That sucks. Two of them should be black!

Not on high hand. The banks are divided into suits.

You didn't get it. Bad joke I guess.

Ewe.

almost any lubricant or penetrating oil will collect dirt and grime over time.

I cringe when I see people talk about doing it.

I have the same problem with my Card Whiz drop targets. Some asshole decided to grease them. I have had to wipe down the contacts 4 times so far. I need to just break down and pull the whole thing apart.

Bonus points for the complete tear down and rebuild of them. Nice.

I think jr meant for it to interpret to 2 banks red and 2 banks black.

As seen here > http://www.ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=1173&picno=27094&zoom=1

^^Good idea better than tape. Small twist ties will work too.

haha woosh. I missed the laughing smiley on my phone

-c

I just take all the bolts and black spring steel washers out and set them aside, rather than trying to keep them in the switch stacks. It's faster for me that way. Usually only one has a shorter set of bolts (if any), which is easy enough to track, otherwise they're all the same.

I also degrease those switch blades and put a light bit of SuperLube on them instead, to help the lifter arm travel.

It is amazing how many folks think that spraying WD-40 or the equivalent on everything pinball somehow magically solves all their problems.

Sometimes It actually feels like I am working on an automobile when doing a Shopout only because of the amount of grease I get on my hands and how often I have to wash them.

Ken

Was there any type of lube used from the factory?

Not there.

Anywhere?

Anytime you go and look at a game for sale, look in the bottom of the cab for the WD-40 Little Red Straw.

When you see it, automatically subtract $1000 from the price.

Cool, means I can now get most EM's for free.

Ken

Factory grease on the stepper units is generally a sticky point. If your steppers are slow and sluggish, a teardown/clean/superlube/rebuild is in order. Grease anywhere else is probably not factory.

****EDIT****
Except for gears in score motors. Also usually gummed up and may need attention.

Gottlieb recommended plenty of lubrication (which is part of the challenge in resurrecting these today)

GottliebLube.jpg

But the drop target switches is not one of them. I just like having a little bit of SuperLube on those, as it's a spot where drop targets can get hung up (after having cleaned them and the lifter arms first of course).

In my opinion, a little lube on drops in a home environment to get them working faithfully is OK. It takes years and years and 10s of thousands of games to gunk up. If you let the dust collect like it did in the wild, you are neglecting your machine.

Would Graphite be better?

IMG_1987.JPG

IMG_2018.JPG

^^

Maybe???

In pinball machines: smooth metal sliding on plastic - no lube ever. At the start, years from now and until about 5 minutes after the end of time itself.

The plastic is nylon, it has a natural lubricity sliding on metal. Do not use lube. No grease, silicone, Teflon, graphite, spit, Astroglide, etc. This may sound a little counter-intuitive, but using any lube on nylon/metal is going to be worse than no lube from the start. And you know where it goes from there.

We all need to get over our greasy little urges. (Question: Aw, c'mon... just a tiny dab, and it's low use, and there are cool sounding hi-tech components in the grease formula, it cost quite a bit, can't I just put a little on? Answer: No.)

Metal on metal- light oil or a very tiny amount of grease. Metal gears: lithium or Teflon grease. Metal gears on plastic gears, a little grease is OK. What is a tiny or little amount of grease? A thin film. How thin? You should not be able to see the grease from a normal viewing distance.

Here's an equation we all should learn and remember: Grease + Time = Adhesive. No exceptions. Won't someone please think of the children?

Don C.

That's not graphite.

That's powdered metal from the plunger hitting the coil stop.

Same as flippers, pops, slingshots.....,

When I read the topic I was expecting a really burnt machine.

Can't quite get my head around this. How can there be 5 more minutes after the end of time? Consider my mind BLOWN!!

Maybe he has a tardus. ^^

Had to look up "tardus"

I have never watched Dr Who or played the pin so the reference was lost on me.

Makes sense though.....

WD 40. Water Displacement 40. Here is my sisters story about WD40.

My sister had a can sitting on a shelf in a small utility room. She bumped the shelf. The can fell off the shelf, and landed upside down. Busting off the cap. The can had fallen behind the gas hot water heater. Instant ignition of the WD40. Black smoke quickly fills the room and a fire starts on the plywood wall. She quickly phones 911 as the flames are now half way up the wall. Then she goes back into the room to try to put out the fire. All of a sudden as she enters the door there was a large blast of hot water shooting off the bottom of the water tank. This water snuffed out the fire. By the time the firemen arrived the fire was out. Lots of smoke and water damage had occurred. The fire shooting out of the can had melted the solder on one of the water pipes. The Fire Captian could not believe what had happened. She was kind of lucky that day. Since then she will not have WD40 in her home, and she now has a fire extinguisher as well.

holy shit

Is right! ^^

WD-40 is largely flammable solvent based so bursting a can near and open flame = more fire.

Keeping it away from open ignition points is a good idea as well as having a couple Halon and dry chemical fire extinguishers present in the home, garage and kitchen.

I was sitting in a training class and one of the participants was an industrial insurance adjuster. We were BS'ing about things and he described an amazing fire that occurred at a was warehouse that stored and shipped spray paint. Everything was set up to code with sprinklers and fire suppression barriers. A fork lift driver dropped a case of product off of the top rack and when it hit the ground spray cans went everywhere. A small fire started and once it got rolling the other cans started to explode into flames shooting across the warehouse floor into and under other racks. It was a major fire started by a few standard cans of spray paint.

WD-40. The lubricant of the devil himself! I guess we all suspected, but who really knew?

Rocket fuel water displacement , who knew.

Actually, I have a WD-40 story myself. Years ago, my friend planted the Lionel trains bug in me. As I recall, he was over my house late one night, and I told him I had some old trains in my mom's attic. My parent's house is only like a mile and a half away, so we drove over there around midnight or so, and clambered up into the attic. I found a cardboard box that I hadn't seen in several decades, and extracted the remains of an old steam locomotive. We dragged it back to my house and proceeded down to the basement in hopes of extracting some life out of this relic.
I found my trusty battery charger and figured it would make a suitable power source for the old loco. I hooked up the wires and switched it on. It groaned a bit and made a few convulsive revolutions, as it struggled to come to life. I reached for my trusty can of WD-40, and liberally juiced the armature of the motor as it strained to overcome years of inactivity. It suddenly burst into life and into flames simultaneously, and I furiously blew gusts of air on it from my lungs in hopes of saving it from a fiery death. I ultimately succeeded, and eventually restored that locomotive to it's original glory. Whew, so close to fiery ruin thanks to that marvel in a spray can! Love those Lionel trains! Love WD-40 too, but keep it away from pins. Not really bad as a cleaner and degunker, but don't use it as a lubricant.

I did this for awhile. I hadto go to a fastener store for the nuts. The hardware store thought I was out of my mind asking for a 5-40 nut. I found it much easier to just pull the screws and plates and stick them in a bag.

Regarding lubrication:
Yes, factory lubrication from a 40 year old machine is often not effective any more. Does that mean it should not be used? Should you not lubricate parts in your car since you will just have to do it again some day? I never understood that. Would you prefer to change out the parts that are worn out due to lack of lubrication, or just clean them up once every 40 years? Hosing dirty parts down with WD40 (which is little more than kerosene in disguise) is a whole lot different that adding an appropriate grease or oil in an appropriate amount where recommended by the factory (which at the time of printing the 1978 parts catalog had about 40 years of experience making these games).

I've had better success using WD40 to get chewing gum out of people's hair than as a lubricant.

WD40 is useless shit and should not be purchased for any reason. Useless. And should never be used on a pinball machine ever.

I saw some morons at Expo one year, working on a wizard. Started spraying WD40 in the machine. Told them, you don't want to do that, and he continued to spout off how he was an operator for a such and such years, and knows what he's doing. 5 min later I walked by and the game was on fire inside. Idiots!

http://wd40.com/about-us/myths-legends-fun-facts/

I have only found 3 good uses for WD40.

Removing chewing gum from carpet, 100% effective on this.

Displacing water/moisture from a wet distributor cap, after pressure washing engine bay.

Starting fluid, if the engine does not start. No gas, crank the engine, spray some into the intake, the engine should start. It will burn the WD40 off, then stall. So you have ignition, but no fuel pressure. Check the fuel delivery system.

I'll add one. Love using it on door locks (car and house) that are frozen or just tired from age/use. Works like magic for years.

Ken

Sticks and marshmallows in hand.

Damn good hand cleaner in a pinch.

^^
And a mechanic air freshener in a can.

Pinball Guru and gum remover? Vid1900 sure is an all around good guy.

use dry film lube, my dad is a locksmith and loves the stuff especially for locks you can hose the crap out of things and when the solvent evaporates its DRY.

I have to admit I do have a can...... I use it for rusted parts such as leg levelers frozen in the legs. Have experimented with using it with steel wool to remove rust on said legs, but have mostly graduated to a lightening rust bath for that. Would never use it inside the game!