Love the mid 70's to early 80's Bally pins!
But I never really cared for Old Chicago when they came on route because it was too difficult for me, a budding young pinball player, but I am thinking it will be perfect for the home environment.
Bought my non-working project Old Chicago from a cool local fellow pinsider, Droptargets about 9 months ago. Missing backglass, Cabinet is solid, but badly faded (as they all are), coin door, playfield & plastics are really nice. Been working on it for a couple of months now. Have totally gone thru the backbox & the main lower board and am about 3/4 thru the bottom of the playfield. Every mech rebuilt, switch cleaned & adjusted, and every crappy Bally fuse holder & playfield light socket replaced. Found a few obvious small problems, a couple of missing diodes on the pop bumpers & of course it had the usual burnt white/green wire on the jones plug located on the tilt board. I figure a couple of weeks and I will be ready to test it out.
I bought one of CPR's sweet reproduction backglasses and a full set of Gatekeeper's stainless steel parts - lift channel, upper shooter arch, coin door bolt kit, & shooter lane ball stop. Also bought a full set of Titan silicone rubbers for it & am picking up a fresh sheet of playfield glass this weekend at the PNW pin show.
Once it is working I'm tearing it back down for cabinet re-paint & will order one of pinball pimp's stencil kits & clean up the top of the playfield. those pop bumper caps need replacing too. Anyone know the correct colors for the artwork? I think I would prefer rattle can, as I don't want to invest in spray equipment right now.
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Thanks.
So if you are going to paint the apron, are you going to use the Action pinball decal set? If so, I would like to know what quality these are - I have heard mixed reviews on his repro's. Also, I can't tell on mine, do they use any webbing or spatter on the base coat?

I was going to Comment on that was well...LED's have their place, but it is not on an EM Playfield. You lose the warmth of the GI lighting & the fade in/out of switch controlled lamps.

To each their own, but I think they look too stark white under the pop bumpers. The warmth of the old school bulbs just looks right.

Question on the kick out holes. Are they painted white on the inside? I know the mechanism is not of course, but from photos I have seen it appears so. I can't tell on my mine.

I was bummed that the OC at the NW pin show was tournament only. It's been 40 years since I played one & was looking forward to trying it out before my restore is done. Oh well, another month or two I guess..

Getting close on first test run on my OC project.... 3 pop bumpers left to rebuild..........

All ready to go, but decided to detail the playfield before testing - ordered all new posts (most of mine were brittle & cracked).
My wood siderails were faded badly, pulled those & will paint with 283188 Rust-oleum satin Magenta. While those were out, I cleaned the playfield with Novus 2 & gave it a good waxing.
Oh, I'm missing one of the wire ball guides in the center - ordered some .094 stainless wire & a bending jig from Marco so I can fab one up. Looks pretty easy. Coming along -------
Damn PPS for their BS "licensing" fees on repro Bally & Williams repros. I really need a nice decal set for my apron.

Leg question - Does OC use regular 28-1/2" non-ribbed grey legs?

Yeah, but I want to keep it as original as I can.

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After months of countless hours rebuilding all of the mechanicals, replacing all of the crappy Bally light sockets & fuse holders - it lives. No major problems or smoke released - score reels reset, scores as it should, over the top buzzer works, extra ball & special works, knocker works, & no flickering/dim bulbs. Yeah, there's some adjustments that need attending to, but that was expected.
Drops work, but don't stay latched up every time & has a dead 1,000's chime, nothing that will take too much time to fix.
Now I'm tearing it back down for a cabinet paint job......... this won't take too long (I hope), no damn Gottlieb webbing to mess with.

The double sided guides are correct, from the Bally manual it shows # C-693-5 guides used on these, those are the 1-1/2" white double sided ones. The two outer guides up top are C-694-5, 1-1/2" white single sided & the top center is a C-693-5 double sided.
I do have a question on where all of the red ribbed posts are supposed to go, as I have looked at a lot of OC playfield photos & they are all different. I do know that the solid red post goes on the outer spinner support. It was Greg Kmieg, the designer's "signature" on pins he made.
http://www.jeff-z.com/pinball/redpost/redpost.html

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.... Just a little cabinet fading, I think I can touch that up.

The single solid red post should be on the right side of the spinner. In looking at the OC flyer, it shows no red ribbed posts used at all, just the single solid red on the spinner - but I have seen photos of several pins (mine included) that have several red ribbed posts installed along with the plain white. I think that there may have been a change from early production to later production in the type of posts used.

The buzzer is the "over the top" feature, which sounds when you roll the pin over 100,000. If you look closely at the top center of the backglass there is also a 100,000 point light that will illuminate for each player if they go "over the top"

I think the cracked posts are common, as about 2/3 of my white posts were broken... the red ribbed posts were all oddly perfect.

yes, I noted this in post #60 above ... another bit of useless pinball trivia.

Used for tapping out the carriage bolts around the coin door frame....

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OC head totally stripped, ready for spot fill, sanding & base coat this weekend.

Yeah, that Jasco paint stripper & #3 steel wool really works great getting the old paint off. Way better than sanding it off, no danger of breathing airborne lead paint dust.

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Old Chicago repaint, coming along...

Don't know why anyone would use a sander for the initial paint removal. This Jasco product works fantastic.
First pass I scrape old paint off with a wide putty knife, second pass #3 steel wool. Does a really nice job.
Though a bit stinky. Rubber gloves & eye protection required!

I can't either!
I have several other projects stacking up behind this one..... I need to sell some pins off to make room.

No, I am going stock.

It's coming along slowly. Base coat on head is done, cabinet needs one final basecoat.
I have a set of Pinball Pimp's stencils laying out flat on the floor under a couple of pins of my office to prep them for use.

Another week or so I'm hoping to have it all painted. --- pics to follow!

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Old Chicago bare canvas, ready for stencil work.
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Left side of head, 2nd color....

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Unmasked!

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Pinball pimp I love you! These were hands down the best stencils I have ever used.

The alignment holes were pure genius. Even I got it to look good. The masking adhesive was as advertised, not too strong - just enough to hold the stencil in place & pulled off easily when done.
Last cabinet I used the god awful Twisted pin stencils, the adhesive was so strong that I thought it was going to pull up the base coat.

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First test fit of CPR Old Chicago repro backglass with Gatekeepers stainless bottom channel into freshly repainted backbox, using Pinball Pimp stencil set.
Looking good!
Shot left side of yellow on cabinet this morning, just the right side to go....

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OC cab finally finished with paint. Now the fun begins... I love putting them back together!

Here's what it looked like to start with...

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The single swiveling wheel with a 3/8-16 stud is the way to go OMHO. Cheap too @ Home depot or Lowes.

Decided that my siderails were too nasty looking to put on a freshly painted cabinet, so I ordered a new repro set from Pinball life. Tracking shows Monday 10/3 delivery, so I should have it all back together by next weekend.
The pin came with a set of incorrect chrome legs, so I "borrowed" the correct painted non-ribbed legs off of my beater Mr & Mrs Pacman & stripped them bare with Jasco paint remover - then gave them an overnight bath in Evaporust. Repainted with some matching (or at least pretty close) metallic dark grey Rustoleum. Turned out fantastic!
Photos to follow as soon as it's assembled.

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Right siderail installed. Fits like a glove -- Pinball life repro's ROCK!
Left side going on tonight, then things will start happening. Can't wait to finally play this thing. it's been a long time coming.

Yeah, Gatecrasher's stainless bits are the bees knees. He should branch out & make stainless nails for the siderails too!
I picked up some 10-24 stainless carriage bolts & SS wing nuts from McMaster Carr to replace the ones holding the knocker & the tilt mech board on. Also used a 10-24 SS carriage bolt to replace the thumbtack on the front of the cabinet to protect the paint from the coin return button. Had to drill a hole for it of course. Oh yeah, a 1/4-20 SS carriage bolt replaced the zinc plated steel one for the lock down lever pivot bolt (you can see the head of it just above the coin door on the right side).
Chucked them all up in my drill & polished the heads of course.

Well, after reading Rotordave's review of these playfield protectors, I went ahead & ordered one for my Old Chicago project.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/lexan-playfield-protector-install-and-review

My playfield is really nice, but the inserts are cupped. This should solve that problem w/o the hassle of clear coating. VERY fast shipping from Germany! I tracked it - it shipped on 10/17 & arrived here today 10/19.

It's all together & plays very nicely, but still have issues with the drop targets not resetting consistantly. It's either the springs, or too much slop in the linkage, which on a Bally is non-adjustable... so I ordered a new set of springs, a reset bar & side links, & fabricated a new fiber link for the solenoid. As soon as the parts arrive I will reassemble and put the playfield protector on.

Photos to follow once it's complete!

Well, I will let you know if my shotgun approach works. My theory is that with so much slop in the linkage, it's not lifting the targets up far enough to give the weak springs time to effectively pull the lip of the drop target onto the edge of the playfield.
Perhaps new springs would have fixed it, but I had it pulled back out anyway, might as well do it up right.

My drop target repairs worked great! Clean resets every time now.

Got the playfield protector installed----
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Testing to see what needed to be removed for install
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Fitted
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Backings peeled & installed

Fit was great - just needed a tiny bit of trimming around two posts at the top, easily done with a new xacto blade & now it lays flat.
Looks like a deep clearcoat job at first glance, but yes, you can see the edges if you are looking for them. Did not have time to put it all back together last night, but I did roll the ball around just to see how it felt. Was really quiet & the problematic sunken inserts were no longer an issue. So far so good.

Thanks Tom -
Hey, did you ever make it down to the Union barrel & check out the EM's they had?
If not it's too late, I heard they closed up.
There's still The coin jam - but sadly, no EM's or early SS pins there...

Switch tension is critical for sure. I am currently fighting a similar issue on my OC as well. Is it just me, or is mine the only machine where the idiot assembling it put half of the switch stack contacts in upside down?
I thought that was only an issue on early Williams SS pins.

Bump for a cool pin!

You stole that pin!

NICE!
Is that the original apron on there, or is it a decal kit? The pink really pops, mine are all faded & I am concerned that the decals available are crap.

CPR has complete plastics sets available. Apron is a tough one. At one point in time, Pinball Rescue was making apron decals, but once that ass @ PPS started putting his hand out for a cut of the profits they discontinued production of Bally & Williams products. There is a group of guys making repro Bally aprons, but they have not announced Old Chicago as one they will be working on (yet).