I followed your tip (thank you for all your tips and ideas for working the castle door issues). I lowered the castle playfield flipper from 12 (normal) to 9. Still can make all the shots and it ensures the ball doesn't hit the doors too hard. In my case, the weight of the ball at normal power (12) was causing door to "jump" over the latch and cause right door to open partially. As you have said, the latch and doors seem to work best when doors are at different heights. But, I had already lowered the right door as far as possible without touching the wood. I will check the return spring to make sure it's not rubbing on the latch as others have suggested.

So, for now I'm finally 100% on the doors. Now I can add some of the standard mods.

I have a different problem than what's mostly discussed in this thread, but using this one to focus on Castle Door problems generally. I just recently bought this machine (my first pin ever, total noob here).

My issue: I had been registering ghost hits on the right castle door. When I bought the machine, it was on version 6.06 or so and no ghost hits. I updated to 7.03-NSE and then it immediately started doing these right door bashes.

Opening it up, it seems like all the door/motor screws seem tight and motor seems to be operating fine (from my beginner perspective).

What appears to be happening is the spring not fully pulling the door back closed; when I lightly tap the door towards 'open' I can hear the switch click for the bash register, but not click back to the closed state (from the spring action) unless I lightly tap on it in the other direction to close it. It kind of gets stuck in the 'middle zone'. Visibly, everything looks fine.

So, I twisted the right door spring a few turns and reattached it. I did a single turn on the left door spring because it seemed a little mushy. This seems to fix the 'middle zone' problem, but now on startup the doors keep opening, saucer firing, doors close. This repeats many times. I don't see anything in the saucer / optical area... is it possible this is triggered by the spring being too tight? Or is it more likely that I donked something else up while I was working inside?

I've pulled the playfield about 4-5 times now (I undid the left door spring twists; reduced the right door twists to a single twist) while trying to troubleshoot that 'middle zone' issue. I'll next try to reset the right spring back to where I started, to see if the ejector startup issue stops (even if the ghost bash returns).

I was about to order a couple door motors, but honestly it just seems like a spring calibration thing (at least my initial problem; I'm not sure about this latest startup issue).

Any experience with this particular door open/close/eject loop issue?

Thank you SO much for the detailed response! Lots for me to digest here.

This is definitely NOT how mine is at the moment; when the power is off both doors are bound in place and can just slightly wiggle. (The solo door can open freely). Does that add any further context about my particular problem? I've just ordered a couple door motors either way. I couldn't find the springs for sale, so I asked JJP support if they could toss them in the order.

Total beginner here. Do I need to cut the capacitors off of the old motors and solder them to the new ones when they arrive? Should I order new caps instead? I don't even have a soldering iron, but I do need one for this I presume.

I have gone through the JJP parts shop a few times but can't locate this nor the door posts themselves. Do you have an alternate source you can point me to? Or should I talk to their support even though my machine is old?

Very good tip, I've been trying to figure out how to test this better without replacing the dang playfield every time. How can you safely turn on the machine with main playfield vertical? I think I tried this and it started trying to eject balls.

Thanks again!

How does that latch stay open when power is off? I can’t understand what it is supposed to look like but this seems to be an important hint here, that the doors don’t swing open freely when off.

Thanks, I misunderstood your first post I think. A ton of valuable information there for me to continue to reference! Thank you again!

Anyhow, I figured out my situation tonight. My extra twist on the spring indeed fixed the ghost-bash issue on the right door (temporary placeholder until I get a spring replacement), but when I had put it all back together, I had put the 4-pin from the castle PF into the wrong slot.

For anyone's future reference, the doors and saucer eject will cycle on boot-up when you put the castle PF 4-pin into the empty RED spot on the main PF connector instead of the BROWN spot.

The right door was 1/2 opened and not opening.The problem was the motor that opens and closes the dooe was loose.All i had to do was tighten it down and works fine.It was a pain to get to but a easy fix.

Wow, I wish I read this thread before attempting to replace my motors. I would agree it is not well designed. It works, but when something doesn't, well it isn't a fun experience.

I found out the head bolts are soft lol. Don't even bother with using them. Replace as suggested in this thread.

I did get them in and they were partially working (one door was dragging a bit) so I pulled the playfield back out. I attempted to adjust the plate height. Now my doors soft close. The stop mech wont pull down. Maybe I damaged the coil? All wiring looks right. I've tried in both door test and coil test. Anyone else have this issue before? It is incredibly difficult to diagnose problems live when you can't see anything below the playfield.