I didn't think anyone had covered the 1950's vintage pop bumper parts. Since I am now working on a "Paratrooper" pinball from 1952, I figured I'd mention the parts for the old bumpers.

Great step-by -step tutorial!

I am new to pinside, new owner of a pinball, new to fixing things up. Well pretty much new to everything about owning and maintain a machine....

I just recently bought my first pin, a LW3 with some minor damages to the cabinet but with a awesome play field.

However the center pop-bumper is not 100%. When manually pressing on the skirt i seems to do its job pretty well, but it seems like the skirt is set to high above the play field so the ball always get a "belly shot" on to it and never rolls up on it and there fore not releases the plunger. It might even be so that the skirt does not work as freely as the other two pop-bumpers.

So my Q to all you Pinhead-pros out here:

Is there a way to adjust (lower) the skirt-hight from playfield? If so, How?
Or is rebuild the only answer to my small issue? Or what else might cause the bumper/skirt not to release?

thx 4 reading
/mima

vid1900: Thank you for the swift reply!
I looked more closely on the backside of the popers, it seemed that that gap was to wide between the two connectors. I narrowed the gap a bit and the response was a lot better. If i find the right gap-setting i think that will do the trick for all three popers. Otherwise i´ll post pics and get back with more Qs. Thanx again for the fast and friendly response too a pin-noob

Here's one I just discovered, much to my dismay!

Late EM Gottlieb pops have a mounting plate fastened to the underside of the playfield. This seems like a great idea because now the pop coil brackets can mount with a machine screw into the plate rather than a wood screw into the playfield. Along with that, the pop body can also be attached to the plate with a long machine screws again instead of wood screws into the playfield. This seems like a much more heavy duty setup than say Williams or Bally of the same era.

Here is the problem.

The mounting plate adds between 1/16 and 1/8 inch to the distance the pop coil bracket is below the playfield. This in turn requires a ring with that much longer rods to accommodate this added distance. This is all good and well unless the parts are no longer available! The standard rings will mount up but they sit just a little lower below the pop cap than the correct rings do. This kind of works but it does make a significant difference in the performance of the bumper. It is much less responsive because the ball crashes into the ring at the same time or even before it crashes into the pop skirt to trigger it.

Steve at PBR told me that it could be another year before he can make another batch of the correct rings. In the meantime, I am using the "wrong" ones and having a hard time getting them to perform well.

Anyone else run into this and have some tips for me? The pop skirts are new and the spoon switch is adjusted as close as I can get it. Everything is clean and operates smoothly.

I'll take some pics of two pops side by side. One with the correct ring and one with the incorrect ring. Hope to post that tonight.

Quick question if you are familiar with Data East Turbo Bumper designs:

When I recently completely rebuilt the Turbo Bumper assemblies (which was very easy other than the pain in the ass to get to them as all the ramps above had to be removed), I found the fiber yokes were stacked underneath the metal ones (i.e. closer to the coil), yet the manual "sort of" shows the metal yoke underneath, albeit in a very poorly drawn diagram where you can't really see conclusively the positioning. I went with what appeared to be the case in the manual and stacked the fiber yoke on top. Is this correct?

The reason I ask is I've seen other brands of machines where the person has the yoke on bottom, and it makes me worried I guessed wrong. Thanks for your help on this!

Edit: Attached is a picture of the manual diagram. I'm beginning to suspect the manual has mistakenly labelled them backwards.

DE Turbo Bumper Diagram.jpg

Update: I did some googling and found pics of other DE games where the original fiber yoke is very definitely underneath. This means the manual diagram is either wrong or just so poorly drawn as to be unreliable. I will make the corrections immediately to my bumpers.

Yup, it looks like the manual is wrong. Imagine that.

And what's worse is Data East copy-pasted this same diagram in all their other game manuals as well. And this is not the only error I've found in these manuals.

Proof that Stern eventually realized having detailed AND CORRECT diagrams is in fact important:

stern yokes.jpg

vids I dont suppose you have any wiring diagrams for firepower pops do you? On my project the pops that had supposidly been "rebuilt" only had some of the topside replaced. No lights in them the only wiring i could see to them was to one side (to the little metal tear drop shaped things) with a diode soldered to the other side

Where did you find that to? The scematic manual is confusing not helped by my machine being hacked within an inch of its life and missing cables. Ill get a pic

image.jpg

Agree 100%

Then they got "the letter".......

That is a pretty damn good site very helpful

Hey Vid or anyone who has experience. Im swapping a MB playfield and I can't source staples a thin (gauge wise) as the factory used for stapling lamp leads. The thinnest I can find is like 3mm. Any place to source them easily? Also, based on my tear down photos, from the factory it appeared that the vinyl tube insulator didn't clear the pop assembly. Was I lucky or should I install it differently. Pics of how it was.image-361.jpg

Thanks for the reply. Maybe I wasn't clear in my questions. I have sourced the upholstery gun but I can't source the staples used from the factory. They are almost as thin gauge wise as a standard staple.

Understand the clear tube. My question is, from the factory, the clear tube didn't extend under and past the pop body. It should insulte the lead the entire length it passes under the pop housing, yes?/no?

For reference, here is the thinnest gauge staple I can source against an original staple. Will this be sufficient or is it to thick for some reason?

image-854.jpg

Excellent! Thanks Vid.

Any drawbacks to using the flexible wire lamp sockets other than the issue you showed on page one?

You also might find that they are too tall once the bulb in inserted, keeping the pop cap from seating down flush with the pop body

You can still buy the stiff ones so can't see why anyone would buy the flexible ones

Hey vid great guide. Really helped when I rebuilt my pops on my SWE1.

Now I'm working on my medusa. When I turn on the game one of the pop bumpers fires randomly on its own. I checked the switch to see if it's making contact with vibration and it's not. I'm really not sure where to look? Could it be in the board? Like a short to ground and fires the coil? I'm not sure how to go about this problem.

Thanks in advance.

Price for one, and it seems some games came with the flexible leads. Pretty sure de games came with them.

I just happened to buy the flexible ones over the stiff ones for a TZ. The thinking was (1) I can use a screw with a washer to position the wires and tighten them as needed and the positioning is reversible. (2) I don't need to use stapples and say clear tubing. (3) the soldering is off the wood and cleaner.

Thanks vid! You are the man. I clipped the capacitor and that took care of it. I got a few replacement ones from radio shack. I think I'm going to replace them all.

Thanks again.

Thanks for another great guide, vid. I'd replaced a couple of broken lamp sockets in pops, so I knew a little already, but this guide taught me more.

Coincidence: a friend came over 2 nights & ago & I noticed that my Meteor pop didn't light up. A few pics on-line showed that it lights up. (The higher coil-less bumpers do light up at the appropriate times.) I opened up the pop & saw no evidence of there ever being a socket or wiring for a bulb in it.

I had an extra 555 socket with the sheet metal leads from my previous pop work. I installed it carefully per your guide & wired it in parallel w/ the GI 44/47 bulbs.

Voila! Now my pop lights up. It actually bothers me a bit--I'm not used to it yet... :]

Thanks,
-Jason

Nice guide Vid. I am going to do this for my CV pop bumpers. The only question I have is what to order. For flipper rebuilds you can buy a kit that has all the parts you need. Can you buy a CV pop bumper rebuild kit? If not what is the list of parts that should I buy for a genuine rebuild? Thanks

bump- thx for the thread, awsome work as always from you!

Yea, I often wondered why Terry didn't have pop bumper rebuild kits like he does for flipper rebuilds...

Boy, someone is going to be mad at me sometime down the road. I used red loctite 27100 when replacing my flipper bushings and noticed 30 mins later that I installed one of the bushing on the wrong side of the bracket and while correcting my mistake I twisted off one of the screw heads, luckily I drilled it out with no damage to the bracket screw hole threads.
Later Upon reading the loctite directions I learned 500 degrees is required to separate the parts.
Does this mean I can set my iron above 500 and heat the screw/nut and unscrew them?

That should work just fine.

I'm doing a playfield swap on my Space Shuttle and it's time to start on the pops. I'm having a hard time getting the finned-shank screws in though - they're the three-per that hold the main bracket on the bottom side.

The holes are drilled on my CPR playfield, but I'm thinking drilling them out a bit more is going to be necessary. Is this typical? Can anyone recommend a bit size? I don't want to remove any more material than necessary.

Then, they are just pounded in from the top side? Is that right?

thanks!

Just did a test hole in a scrap playfield with a 9/64" bit. Seems like a good size, but man, pounding them in looks scary - one slip of the hammer away from banging the pristine artwork side..

Ok, so I cheated a bit and used airplane tools...

- 9/64" bit to widen out the holes a bit.
- Microstop countersink cage and countersink cutter to countersink the holes to the size of the head of the screw. This allows the head of the screw to sit flush with the playfield.
- Rivet gun to set the screw. Not gonna use a hammer if I don't have to! This will set the screw flush with the playfield very nicely and super easily without any damage around the screw head. The tape on the mushroom set is there to prevent scratches on the playfield.

It turned out great!

I used these screws from Marco: http://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/4506-01106-24B

PopBumperScrews-3.jpg

PopBumperScrews-4.jpg

PopBumperScrews-5.jpg

PopBumperScrews-6.jpg

PopBumperScrews-7.jpg

Hey Vid,
Great tutorial. Quick question: On my Gottlieb Sinbad SS I have 2 pop bumpers that have a loose mylar base next to the playfield that has allowed dirt underneath causing some playfield wear. I bought 2 new mylar pieces from pbr to replace when I rebuild the pops but they do not appear to have an adhesive side to it. What would be the best way to adhere them under the base? Or are they not to be adhered? Thanks again.