Whodunnit's slot machine reels are problematic for a number of reasons, but if they suddenly get very slow or won't turn, there's a good chance the motor is gunked up with a caked area of powder-like magnetized metal bits and needs to be cleaned. Here's how to do that.
1. Remove a slot wheel bracket from the enclosure. Use a torx driver to carefully loosen the set screw so you can slide the wheel off the motor post. BE CAREFUL. These wheels are old and brittle and you don't want to screw or unscrew these set screws any more than necessary or you may end up having to buy a new wheel (Planetary Pinball has new naked reels for $25. New stickers for them will cost another $40). It's not uncommon to see this ziptied to keep a cracked post from completely breaking.
2. Remove the pictured four screws to get the motor off the bracket
2 - remove motor from bracket (resized).jpg
3. Turn the motor over and remove the long screws from the bottom of the motor.
3 - remove motor bottom screws (resized).jpg
4. Wiggle the cap off the motor from the side with the shaft.
4 - remove cap from motor (resized).jpg
5. BE CAREFUL NOT TO LOSE THE SPRING ON THE BOTTOM OF THE GEAR SHAFT AS YOU DO THIS NEXT PART. Remove the gear from the casing. Holding on to the base and turning it while lifting straight up with the other hand seems to make it come out easiest.
5 - remove gear from casing (resized).jpg
6. This is the spring on the bottom of the gear shaft. Set it aside and don't forget to put it in when you put this all back together.
6 - dont lose spring on bottom (resized).jpg
7. Here's a gunked shaft (top) and a clean shaft (bottom). The easiest way to get the magnetized bits out of this groove is to take it outside and blow in there with an air compressor or canned compressed air. When you're done, the groove should look like the one on the bottom.
Also, note that the shaft in the after picture has a flat spot in it. I added this while I had it out. This is to help the set screw not slide around the shaft and keep the slot reel from moving around the shaft and also to require less pressure on the shaft to keep it from moving. I used a cheapie mini bench grinder to do this ($40 or less at harbor freight w/coupon if you don't have one already https://www.harborfreight.com/bench-grinder-with-flex-shaft-43533.html )
7 -gear-before-after (resized).jpg
8. Reverse all the steps and put it back together, remembering to align the new flat area you made on the shaft with the set screw and NOT TO OVERTIGHTEN THE SET SCREW.
Enjoy your working slot reel again.
Now that this project is done, how about these projects?
Fixing LED bulbs/flashers that fall out of spotlights
https://beta.pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/fixing-led-bulbs-flashers-that-fall-out-of-spotlights
Replace the noisy stock spike power supply fan with a much quieter one:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/replacing-stern-spike-noisy-ps-fans
Reinforce the crappy Stern leg plates so the newer cabinet wood doesn't split at the corners:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/reinforcing-stern-cabinet-legs-step-by-step
Have an $80 alibaba hologram fan topper you want to cleanly power so it turns on and off with the machine? Do this:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/hologram-fan-or-lightedpinballmods-power-fix#post-6241182
Do you have a WoZ ECLE and think it's too loud in a quiet room? Replace two fans and make it almost silent:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/quieting-down-a-woz-ecle-machine
Yucaipa, CA
