Keeney Poker Face... we have lights! Won't fire up yet, but all the mechs are complete; should be up and running in no time... will be interesting to play and evaluate an EM game I've never played prior to now.

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“Diving in” to a Sky Jump. My first foray into pin repair...so far it’s been fun learning how to outfox the rickety decagon score reels.
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Random question time - why do some of these Williams aprons have corner slots for a card in the center (under FOR AMUSEMENT ONLY) and others don't? My Space Mission apron is identical to yours except it has slots and the one (?) included small card that fits there. I would think from a manufacturing perspective they wouldn't bother making two options unless there was a good reason. Hmm?

My Gulf Stream took a back seat recently but I am about to jump back into it. Can't wait!

Thanks
Blake

I’ve been working on a 1966 CC Hula Hula recently, getting all of the features working again and giving it some much needed maintenance. Last night I worked on the ball kickout mechanism which was barely able to kick out the ball only 50% of the time.

As it turned out, the kickout metal fork was mushroomed so bad that it was hitting the underside of the apron. Once it was filed down and the mech itself cleaned up, it now works great. I was able to use a standard Gottlieb coil sleeve that I had in stock to replace the original which was worn out. I also went through the kickout relay circuit to properly clean and adjust all switches for a strong impulse.

Next move will be to rebuild the knocker assembly with a parts donor that I bought.

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That kickout arm is pretty common for decades, you can buy a new one.

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/A-00524

Great game to dive into as your first EM repair/restore experience.

Great to know, thanks!

I had to get one for a 1998 DE Time Machine which is the same on some Sterns, looks just like your pin.

Happy New Year!

Currently on the final phase of an Out of Sight refurbish. This one fought me tooth and nail every inch of the way. Reset, score reels, ball kickout, player unit switch stack, QB, O relays, bonus increment/decrement... on & on. Now 85% operational, with some play feature issues remaining to work out (double bonus, special, etc). Shifted over to playfield stuff, then back to cleaning up the feature issues.

Next in line, Jumping Jack.

Then, Lawman. On this one, anyone have experience with a close rattle can match to the early to mid 70's Gottlieb cabinet brown? I believe the same brown was used on El Dorado. The brown is faded on Lawman, with no hidden areas to use to for matching. Various browns I've tried seem too dark or too light?

thanks!
alex

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Working on getting a Gottlieb Spin Unit working properly on a 1969 Spin-A-Card.

The last Hearts & Spades I worked on had a spinner problem. It turned out that the plate
on the mini spinner coil was magnetized. I found sometimes lube being a bit thick for some
of those tiny wipers, so then I apply only Remmington Gun Oil..

I wish I had an answer for you. We have a few Williams pins from the era, and none of them have those slots. I wonder if they were put there to hold a business card. Perhaps catering to operators? See if a typical size business card fits in there. If so I'd imagine it'd be so an operator/owber can slide in one of his cards.

On our Grand Prix there was a sticker from the amusement company that sold it. Luckily it came off without damaging the paint.
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-Paul

Just starting to sink my teeth into an Atlantis. Started with the coin door. Nice original that cleaned up.

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Gotta love that bottle opener!

That looks better than new!

Wow, do tell how you got that so clean

It started out nice. No rust and only light scratches. I gave all the parts an Evaporust bath, then polished them up with Mothers Mag and Aluminum Polish. Lastly, the etched Gottlieb logo got filled with acrylic paint. These doors came from the factory that way. It’s a nice detail that stands out.

That said, it’s not 100% perfect. There’s a minor dent below the Gottlieb logo and many fine scratches remain. Some people can buff these things to a mirror finish. I don’t have the patience, nor do I like the look.

While checking and freshening some of the machines for the annual Winter gathering,
the Flipper Pool's 1,000s score reel channel/guides shattered.
Picked up an 8' plastic channel molding from the hardware, now just waiting for the
#2 bolts and nuts to arrive. The channel's a little lighter, but should work fine..

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Equally impressive is the backside of the door. Those zinc-plated parts are almost always corroded to some extent. All it takes is one spilled soda or beer that makes its way inside the coin door over the years. Even poor storage in a damp basement location can cause the white powdery dust Etc. The Chrome can be polished up and evapo-rust is definitely a great treatment but almost impossible to bring that zinc finish back to original Factory.

Nice eye! And agreed—a very convenient location indeed. There are a few other random holes in the cab as well. I wonder what else might’ve been bolted on over the years.

Currently restoring a WMS Heatwave, a favourite machine of mine.

I have a number of coin doors I’d like to get looking somewhere close as good as yours. How much do you disassemble the parts before the Evaporust bath? Can the whole unit be submerged or does it need to be taken apart? Wondering about the switches and such.

Well done!!!

Everything comes apart for the bath so they can be individually rinsed and polished. The harness and its switches stay dry.

Like stashyboy said, the zinc-plated parts mounted on the rear are the hard part. Evaporust can’t do anything about rashes left by corrosion. In fact, bathing these parts too long can darken the finish. This necessitates a lot of tedious polishing, which I do with buffing on a drill press, Dremel, and by hand.

The chrome plating on the front responds much better to the Evaporust. But, again, it won’t help if there is deep pitting.

Thanks leckmeck. I’ll give it a shot. Should be an improvement regardless.

I’m looking forward to cleaning/tweaking up an already nice Williams Liberty Bell in the next week or so!
I’m finishing up on this so I can put on route once BGResto comes to the rescue
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Hey Tim I have a whole KOD head if the channels are
the same.

I'll have to check this tonight. Going by memory, I think it's slightly wider than a standard business card. There are a couple cards that came with the game that go there (with pricing info - e.g. "2 PLAYS - QUARTER"). Just seems odd that some aprons would have a spot for this and others wouldn't. Do the instruction cards for your game have the pricing info on them?

I haven't studied this enough to see if it was something they transitioned to permanently around this time. My only guess was if games had a lot of pricing options, then they could be separated out to this dedicated card (instead of having to print a million combinations on the other larger cards).

I forgot, is this Jon?
Thanks, I appreciate it but I think the channel that I picked up from the local hardware
will work okay. I have the two channels cut and holes drilled. Just waiting on the #2
bolts and nuts which is suppose to arrive tomorrow. The channels look a little different,
but I don't mind. I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks again!

Beginning to get ready for the annual February party.
Last week I freshened up Mini Pool, Flipper Pool (waiting on a couple parts),
Fun Park, Diamond Jack, Hurdy Gurdy, Melody, Subway, Ice Show, Cowpoke,
Dimension, and Star Jet. Yesterday was Midway's Champ, and today Hearts & Spades.
A few more Wedge Heads to go, then will start on the multi player pins, then the
EM arcades, then the ball and shuffle bowlers..
Good way to stay busy in the Winter..

February in the NY snowbelt.
I'd like to come, but the possibility of having to stay for a week makes me a bit apprehensive!

Now that the Holidays are over, like Mopar, I've started my re-freshes (Double Action, Gigi, Swinger, Midway Captain Kid). Skee Ball and Shuffle Alley get a cleaning after each family event. March birthday parties (9) will be the next wave of heavy usage.

Disassembled the pop bumpers (not triggering well) and flippers (sluggish) on my 1966 Kicker. The pop bumpers were covered in grease. This has been a theme on this machine. Whoever had it before fixed problems by using this thick and sticky grease. Waiting for my PBR order to arrive to finish this.

Every time I look at the playfield I wish I had the artistic ability to retouch it and make it better, but that is beyond what I'm comfortable doing.

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I'm working on three at the moment... all fairly uncommon-to-rare

A Bally Cue-Tease (basically done, just awaiting parts for a flipper rebuild - the photo is a few weeks old)
A Stoner Mad Cap (also basically done... trying to figure out how to remove some stubborn 85 year old adhesive residue).
A Genco Step Up-- a fairly early Kordek game. Have it working and scoring correctly if I reset the steppers to zero manually. There's a broken wire somewhere that's vexing me. Once I figure that out and have the game working 100%, I'll begin the cosmetic restoration of the playfield, as the playfield paint is quite nice, but the 15 inserts have all shrunken and warped, and will need to be replaced.
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ILLAWARRA92 and Wayner and other fellow pinsiders from down under,
wishing you the best while it appears the whole country side is on fire.
Hopefully no collections are in danger and more importantly friends and family.

Yes! Best wishes to everyone down under - stay safe!

Makes my problems seem minuscule by comparison - with all of us "up overers" placing winter refurb orders, PBR's phone seems to always be busy (good for them!!!), I tried an email order this time... just as easy!

Yes, so far we've been fairly lucky and this weekend they call for 60 degrees,
but you can't expect that to last. Not here in Upstate, but then again, never know..

Thks so much for the callout-your thoughts are much appreciated.

This is a vid which characterises what has happened including a song specifically written and sung by Delta Goodrem. The final image is particularly touching. It includes our local Rural Fire Services Commissioner pinning a bravery award on a toddler whose Dad, a volunteer fire fighter, was lost when his truck was up ended during a fire storm.

https://www.facebook.com/7NewsAustralia/videos/600637220503991/

Contact Cemented the plastic channel on 1/2" angle, and all installed.
Also freshened up Flipper Fair, and put new rubber on the MBA's ball
lift arms..
Tomorrow will freshen up Lucky Hand and Capt. Card..

Shopping out my 4 Million BC. I've only waited a little less then two years so thats not so compared to other games sitting here.

John

Hey Tim it's Ted here,the lool the loop guy.here,s a couple of pics of my flipper pool.

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Hey Ted, might have a solution. I'll shoot you an email..

I just shopped out mine recently. It’s my 10 year old sons favorite machine to play and he destroys me on it. He’s got some pinball skills

Finished the bottom board, coin door and back box. Play field clearcoat done. All that’s left is under side of playfield, putting it all back together, and oh - getting it to work again...

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Yeah it's a great game, just sorry I didn't buy the German version one at Expo like 20 years ago.

John

My 4Mil BC was German edition, except the BG was in english, fortunately found a collector who had German BG, so we swapped.
Also I have German Fireball and German SeeSaw.

Three coats of Polycrylic semi-gloss with a light sanding between coats. It's still wet, and now I'll let it thoroughly dry for a few days before the last sanding.
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Almost done!

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Still have a bunch of score reels to clean, then it's on to adjusting everything to make it 100%.

-Paul