my head that the previous version of it was not exactly what I wanted, but I am/was rapidly reaching the point of burnout on this particular part of the project (probably due to putting all the work into masking the entire playfield, and it looking crappy).

Anyway, what I've learned about wood color ... Just take what you have - In my case, a medium orange color - at least something that has a good portion of wood grain that I can salvage, and match to that, as opposed to attempting to shoehorn a brand new color into the playfield. So I went back down, and matched the paint to the wood color, and re sprayed each area that I'd done before, and I'll say I'm much happier with the result. I've already tested it on the bottom area, and I should be able to salvage the wood grain, but also make a consistent color on the bottom by spraying a light coat or two.

I still have a bunch to do w/the wood color in general, but it's the last thing I have to do, and I'm done.

PS forget the mess around the playfield

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Thanks! I think so too ☺ so far, I've only repainted the areas that were previously painted. Still need to take care of the rest of the playfield.

So finally wrapped things up on the playfield. Overall im happy with the wood color, and i dropped it off at my friend Joey's house for the final clear coat.

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So here is the mini playfield after the final clear. I included a before pic just for the heck of it.

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Hot damn, heres some more before and after action.

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So I've held off on any updates after the playfield, since there really aren't as many interesting things going on - just busy work.

Here's an update from this week:

I've started on the wiring harness, which as you can see is a disaster. I have been working on disassembling and tumbling all metal hardware, and re wrapping each of the coils. I really don't want to leave anything out, so I'm going to replace all of the bulb sockets and twist ins (which I already have a stash of). As you can see, the bulb sockets (as well as a good deal of the rest of the metal hardware) are pretty rusty. It's actually fascinating to see what 3 decades of being operated in a bar can do to a pinball machine.

I also have been compiling a Pinball Life and Marco order for the last several weeks just so I can reduce the amount of orders I'll eventually have - I almost died when I ended up spending about $450 between the two on small parts. After spending all of that time on the list, I still managed to forget a few items from each, and since I realized the parts I forgot to order before it was shipped, Terry at Pinball Life was gracious enough to let me combine a separate order. My biggest challenge on my next restore will be to nail each of those orders on the first time, which I firmly believe is impossible.

My next step is to eventually finish redoing all of the hardware, cleaning the boards, replacing the bulb sockets, and reassembling the bottom side of the playfield.

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I started to populate the bottom of the playfield the other day, and so far am pretty happy with the results. I washed all of the boards, and have pretty much tumbled and cleaned each metal piece by hand. The subway was absolutely disgusting to begin with, it essentially looked like someone drew all over my hand with a sharpie when I handled it (before cleaning). The harness is completely cleaned and ready to go, but I'll wait until I have all of the assemblies tumbled/cleaned etc.

My least favorite part of any restoration is taking apart, cleaning and rebuilding the flippers, and this one obviously has 4 of them. The person that owned this machine previously had bought all new coils, but picked up the wrong ones for the upper flippers FL-11630's. I'm assuming they weren't happy with how powerful the upper flippers were, so decided to buy stronger coils - or maybe I'm missing something? Anyway, just add that to the 5 thousandth Marco/Pinball Life order in the future. For now, I put the coils in, but will replace them before all is said and done.

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This week I worked on cleaning up some more metal parts and also reinstalling the wiring harness. I've done this enough times, that I can appreciate the fact that the harness only took about an hour to put back on - regardless, it still looks like a rats nest, but no longer smells like the inside of a bar.

I've made the mistake of ordering the wrong lamp sockets more than once, and realized I did it once again with my recent pinball life order. It was really close, but the base was flush with the mounting bracket instead of sticking up past it a little bit. I couldn't find exactly what I needed on Marco or Pinball Life (but feel free to send the correct one along), so I went with The Pinball Resource, which were spot on. I also realized in the process that I had also ordered the wrong ones for my Diner restoration ... oops.

Anyway, I'm nearly done with everything on the bottom of the playfield, which is pretty exciting!

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Just a heads up since I've had a few people ask. Here's the code from PBResource for the correct lamp sockets -

A11905 - #44/#47 wms/bally mini bayonet sockets $0.90ea

Still putting in a few hours every night. Pretty much the entire bottom has been repopulated, with the exception of the areas I can't get to because of the rotisserie. The most time consuming part of the playfield re-population (top and bottom) has been scrubbing everything with brasso until it looks new. It wouldn't normally be as time consuming, but as you have probably seen up to this point, it was in pretty rough shape to begin with. I finally hit on an eBay discount code this week and ordered the side art as well, which I'm a long ways away from. Hopefully I'll have something a little more flashy to report next week, but for now, I'm about to put in what I hope to by my final parts order.

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Hey there, thanks!! I actually use Inkscape, and manually trace scans from my HP 4600 scanner with the Inkscape's bezier tool. After tracing them and printing a stencil, I pretty much just eyeball it when placing the stencil on the area that I'm going to airbrush.

Getting really close to finally finishing the playfield! There is so much going on with this playfield - not to mention all of the riveting, and layers involved with the plastics as well. My "final" Marco order was more than I expected, but whatever. When all is said and done I hopefully won't have any regrets, and by I'll still be right-side up financially in this one (although I don't really care about that).

There was definitely some melt(iness) in some of the areas. The third pic shows one of the plastics and a plastic lamp holder that I also had to replace. I still have plenty of plastics to do, all of the habitrails, and the mini playfield to repopulate - will put up a pic if I complete it sometime this week.

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Thank you!! I am dreading the cabinet since there was definitely moisture in it at some point. I'm assuming someone spilled their beer or something more than once while this was being routed. It feels like it has taken an eternity to polish all of the metal, it was pretty grungy

So I'm pretty much done with the playfield finally. Besides waiting for the new clock housing to arrive, I still have to add the ramp flap thing in the shooter lane, and put all of the twist-ins in, but it's pretty much there. I looked everywhere for an original clear clock housing, and was finally pointed in the right direction by a fellow pinsider - looks like it's readily available in blue, yellow and red, but aesthetically, I'd rather go for stock (besides the glass gumballs of course). I probably need a week or so to take a break, but then it's on to the cabinet, which is also a real mess. I'll do better at taking some before pics before I dive into that.

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I finally received my new clock and gear housing the other day, and was finally able to put it together. I found out that in the spot where a screw holds it down on the scoop, someone broke a screw off, so now I get to take the scoop out and try to fix that ... This thing had a hard life. This will probably be the last playfield pic until it's in the cabinet. Speaking of the cabinet, I've been moving right along on stripping the sideart off, I'll give updates later this week.

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Thanks guys!!

Quick update. I've been working on the cabinet for the last week, and the backbox for a week longer than that, but I'll just discuss the cabinet in this post (because I'm being lazy).

The Cabinet is mostly in solid condition, but has 2 areas that are going to be a bit of work. If you remember in an earlier post, all of the light bulb sockets were pretty rusty and grungy - I'm guessing this was because some genius spilled his beer in the front left part of of the game, which trapped some moisture in the game for who knows how long (again, this was operated in a bar it's entire life). So I have a some water damage, but I'm 100% sure I can get it back in shape. Also, The veneer on the back part of the cabinet is lifting and peeling, so I'll have some work to do there as well.

Overall, I've been peeling the old sideart off bit by bit by hand, with the help of a heat gun. Most of the artwork came off without too much trouble, but the left side has been incredibly stubborn. Although it's super tedious not using a scraper, the wood underneath for the most part is pretty much perfect. There are some spots I'll need to fix, but it's absolutely nothing compared to some of the garbage that I've dealt with in the past. Anyway, I have less than half of the artwork on the left side to take care of, and all of the artwork will have been removed.

Once I have the sideart off, I will sand all of the painted black areas, bondo, and prime, before sending it to my automotive paint guy to paint black, before I put on the new decals.

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Thank goodness I'm done removing the decals, I can honestly say that I didn't mind any of it until I was down to the last little bit. The second pic is of the pile from just today. Now I need to finish stripping the inside of the cabinet, and then start sanding any remaining black areas before I start bondo. The backbox (I still need pics) was probably in the worst shape of everything. Besides the large gouges in the sides, the back panel had definitely seen a bit of moisture, so needed to use an entire bottle of Minwax wood hardner, and am now smoothing out any cratered areas with bondo.

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Thanks! There's next gen sideart on Ebay or pretty much most of the pinball related sites - also I'm not sure if Retro Refurbs are doing any Williams/Bally stuff anymore. I think there's a guy on Ebay that repros all of the labels for Williams games. I haven't really looked into it yet myself.

Currently I'm in the middle of repairing any imperfections on the backbox. The back had absorbed some water, so was a bit fluffy when I started. I used Minwax Wood Hardener to stabilize, and wood filler over top of the little craters that are eventually left behind after sanding such a situation (as you can see little specs of wood filler all over pic one). There were several gauges in the backbox, and also the glue pulled up some of the grain on the sides. I personally put a thin layer of wood filler along each side, and sand it down until it's flat. The first and second pics are after sanding the second layer, the last pic is of the third, and hopefully one of the last wood filler layer I'll have to do, although I'll do another if the corners aren't nice and sharp.

Unfortunately, I won't get the full scope of what I might have missed without the first layer of primer, but I think I'll be able to get it nearly perfect. Not much to see at this point, but it'll be sweet in a matter of a few days.

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Moving right along on the backbox ... I have it primed, and step sanded it down to 320 - it pretty much feels like a chalkboard, which is sweet, considering all of the moisture the back picked up in it's former life. Next step, I'm going to send the backbox off to my friend Joey who will do the black automotive paint, and clear. I'm gonna start on the rest of the cabinet while I wait for that, and will probably get the warning screen over here within the next couple of weeks to take care of the back while I can. Once the warning screen is done for the back, I'll throw on the sideart, and see how the rest of the cabinet it coming at that point.

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Here's the backbox after my buddy spayed it with automotive paint. I'm currently working on the rest of the cabinet, but hopefully in the next week or so, I'll be able to do the warning label screen

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Joey (automotive paint guy) has a suggestion for alternate backbox sideart

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Probably the most miserable experience in this whole thing so far was trying to convincingly repair the back on the cabinet. When I got this thing, the back of the cabinet stood out as a challenge, because the wood veneer on the plywood was cracked, and peeling off. I went through and peeled everything back as far as it would go (so I wouldn't have to deal with it later) and eventually had several other parts randomly crack off along the way. None of the pics really show the final bondo content on the cab (because I suck at documenting this stuff), but it was quite a bit.

Once I was at a point that I was pretty comfortable with, I hit it with a thin layer of primer - only to find that I missed several big cracks in the middle. After fixing again for the 50th time, I hit it with another coat of primer to make sure things were taken care of. The biggest challenge was leveling the primer so that there was no wood grain, or difference where the bondo and cabinet met. No matter how flat you have it, there's always a difference between the two once primer is applied (one is flat, and one has grain). It took a bit to work out everything, but this thing is smooth.

Still working this out, but I actually have the two biggest pains taken care of, and perfectly smooth, the other being the bottom of the cabinet. For the bottom, since the wood had picked up a solid amount of moisture, I had to repair it with wood hardener and bondo (same as the backbox) and am just going to have to paint it. Currently, it's also primed and perfectly smooth - more pics to come later.

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Just a quick update - I've been working on this cabinet for several weeks, trying to get it perfect, but definitely ran into some challenges. One of the parts I dislike the most, is having to repair the bottom of a cab that has absorbed a bunch of moisture. Besides the back, that stuck out to me as being one of the most unpleasant things left to do - I had success on repairing the entire back of the backbox which had picked up a bunch of moisture, so I knew I could do it, but also knew it would take some time.

I started by sanding out the puffed up lumps in the front of the cab. Once the lumps were fairly even, I poured some minwax wood hardener on, and sanded again to even it out. Once everything was ready, I put some bondo on the area to help with cratering, and although I don't love the idea of painting the inside of the cabinet, it's pretty much the best looking way to go. I've been doing one side at a time, leveling everything out, and step sanding down to 320 grit. Joey (automotive paint/clear coat guy) had mentioned some pinholes on the mdf section of the backbox, so I've been careful to check to make sure everything is level out in the sun.

The only things left to prime, sand and level, are the two outside sections of the cabinet, and the front. I'm hoping to finish all of this up, and send it off to Joey this weekend.

On a side note ... There's been a crazy heat wave that's pretty much been sitting over Georgia, TN, and the Carolinas exclusively in the last week. To all of my friends in my neighboring state, I apologize - I'm pretty sure I blew a hole in the ozone layer with all of the primer I've been using

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Most definitely agree, thanks!

Just got some pics of the cabinet back. Will post some before and after pics once I get it back in my possession. Next step once I get it back is to run the new ground braid, and wait a couple of weeks to put the decals on.

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Thanks so much! I really appreciate it!

Just got this back today and absolutely love it, everything is smooth as glass. I'm supposed to get together with a guy that has the backbox warning, and patent screens soon. In the meantime, I think the next step is to rerun the ground braid on the inside. Everything that used to be inside the cab is still cruddy, so need to take care of that bit by bit as well.

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Just a quick update - My friend Ray brought over his screen kit for the patent and backbox warning. Turned out great!!

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So meant to update a bit more last post, but didn't have enough time. I took out the artwork that I bought (next gen), and I was a bit disappointed that it wasn't as glossy as the artwork I normally get. The artwork looked really solid, was just in a satin finish. I really don't want to cut any corners with this project, or have any regrets, so I sold it, and reordered from another place I know of that has extra glossy artwork to match the cabinet. All in all, it was a whopping $7 mistake, so I'm not too broken up about it, will just have to wait for it to be shipped.

On another note, I'm obsessed with how good the screen looks on the backbox. I was a little worried at first that it wouldn't stick particularly well to the glossy paint, but after drying, it's not ever coming off. Also came across a crappy before pic of the backbox (because I suck at pics), you can see how puffed out the back was in the beginning.

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Hey there, thank you! That powder coat job looks amazing, , and i definitely know the disappointment of not getting the right gloss with decals - my previous post I actually used a vinyl cutter to make airbrush stencils on my playfield, so unfortunately what i did may not help you out. Unfortunately I don't really have a way to make decals.

Finally ... After waiting for about a month, I finally got my decals from pinballdecals.eu ... Overall they are really nice decals, and they have the gloss level that I needed to match the rest of my cabinet. Will post more pics when I do the rest of the cabinet.

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Finished all of the decals, and totally happy with the result. I've had a couple of people ask about the differences between the pinballdecals.eu and next gen 2 decals, so I'll try to quick summarize. Please keep in mind that I literally just took the Next Gen stuff out of the tube, and put it right back in, so I don't know if I have a great perspective.

Next Gen stuff looked really good. The artwork looked really sharp from what I could tell, but I literally only took it out of the tube and put it back in. It actually surprisingly kinda looked screened (although I know that's not the case). My problem was that the gloss level was probably satin at best, and I am going for ridiculous gloss on my cabinet. I have a set of Next Gen decals for Diner for whenever I get back to that, and I've already matched the gloss so that I won't have the same problem I ran into here.

The Pinball Decals artworks looks really good IMO. At first I thought maybe it wasn't as sharp as the next gen stuff, but after further inspection, it looks really good. The colors are really good, and the gloss was exactly what I was looking for. Sizing was great, and the extra vinyl they allotted with each piece was more than enough to make sure you didn't make a mistake. The only issue I had with it (and I've done a ton of sideart over the last decade plus) was it will bubble like a mother if you don't take the right precautions. I don't know what to attribute that to, but as long as you reaaaaaally take your time, you'll be fine.

Anyway, just my .02

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Thanks so much! I'm definitely ready to wrap this one up sometime in the near future

I'm currently reassembling the cabinet after a great weekend at sfge. I pretty excited about the look with the brand new siderails, but was bummed when i realized I lost an order with leg bolts, metal leg protectors, and the flipper buttons, so had to reorder.

I am trying to make sure I stay focused and thorough, and not think too much about the fact that this thing should be good to go in the next week or so. It's been a hell of a long journey, but I think I welcome it being finished.
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Oh man, The most hair raising part of this entire damned project was getting that playfield in the cabinet. I put it in, and it was stuck ... Turns out I stupidly put the wpc lock rails on backwards, so let's just say that whole experience shortened my lifespan to some extent. I had to prop it up as far as I could and stretch my hand in as far as I could to unlock the thing. Kids, don't make the same mistake, you will be sorry!

Regardless of all the unwelcome drama, I was somehow able to save the beautiful cabinet from any scratches (that I'm aware of). I'm 100% pleased and relieved things turned out ok.

The three most daunting tasks remaining were the coin door, the lockbar receiver, and eventually turning it on for the first time when everything is hooked up. I was able to grind away and take care of the lockbar receiver yesterday, and I ordered a set of WPC decals from Marco the other day that should take care of the warning and inspection decals.

Once my back recovers from lifting that incredibly heavy playfield into the cabinet, it's on to the backbox. On a side note, I found my missing order right before I received my reorder ... oh well.

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I finally put the thing together and up on legs. I still have a few things that I need to finish up, which includes redoing the coin door, and buying a new lockbar. I spent the last few days chasing down issues, and adjusting things as needed - The good news is that I currently have a playable Twilight Zone, the bad news is my clock board is wonky, and the motor on the gumball machine is not working .. So I had to order a new motor, and also purchased one of Ingo's clock boards. On a side note, the Next Gen translite for TZ is hot garbage as you can clearly see by the pic. I'm going to need to order a mirrored CPR replacement as soon as the rest of the game quits nickel and dime-ing me.

I had a pile of adjustments to make, and I'm currently through almost all of them. The only things I have left to fix are the right side of the GI, which I'm fairly certain I will have fixed shortly, clock and gumball machine (which I stated earlier), the eddy board, and I also have the strangest issue of all ... My left and right magnet optos are flipped. I even tried swapping the harness connectors for each, and they continue to register as opposite. It absolutely makes no sense to me at this point, but it is the Twilight Zone, so I guess I'll roll with it.
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Thanks! I ordered the motor from marco, but realized that it was the damned harness as soon as i plugged it in ... So i actually have a brand new motor i don't need ... I don't feel comfortable sending the new one back, so I'll give u a deal if u want it.

Thanks so much for the kind words! It's still ongoing, and has been a labor of love throught. At this point, I feel like i have so many things to button up, but now i can actually play games on it, which is super cool! I need to figure out why the magnet optos are switched tonight, but once i do, that should be one of the last major issues i need to look into. Thanks for the encouragement throughout

Stupidly enough, this is my favorite view of the machine (which practically no one will see). Also - remember kids, buy the upper part of your backbox latch when you order from marco. I can't count how many damn times I've made this same mistake Off to find more stuff to order to justify shipping on a $2 piece.

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Thanks so much! Since the last update, I received my Ingo clock board, and love it! I kind of suspected that the problem with my previous clock board was actually in my wiring harness, and I was correct - so I now have an extra working clock board. Ingo's has interchangeable LEDs, and lights up the clock really well (which is why I have the dark pic at the end). I also went ahead and snagged a color DMD. I went ahead and ordered a CPR mirrored backglass the other day, since the repro translite I have is absolutely horrible. Originally I was going to do PDI glass, and a pinsound board to play Granner's original soundtrack, but I'm not sure I care at the moment.

The only steps I have left are refinishing the coin door, grabbing a new lockbar, and figuring out the two inserts in the door that aren't currently working. Glad to be on the better end of this project, it was a long journey. Will get pics once it's all done!

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So I think I'm finally done with this thing. I decided to go ahead and just buy a new coin door, and use the old one on my re imported Wh2o. I also purchased a new lock bar, since the old one had rivets in it, and replaced that awful repro translite with a CPR mirrored backglass.

I saw a few posts where people were worried that the repro backglass was too blue, but IMO it is just about perfect (maybe they adjusted it or something). I am very pleased with the amount of light that comes through, and the overall look. It matches my sideart and playfield blue perfectly IMO. I would say, of the extras that I'd added (color dmd, Backglass, new lockbar and new coindoor) the backglass was the most bang for my buck - maybe a result of my previous translite pouring light through it, and also appearing purple.

I'm still terrible at the game most of the time, but I'm very happy with the result!

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Thanks! I think that was the biggest game changer for me, but then again, look what I started with. If you scroll back one post and look at the previous translite, it was so bad to start with. I am very pleased with the backglass.

That's actually a great question. I'd say the website has an accurate representation. The mirroring is super cool, but it's also very subtle. I kept thinking i put a huge scratch in the back of it every time I caught sight of the mirroring. For me, if I had a perfect original, I would have stuck with it instead, I'm not sure anything would beat that. For example, I also bought a Diner backglass with one of cprs playfields (since it was discounted) - it looks amazing, but comparing it to my original after cleaning it up (which turned out to be in perfect condition without all the crud) it seemed slightly less sharp, and now I'm debating on which one I will eventually use, although the mirroring is a bit more striking for the diner backglass.

All in all, I'm not sure anything beats an unfaded and nice original translite, but I also don't have a perfect one to compare it to. The cpr backglass does look absolutely stunning, and I have absolutely no gripes at all - still my favorite addition in this restoration. I will note that Im also using incandescent bulbs, and with them, the colors in the backglass perfectly match the rest of my machine.