Quoted from yancy:My raptor gate needed significant adjustment. Here's a step-by-step guide of my repair. I'm sure there are other solutions, but this worked for me, with tools I already had on hand. Apologies in advance for the blurry photos. My ancient phone doesn't do well with close-up shots.
Gate wasn't lowering all the way. It's pretty clear that it was hanging on the back lip of the opening. About half of all shots would brick on the slightly raised gate, and captured balls had to be shaken loose after the gate lowered. Also, my decal was getting chewed up after just a handful of games (decal already removed in photos).
[quoted image][quoted image]
Looking under the playfield, we can see that the gate is stopping short of the resting point adjustment screws:
[quoted image]
Here are the four mounting screws/holes we need to adjust. The gate needs to move forward, which is up in this photo:
[quoted image]
If the gate needed to move back (down in the above photo), we could disassemble the bracket and pad it out with some washers to make it thicker. But alas, we can't make it thinner.
Here are the screw holes:
[quoted image]
I don't see any dimples near them, which means if the installer missed the mark, she didn't miss by much. We can either fill these with glue & toothpicks and drill new holes immediately adjacent to them, or enlarge the bracket holes to allow for adjustment. I opt for the latter, because even if I drill new playfield holes, I might not get it perfect on the first try. With larger bracket holes we can adjust to our heart's content.
I had a tungsten carbide Dremel bit left over from cutting a hole in a corian countertop. Dremel spun too fast and grabbed the bracket. Too dangerous for my liking, so I chucked it up in a drill:
[quoted image][quoted image]
Here's a comparison of the original holes (top) and newly enlarged holes (bottom). You can see it doesn't take much:
[quoted image]
Let's hope Stern included a spare gate top decal in the goodie bag...
[quoted image]
Thanks guys, you did one thing right! Here's the completed bracket with newly installed decal:
[quoted image]
With the bracket out, I took the opportunity to wrap mylar around the back edge of the gate hole. Mylar doesn't stick well to bare wood, so I removed the insert LED near the hole and ran mylar right up to the insert edge:
[quoted image]
When reinstalled, the insert LED will help hold the mylar in place.
Now the gate moves freely, just in front of the back edge. Hooray! But since it's no longer hanging on the lip, it sits too low, especially on the right side:
[quoted image]
After adjusting the stop screws, our gate now sits perfectly, a hair above playfield height:
[quoted image]
This combined with a paper-thin gap behind the gate, and mylar, will hopefully protect our back hole edge from direct hits & chipping.
[quoted image]
Phew, all done. Raptor area plays perfectly now. Any questions?