The adjust failure error you were getting is because the batteries were dead or there was an issue with the batteries and the game was losing the settings as a result.

If the coils are firing when you hit start (not when you immediately turn on the game) then it's probably the game searching for the balls as it does not detect all of them in the trough, so it thinks some might be stuck in the game and is trying to pop them loose. The game will also not start if it doesn't recognize the balls are there.

If the game is on free play, make sure you have all 3 balls in the game. If you do, you will need to put the game in switch test to make sure the switches in the trough are recognizing the balls.

Nice! Get all 3 loaded up and then see what happens! Hopefully you will be good to go!

Awesome news! That coil in the picture looks pretty suspect...lots of things sticking out of it, and it's hard to tell in your picture but it looks like one of the windings could be grounding out to the bracket. What did you test with the multimeter? There are a few things to check...voltage as GRUMPY mentioned, ohms across the coil lugs, you can ground the coil to see if it fires and also the transistor on the board.

What is your experience and comfort level with working on games? That will help with how much guidance we need to provide.

Yes, do not short the lugs on the coil, that will damage the coil and potentially the game.

Do you have the manual for the game? The game is in free play, and you are just hitting start to start a game, right?

Does the game music begin and the game looks like it will begin to score (showing you are on ball one, etc.)? If the game is starting, I would think all 3 switches in the trough are working fine. If you have the manual, look at how to put the game in test mode. You can cycle through the tests and get to the coil test and it will fire all the coils in order. Run that and see what happens. There is also a switch test and you should see all 3 switches active. If you don't have the manual, just google up high speed pinball manual, and you should find a IPDB link that will have a free download of the manual in PDF form,

Run those two tests first and see if the coil fires in test and report back.

Yep, as mentioned above you can definitely test the transistor, but rule out a few things first. I would make sure as mentioned you have voltage at the coil. Then (game off) measure the ohms across the lugs, and then compare to another coil that is the same part number, such as coil 3. Make sure all the wiring is soldered on the coil and the diode is attached and doesn't look broken. After that we can move into checking the wiring and grounding out the coil and transistor to isolate the issue. This is a pretty common issue so we will get you going again.

GRUMPY beat me to it! And no worries - we all started somewhere, it will come together.