Always wanted a Tx so when one finally appeared for sale a couple of years ago I overpaid for a junk bucket. Scratched up cabinet, broken ramps, missing coin mech, hacked boards and playfield missing paint. I justified it because it did work and they never come up for sale. Of course, within six months of my purchase several nice ones were suddenly available!
Mine was too ugly to bring in the house so I just played it in the garage. It is a fantastic game and my garage is too damn hot for a quarter of the year, so I decided to undertake my first restore.
I enjoy following other Pinsiders restorations so I’ll document mine. I claim no special knowledge or skill set.

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Once the playfield was cleared I tackled the Mylar removal. It didn’t go well. Lost a lot of paint. Freeze spray didn’t budge it but it came right up with a hair dryer on low heat.

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Used the alcohol and flour method from Vids guide to remove the glue residue.

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As you can see I was left with a sorry looking playfield. I wasn’t worried because I had seen some HSA restores and the plan was to let them have at it.
This was the first of many plans that didn’t work out as HSA quit before I could send it up.
As there are no NOS or reproduction playfields available I was stuck. The damage was way beyond my skill set so doing it myself wasn’t an option. Fortunately, while at the TPF I learned of a local guy who does restorations. I contacted Keith Holbrook and he was willing to take it on. I decided to take the cabinet to him as well, as it was too scuffed up for me to repair and there are no decals available to restore the cabinet graphics.

Keith is a great guy and very honest. He told me up front it would be a long time before he could get to my stuff. 10 months later this is what I got back. All I can say is WOW, it was worth the wait!

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Some more before playfield pictures

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He did a great job especially given the starting point. Once I finally get everything back together it’s going to look cool. I saw your post last year with the plasma pop bumpers and I’m definitely going with those.

Installed the t-nuts using a washer and felt tool without any problems.
Used the HEP solder tab method for the under playfield lighting. Not really anticipating having to adjust the lighting that often but I just like the way it looks.
Stapled the wire down with an electric stapler that actually worked great. Don’t have room to store a compressor so this was the next best option. Tried using an old manual upholstery stapler first but it misfired way too much.

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I saw several posts with some elaborate ones, but mine was simple and cheap. A large and small washer with self adhesive furniture felt pads that I cut to shape under each washer. Then #8 and #6 hex head machine screws. Seated the T-nuts nicely with no scratches.

Waxed the entire playfield prior to installation of the wire ball guides.
I used this P21s that I ordered from Amazon. It went on very smoothly.

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The guides were really dull and dirty so I ran them through the ultrasonic using full strength Mean Green degreaser .
Then I put them in the tumbler with some Flitz for about 24 hrs.
Didn’t have much luck with the Harbor Freight tumbler- had to return two. They were good about refunding my money and everything else I bought there was fine. But the tumblers both died after about a week. I subsequently bought this Berry which has been fantastic.

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After tumbling the guides in the Walnut shells and Flitz I ran them through the Ultrasonic one more time to remove any tumbling residue and then hand polished them with Blue Magic.
Note: the two large guides along the return lanes I don’t take credit for. I sent those out to the Hot Rod Arcade to get chromed.

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Funny you mention Robo-War. I spent so much money acquiring tools for this restore I needed something to use them on once the Tx is done.
This machine,however, is much cleaner than the Tx was. Some of the plastics weren’t in the best shape but luckily I found Retro Refurbs in the UK and bought a reproduction plastic set. The set I received is very high quality.

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Mine is in poor shape around the flippers as well. How about doing a fellow pinsider a favor? Since you are a lot closer to Germany than I am, when you have some free time, head over to Highclasspinball and put some pressure on Mirco to make Robo-War playfields

Repainted the wood rails and went to work on the ball guides. The guides were in poor shape so I scrubbed them with Mean Green Degreaser and then used a Dremel with 120 grit sanding wheels to get the initial scum off. Then I used progressively higher grit wheels until finishing by wet sanding.
I found this small area sanding kit at an auto parts store that worked well.

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I sent the wire ramps,spinners, ball deflectors and assorted gates to Hot Rod Arcade to get chromed. They did a really nice job.

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The apron and shooter cover needed lots of work. I decided since this is a space theme it would look cool to get them powder coated with a star field pattern, so I sent them to Chris at HRA.

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I made templates and planned to repaint the graphics.
This plan had to be revised when I became aware that it’s not that easy to paint on top of a powder coated surface.
So, on to plan B - the wife’s Silhouette printer/cutter and vinyl decals.
Despite the fact the graphics I was trying to reproduce are simple, it took me forever to get it the way I wanted.

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The cabinet was heavily stained inside. Since it is made of MDF I couldn't sand it out so I ended up painting everything black except for the transformer platform.
Got the coin door installed along with the transformer, tilt mechanism, speaker, and under playfield boards.
Decided to use the original pvc grounding straps. They aren’t as neat looking as new grounding braid but they cleaned up easily and were simple to install.

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As far as the outside of the cabinet goes, Keith did a great job touching up the Tx Sector lettering. You can see in the bottom photo where someone had tried(unsuccessfully)to touch up some of the lettering. In the top photo it looks new!
Since the cabinet is really plain I decided to do a much denser star field pattern around the lettering. In retrospect I probably overdid it but getting the spray paint to splatter how I wanted was way more difficult than I thought.

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On to the boards. All the serial numbers for the boards matched except for the CPU. It was a Gottlieb board but the date stamp was from early 1980 and this machine was produced in 1988 or so.
I decided to send everything out to Clive at the Coin Op cauldron . I was nervous about the boards getting damaged during shipping so I found these ESD boxes that worked great. Probably overkill but it made packing them up simple and they are reusable.

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As has been posted many times on Pinside, Clive does a great job. After he received the boards I got an email detailing what was going on with my CPU. Evidently someone had taken a System 80A board out of a Haunted House and converted it (poorly) to an 80B so it would work in a Tx. He said those series of boards are compatible and he could fix it. He told me it would take about 2 months due to his backlog.
Two months later I got the boards back with a very detailed explanation of the repairs.
The fantastic thing is the cost for him to do the proper conversion and many other necessary repairs to the CPU board was considerably less than buying an aftermarket replacement!

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Thanks!

The mounting panel in the backbox was covered with a thin metallic foil that was in bad shape. For a replacement I found a thin aluminum 2’x2’ sheet from online metals.com that fit perfectly and looks good. Took some time to drill holes for the mounting post but wasn’t too difficult.

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Since it took about 10 months before I got the playfield back I had plenty of time to work on all the assemblies and switches.
All metal parts got the ultrasonic cleaner followed by the vibratory tumbler.
I tried cleaning the switches but on closer inspection most of the contact points were pitted/broken. Ended up replacing 95% of the switches and 75% of the coils.
My bill from Pinball Resource basically counted for my birthday and Christmas this year.

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I re pinned everything and molexed every assembly and switch.
I was going to reuse the housings so I ran them through the Ultrasonic and then soaked in Mean Green for days. They came out cleaner than the day they were made but the plastic was so yellowed, after 30 years, I decided to replace.
Once I had all my tools and supplies I got busy.
I’m worried there may be something wrong with me because I really enjoyed this part of the process. I could molex/re pin for days and be perfectly happy. There was something Zen like about the process - strip the wire, put the pin in the crimper, crimp, push the pin in the housing and repeat.

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That alternate translite is awesome but I have already invested in an original replacement.
Anyway, I have convinced myself that the original is so freaking bizarre that in an odd way it’s cool. I will keep reminding myself that odd can be beautiful so I don’t spend anymore money!

Working on the lights. Most of the sockets had some rust spots so I ended up replacing almost all of them. Decided to go with Comet 2SMD bulbs.

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Got the wiring harness back on and all the lamps soldered.
I was a little worried that it would be difficult getting the wiring oriented, but as many have posted it has a “memory” and was easy to get positioned.

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I soaked my wiring harness in a tub of Mean Green degreaser and then scrubbed it with a brush, hosed it off and hung it up to dry. The Mean Green was literally black after I finished. Amazing how filthy it gets after 30 years!
The zip ties are really yellowed and I’m going to replace them today. I didn’t remove them initially because I was too intimidated at the time about getting it all back together. When I replace them, I ’ll clean under the ties with some alcohol wipes. Next time I’ll remove them to begin with and save myself some time.

Started working on post lighting. I tried a couple of options and ended up going with the post lights from PDI because they fit inside the post and there is no PC board sticking out.

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Post lights for the slings were more of a challenge. I didn’t want to see wires running everywhere so I decided to drill a couple of holes. I read extensively on how to drill into a clear coated playfield, but when I put my reading into action I still got some cracking/lifting. You can see the lifting around the wire hole next to the post in the foreground.

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Spent some more time reading on how to correct my mistake. Found a post where someone recommended using SureHold Plastic Surgery super glue because it dries really clear.
Using a small syringe and a 25 gauge needle, injected a small amount and problem solved!

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After getting the post lights wired I installed Plasma Pop bumpers.

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Yep, the plasma pops are expensive but when I saw them at the TPF the lights hypnotized me and I had bought three before I knew what happened.

Got the three drop target and four ball hole kick assemblies installed. Pinball Resource had NOS targets and decals.

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For the single drop target I went with a clear target and added a bulb to light it from below (As seen on TNT Amusements video). Used a Comet flame bulb which gives it a cool effect.

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Got everything installed under the playfield. Really crowded under there. Looking at it now, I’m glad I took the time to molex everything. It will make replacing/adjusting much easier.

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On to the topside.
Got the star post installed. I Cleaned them in the Ultrasonic and was able to reuse about half of them.

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Ramp roll unders and spinners installed.

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Cleaned up all the plastics. Luckily they were in pretty good shape as I couldn’t find any NOS or reproductions.

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The original big plastic ramp was broken but usable. I was going to just live with it as a new one was unobtainable, but the pinball gods smiled on me and a NOS ramp showed up on eBay! I had to win a bidding war for the damn thing ,but when I found out an unbroken one was available I got obsessed.
I wanted to protect the investment so I emailed Cliffy ( great guy to deal with) to see if he had any protectors that would work. He didn’t have anything for a TX but he did have ramp protectors for Genesis which he thought would probably fit.
With just some slight modifications they are perfect.

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Ramps and protectors installed.

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The ramps cleared the plasma pops(barely) but the metal ramp was a big PITA! It took a trip to Home Depot to get longer screws and extra washers to get it to clear the back left pop.

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Fortunately the metal shooter ramp was easier to install. I put a double layer of Mylar just underneath the ball drop.

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Since the color scheme is really dark, I’m happy I had the Hot Rod Arcade chrome a lot of stuff. It really brightens the playfield up.

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Yep, spending money on mods and parts is truly an addiction!

Got the topside completed.

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I like the engineering on the ball return/eject. Simple and effective.

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However, the engineer who designed how the translite and speaker/display panel fit together was either in a hurry, drunk, or just didn’t give a damn!
The lock is mounted on the top and difficult to reach. You almost have to have two people to access the backbox, one to remove the translite and one to catch the speaker/display panel when it comes flying down.

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They fixed the problem on RoboWar with a hinge for the top panel.
My plan was to do the same thing on the Tx but it got too involved trying to figure out a locking mechanism so I just went with some small shelving post. Simple and effective.

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After I got the head back on I finished up everything in the cabinet.
Added the comet lighted flipper mod and got all the wires for the plasma pops installed.

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With the help of my son I got the playfield back in the cabinet.
I have no idea how anyone gets that done without help!

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I spent a considerable amount of time making sure I had all the correct fuses installed, all the connectors in the right location and orientation, and nothing obvious that would cause a short.
I’m not a pessimist, nor an optimist. I consider myself a realist. So, realistically when it came time to turn this thing on I was prepared for either an explosion and/or fire.
I flipped the switch at 4pm today and much to my surprise there was no Chernobyl like event!
I have some issues : two of the Pops don’t work, multiple switches are reading closed , and the GI lighting around the slings comes and goes.
Overall, it does work and I was able to play a couple of games.

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