Sticking score relays are almost always caused by a dirty mechanism. Take apart and clean all cams and moving parts. Step through the reels manually by pressing the coil plunger down with your finger. When you are able to advance from 0-9 without any hangups you should have it. The "19" is probably caused by the stepping up of the 10 point relay through the 9th position switch.

It would sure help to know what game. Again.

Williams used at least three different styles of score reels that I know of.

OK. Later style.

It is good to make sure everything is clean and adjusted properly. 92% alcohol is a good cleaner.

I will paste this in regards to later Williams from another post-

They are pretty simple in design and function, and easy to get working if they do hang up. Only thing I have had to do out of the ordinary, is sometimes the cam that drives the switch lever develops a tiny flat spot which results in a small point on the cam. A file can be used to round it off, adjust switches if necessary, and everything will work fine again.

I use tiny dabs of super lube on the cam and the post it rotates on after I clean them, as that is where it looks like the factory lubed them, but that old lube has long since solidified.

Williams Heat Wave (1964) is sluggish / doesn’t want to step between 8 & 9 on some of the reels. Weak springs?

Is this the part where I take it all apart & clean? Seems suspect that the other clicks are pretty good, and they are sluggish in one spot.

There's a switch on the score reel that closes during the step between 8 & 9. Have a look at its adjustment and mechanism.

If you take out the reel unit and manually advance it, it feels sluggish but only between the 8 & 9. Like it doesn’t want to pull back all the way. That's why I was thinking weak spring or something.

Unless its obvious they aren't the correct ones, the springs are rarely the problem. Take the unit apart and clean/lube it and most problems are taken care of. Howard is telling you that a switch is activated on the 'sluggish' step - if the switch is incorrectly adjusted the score reel might have to work harder to overcome the switch on that step causing the sluggish behavior.

I got that, and I am going to check the switches. But because they feel sluggish when manually advancing, it seemed to me the issue might not be electrical.

.

Agreed. The actuating mechanism for the switches I described above is mechanical and could be slowing down the score reel movement.

Another question... even when the scores reset [by manually working the score reset relay] , the game doesn’t move on the the next task.

So, the score reset relay isn’t getting a signal to work, and even when the scores are reset, the next task doesn’t happen. The motor in the bottom of the cabinet runs continuously.

Should I continue checking the switches on the reels or check for a problem elsewhere? It’s not the score reset relay coil, because it was working before I messed with the scores.

What’s the next thing to check?

(Schematic has been ordered. Trying to do why I can in the meantime.)

currieddog Thank you very much. No manual for this era Williams. I'll start tinkering with the start switch and the coin door, I guess.

'doh!

There are credits on the wheel, but pressing the start button does nothing. Manually actuating the coin relay seems to work. The start button is making good contact, but there's no power there. No spark.

Would swear the button worked the other day.

Time to start resoldering?

If pressing the Replay Button doesn't activate the Coin relay, Inspect and diagnose this circuit with Alligator clip jumper wires
http://www.planetimming.com/Pinball/troubleshooting/EM%20Troubleshooting.pdf
http://www.pinrepair.com/em/index3.htm#features

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I figured it had to be something to do with the credit reel, because I was messing with it.

The replay unit switch was open. Closing it fixed it. Noob Error: I'd looked at that the other day, thought I knew how it worked and decided it should be open. Go Figure.

Closing the coin trip switch racks up 5 games.

Pressing the credit button uses up all the credits and starts the game. If I max it out (12 credits), pressing start brought it down to 2 games, but it seems ify. What is my next step on that, please. (I see that the coil in the back of the unit resets to zero games. When would that ever be needed?)

currieddog The credit real now works great. Although I labeled the wires so I could solder them back to the right lugs, naturally one wire came loose and I had to figure out where it went.

It was a green wire going from the step up coil to the step down coil. I poured over the schematic, but could not figure out where it shows that a short green wire (color 4) goes from one particular lug on a coil to a particular lug on the other. Would you please show me that part on the schematic so I'll understand that sort of thing next time?

Thanks in advance!

-undrdog