Quoted from cottonm4:
When you were doing work on location, what kind of parts did you carry? Did you go out with certain types of inventory for "regular" repairs. Did the types of repairs being called hacks here happen often where you did not have a needed part? How many times did you run into a problem that could not be repaired on location and have to carry the pin back to the shop?
In the 5 1/2 years I worked for a route operator, I carried the Xcelite technician tool kit and three years into it replaced it with Jensen Tools Field Engineers tool kit. Also two old-school cardboard beer cases with one of every coil needed on the route. Coil stops, coil brackets, Flipper pawls, coil sleeves, a large box of springs, shooter rods, shooter housings, flipper buttons, joy sticks, Every contact blade and point type imaginable, Bumper ring & Rods. A nice hardware kit with 4-40, 6-32, 8-32 and 10-24/10-32 screws/bolts nuts flat and lock washers. Remember, this was prior to Home Despot/Blowes so hardware stores were not open late nor were many at all on Sundays.
Also had a shoe box with an assortment of plastic parts including every flipper plastic housing we had on route, Bumper bodies, rollover buttons (all types), drop targets (all types including Game Plan garbage) Also light sockets not to mention fuses and every incandescent lamp type. Including flourescent tubes. Not just F15T8's either. Had to have them for the Juke/Jute boxes and cigarette machines. An unlit machine doesn't make money. The silly 25 or 40 standard incandescent bulbs for the Galaxians & Pac-Man machines. These parts were stored in two milk crates with boxes nested inside. My trunk was pretty full.
I also carried all seven Bally AID/Solid State board part kits as I would sometimes repair a board on location if the kids in the game area were not too obnoxious. Or, I'd get to use the bowling mechanic's workbench as I carried soldering irons, solder wick and a Soldapult solder sucker.
If it was an MPU issue and it was not fixed in 15 minutes, the board went back to the shop for a swap as we had had many spares. I also stayed in the shop two days a week repairing boards. Sound boards were brought back but the game remained operating. Did not work well on Gorgar, Centaur & EBD.
We would only pull a game if we could not fix the board, Under warranty for 90 or 180 days as cut-throat operators would search for broken games and offer to put theirs in as a working game. We had CONtracts with most of our locations though. Also, we would pull heavily damaged games from break-ins. I'd say pulls on games we could not fix in two days was maybe ten that I went out on the calls for. Probably 40 during my time there by everyone.