Repair & Maintenance Log
05/05/06: Acquired game from the outdoor flea market area at the Allentown Pinball Wizards Convention.
05/21/06: Replaced power cord. Ground prong had been removed from existing cord.
06/02/06: Checked and replaced incorrect display fuses.
06/23/06: Replaced burned bulbs in head. New pair of matched locks. Rebuilt flippers including the newer style pawl with extension return spring. Replaced right-side FL-11629 flipper coil with correct FL-11630 coil. Replaced flipper bats with correct color. Fixed left lane change switch (cold solder joint at the diode).
Right-side flipper rebuild before and after. The correct 11630 coil was mounted with the terminals away from the coil stop. Also note the newer style extension return spring.
New flipper bats before and after. When the bat and ring color are correct the flippers become the clown's fingers.
A little Mean Green went a long way.
06/25/06: Measured playfield glass - 43" x 21" x 3/16". Replaced more playfield bulbs.
06/26/06: Two of the four screw holes holding the right slingshot coil bracket to the playfield were stripped. Used the wood glue and toothpick method to fix. Cleaned under playfield ball troughs. Spook House trough mounting needed more wood glue and toothpicks. The Spook House trough was in bad shape. It looks to have been broken in half and repaired with mesh and epoxy. I added an old lamp bracket to help support the ramp where the ball drops down from the Spook House. The lamp bracket replaces a plastic mounting tab that was broke and long gone.
Metal trough for the Boomerang and plastic trough for the Spook House. Boomerang kicker and bracket were removed and off to the side at upper right.
The trough may have been ugly, but it worked fine.
07/01/06: Installed NOS Spook House ramp. Timing was everything. I called Pinball Resource to order some supplies and took a shot at the Spook House ramp. They had one! Compare this picture to the previous two. No more epoxy and lamp brackets holding the ramp together.
NOS Spook House ramp.
07/02/06 - 07/08/06: Shopped game. Playfield was stripped, cleaned and waxed. Old black rubber was replaced with new white rubber. Any #44 GI bulbs were replaced with #47 bulbs. New Ferris Wheel belt. New ball. New slingshot plastics from Marco Specialties. New reproduction Comet ramp from Pinball, Inc. Comet ramp decals from Pinball, Inc. and/or Classic-Arcades. As this was my first game I didn't have the nerve to strip the whole playfield at once so I just did one section at a time. Cyclone was one of a few games to use red plastic posts on the left side of the playfield and blue posts on the right. Someone took this idea a step further and replaced the top right rollover guide parts with blue, but they were the wrong style parts. Fortunately the two original red posts were found in the bottom of the cabinet. The red posts were restored and three new red rollover guides were added. The playfield itself was a bit of a disappointment. There were several layers of Mylar. Some layers appeared to have been applied without cleaning the playfield. In places where there was no Mylar, the paint was yellowed and cracked. Instead of trying to restore the playfield I just cleaned it up as best I could.
Here's the upper playfield as I worked my way from right to left. New white rubber marks the areas I've already been through.
Under skirt shot. This was the filthiest area of the game.
Almost done. Ready to put the ramps back in.
I finished up my first pinball shop job with a new Comet ramp. One of the reasons I bought this game was because the existing ramps were in reasonable condition. But when I discovered the availability of a shiny new reproduction Comet ramp, I couldn't resist.
07/08/06: Ferris wheel ramp fix. As I played my Cyclone I noticed a problem with the Ferris wheel ramp. Occasionally the ball would hit the leading edge of the ramp and bounce back into the Ferris wheel for another ride. This problem was only sporadic. The Ferris wheel ramp worked way more often than not, but the malfunction was disruptive to the game and got to be annoying. The Ferris wheel was always turning during game play. However, hitting the rollover wire above the Ferris wheel activated a time-out function. If another playfield switch (such as the left inlane switch) was not activated within about 10 seconds, the Ferris wheel may stop. I suppose this was to prevent damage if the mechanism became jammed. But if the ball bounced back into the Ferris wheel, the mechanism may time-out before the ball comes back around. Here was the pain in the ass... I'd have to pull the glass and hit a switch or reset the game.
A little research revealed that others had had the same problem with their Cyclone, but no practical solutions were forthcoming. So I fabricated a bracket to better fill the gap between the Ferris wheel and the Ferris wheel ramp. Below is an under playfield shot showing the factory metal strap that prevents the ball from falling into the cabinet. But this was just a safety net, not a fix. The ball should not ride around the bottom of the Ferris wheel.
Under playfield safety net.
My project started with a metal "L" bracket that was just slightly narrower than the Ferris wheel ramp support bracket. I found this bracket in the lumber department at Home Depot.
I cut the short side of the bracket to be just a little shorter that the height of the Ferris wheel ramp support bracket. The long side was cut off almost entirely.
Next I drilled and tapped a pair of mounting holes into the Ferris wheel support bracket and mounted my custom bracket.
The finished arrangement is shown below. The custom bracket filled the gap between the Ferris wheel and the Ferris wheel ramp such that the ball couldn't hit the edge of the ramp and bounce back into the Ferris wheel. Fitting the bracket required some patience. The gap should be closed, but not so tight that the bracket would scratch the Ferris wheel decals. I test fit the ramp and re-filed the custom bracket several times before I got it just right.
Done!
02/11/07: Added remote battery backup. Instead of permanently soldering some sort of remote battery setup to the CPU board I made battery place-holders from ½ inch dowel. This method required no board modifications. And no connectors were needed between the board and the battery pack. The battery pack was from Great Plains Electronics. I liked that the pack was fully enclosed. I didn't like that it had an integral ON/OFF switch. I set the switch to ON and put a blob of silicone caulk over it. The battery wires were mounted to an end of each dowel with a screw and crimp terminal. The screw head became the "battery terminal". Don't forget to account for the height of the screw head when figuring the length of the dowel. Also shown was a plastic tool I got from Home Depot. The tool was for pulling large inline fuses, but was also good for pulling AA batteries.
Battery place-holders and remote battery pack. Note the blob of silicone over the battery pack switch.
The CPU board showed how each battery must be oriented, but didn't show the location of +4.5 volts. Before removing the old batteries I used my volt meter to confirm that the lower-left terminal of the battery holder was +4.5 volts. The orientation shown here is correct for most System-11 CPU boards. Grand Lizard is at least one exception. Grand Lizard and the previous system 9 CPU boards (along with their battery holders) were oriented 180 degrees from that shown here.
Dowel sticks in place.
01/15/12 - Battery Pack Update: I rewired all my remote battery packs with 8' leads. Instead of placing the battery pack in the head, I dropped it down into the body and placed it next to the cash box. Opening the coin door was easier than opening the head. The idea was that I'd be better motivated to replace the batteries more often.
Remote battery packs with 8' leads. Scruffy gave each assembly a quality control check.
10/07/07: Here's an idea I read about on the Internet somewhere... I replaced all the Mystery Wheel lights with colored bulbs corresponding to the colors on the translite. These colored #555 bulbs were available at most pinball suppliers. You'll need red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. I'm not a big fan of changing the look of a game. But I'm also not a fan of seeing bulbs through the translite. The colored bulbs mellowed the hole effect and it all looked okay.
Bad photography, but you get the idea.
06/27/08: Now with LEDs. The light was more difussed (good), but the colors were way more saturated (not so good). It looked okay, I guess.
More bad photography.
10/21/10: Replaced display board. The Player #3 display up and died. I did some theoretical troubleshooting and decided the problem could be a chip or the #3 plasma display itself. Either way it was going to take a lot of tedious soldering and I wasn't sure about the availability and reliability of replacement parts. So I decided to replace the whole board with a modern reengineered LED display board. The consensus seemed to be that PinScore made the best replacement display boards. But then I found a good show price on a Rottendog DIS200. At nearly $100 less than what I would have paid for a PinScore, I decided to give the Rottendog a try.
There were a few things I didn't like about the replacement board. The LED segments were white when unlit whereas the original displays were much darker. The new displays were set further back and had no sort of bezel. So the circuit board was visible through the backbox display panel. But it wasn't much of a distraction from normal viewing angles. Finally, I thought that some of the circuit board traces were precariously close to the right-side mounting holes.
On the other hand, the new LED design didn't require high voltage. The whole board ran on just the 5 volt supply. Replacement was plug and play and took just a few minutes. Since the high voltage power supply was no longer needed, I deactivated it by removing fuse F1 on the power supply board.
Comparison between the original display board (top) and the new Rottendog board.
I added some cardboard squares to protect the board traces from the star washers on the mounting screws.
More bad photography. But for what it's worth, here's the original display board (top) compared to the new Rottendog board.
03/18/12: New playfield glass. New legs, bolts and levelers.
03/24/12: Installed standard-keyed (751) lock on coin door.
12/09/17: Repaired Ferris wheel motor pulley. I had a problem where the ball would hit the leading edge of the Ferris wheel ramp and bounce back into the Ferris wheel for another ride. The Ferris wheel was always turning during game play. However, hitting the rollover wire above the Ferris wheel activated a time-out function. If another playfield switch (such as the left inlane switch) was not activated within about 10 seconds, the Ferris wheel would stop. I suppose this was to prevent damage if the mechanism becomes jammed. But if the ball bounced back into the Ferris wheel, the mechanism may time-out before the ball comes back around. My original solution was to add a small filler bracket between the Ferris wheel and the Ferris wheel ramp. That project may be found further up this page. The bracket solution consistently worked for more than ten years. Then the problem suddenly reappeared.
My new theory was that the under-playfield plastic pulley on the motor assembly shaft was worn. The inner hub of the pulley had a flat spot corresponding to a flat spot on the shaft. The flat spot on the pulley had become slightly elongated and the pulley had a bit of slop. When a ball rolled into one of the four Ferris wheel compartments, the weight of the ball would pull the pulley toward one end of its slop. When the ball passed over the Ferris wheel's top center of gravity, the weight of the ball would pull the pulley toward the other end of its slop. The Ferris wheel would suddenly lurch forward and the compartment would quickly pass the edge of the ramp before the ball gained enough momentum to roll out onto the ramp.
My solution was to remove the pulley and press it back on with a paper shim between the flat spots of the pulley and shaft. One thickness of copy paper was all it took to snug things up. The difference was subtle, but the result was clear. Without any sudden lurching of the Ferris wheel, the ball had plenty of time to get rolling. Now the ball landed on the ramp beyond the ramp's leading edge.
The pulley was responsible for most of the slop. But I also noticed a small bit of slop with the shaft as well. The motor assembly's internal gears were probably worn. For now it's no big deal. As of 2017, replacement pulleys (03-8086) and motor assemblies (B-11571-2) were still available. I may order spares.
A paper shim between the motor assembly shaft and the pulley.
The shim was trimmed and the shaft collar and belt were reinstalled.
12/14/17: I did decide to order a new pulley and motor assembly from Marco just in case this problem should reappear in the future. But as shown in the picture below, the new motor/pulley combination was worse than what I just fixed. There's no way this would work as is. It would take more than one thickness of paper to shim that gap. Oh well...
New parts. Modification required.
09/07/18: Fixed diagnostic switch assembly. Here's a simple problem that took me 12 years to get around to fixing. Some previous person had flipped around the diagnostic switches. The advance button was where the high score reset button should have been and vice versa. Moreover the switch bracket was mounted upside down and in the wrong place. Moreover the switch decal had been torn off. I had inadvertently erased my high scores on more than one occasion. I reassembled everything as it should be and added a new decal. Note that the high score reset button may be identified by its switch matrix diode. The advance button has no diode.
Diagnostic switch assembly before.
Diagnostic switch assembly after.
Looking at the underside of the diagnostic switch assembly, the high score reset button may be identified by the switch matrix diode.
09/21/18: New Ferris wheel belt. After 12 years the old belt was stiff and slipping.
11/18: Topper build. Years ago I bought a CPR reproduction plastics set which I still had yet to install. For now I made a topper from the extra CRP "promo parts". First I scanned all the parts in case I needed to print any cutting or masking templates. I could have used the big clown as it was, but I would have had zero margin of error with my ceiling clearance. I also had given some thought to leaving the big clown intact and allowing the neck to overhang the front of backbox. That would have been a terrible idea. The topper needed to sit back on the backbox to avoid glare on the playfield glass. So I trimmed the clown from the chin down. I made a backboard from ¾" plywood. I laid out the parts and sketched a cut line.
Trimming the big clown.
Sketching a cut line on the backboard.
I planned to put a #455 bulb under the clown's nose. I printed a cutting template for the nose and made a light baffle from ¾" MDF.
The nose baffle.
Next I cut out the backboard and drilled holes for the lamps and posts. I made the topper in a manner similar to how a playfield is built up. Blue and red posts were used to support the plastics.
Test fitting some parts.
I didn't like how I drilled for the nose lamp, so I plugged the backboard and tried again.
I painted the backboard an off-white color. Next I covered the backboard with painter's tape, screwed down the plastics and used an X-Acto knife to cut out a mask. Then I painted the board black.
Masking for black.
Finished paint.
I used a bag of lamp sockets I had on hand. I smashed the mounting brackets so the bulbs would sit higher. The nose got a #455 bulb. The remaining bulbs were #47. I used a cheap 5 volt, 3 amp power pack. The power pack plugged into a switched outlet such that the topper would come ON with the rest of the room lighting. I first tried a 6 volt power pack, but the topper was too bright relative to the game. The base was made from more ¾" plywood. I also added a pair of mounting screws. I hated the idea of screwing a foreign object onto my game, but the topper wasn't going to stay put by itself. As noted above, the topper needed to be set back on the backbox to avoid glare on the playfield glass. The topper was set so the plastics were 4 ½" back from the front edge of the backbox.
Smashed mounting bracket.
5 volt power pack.
Rear view showing the final wiring, the plywood base and two mounting screws.
Ready for the plastics.
Finished topper with the discarded 6 volt power pack. Too bright.
An animated gif showing the blinking nose.
11/22/19: Display testing. Back in 2010 I swapped the plasma display board for a new LED display board. It always kind of bugged me that I never tried to fix the old plasma board. I figured the board would need a replacement numeric glass at player 3. First I bought a parts board from a Pinside ad that was advertised as "working" except player 3. The plan was to salvage the player 4 glass from the Pinside board. I tested both boards according to the old pinrepair.com repair guides. All the driver chips appeared to test good. Next I plugged in the Pinside board and it worked as advertised. No player 3, but the rest looked good. Then I plugged in my old board and found that both player 3 and player 4 were now out. Well shit! I'm still short one working numeric display glass. Coincidentally, both display boards were originally from F-14 Tomcats.
Negative progress?
12/14/19: Renovated the power supply board. After more than 13 years of ownership, I finally got around to sorting out connectors J1 and J8 on the power supply board. This was a rat's nest of direct soldered wires and spade connectors. Interestingly, almost all the wires between the board and the spade connectors were the correct color code. Some previous person appears to have had access to scrap wire harnesses, but not to connector parts. After cutting away all the spade connectors, there was still plenty of wire length to crimp on all new connector pins. The board was recapped and all header pins were replaced. All connectors were replaced.
There appeared to be an anomaly with this game. There should have been a green GI wire from J8 pin 3 to the backbox interconnect board. On this game the wire was white. This did not appear to be a hack, but a characteristic of the original wire harness. From the interconnect board to the insert panel, the GI wire was green as it should have been.
The rat's nest at J1 and J8.
Done.
I was investigating why the green GI circuit was shorted to the brown GI circuit. Likewise, the yellow GI circuit was shorted to the violet GI circuit. This had to do with the GI relays. The relay board connectors made the relays look like double pole relays. But they were actually signal pole relays. That is, the green and brown wires were connected at the insert panel relay. And the yellow and violet wires were connected at the playfield relay. So these wire pairs were redundant between the power supply board and their respective relays (not that one can have too many redundant GI wires).
In looking around I found that both relay boards had connector issues. I replaced the header pins on both relay boards and replaced all the connectors.
Insert GI relay before.
Insert GI relay after.
Playfield GI relay before.
This board had a solder braid trace bridge. Here I've just reused the braid with my new header pins.
Playfield GI relay after.
Having made the above repairs, the game's general illumination was noticeably brighter.
12/2019-02/2020: Shopped game. The game had been getting dirty and I had accumulated a collection of new parts over the years including a CPR plastics set, a Starship Fantasy Cyclone ramp, a Pinball Pal flag set, a target decal set and a NOS pair of speaker grills. I also got a new ring kit and a new ball, of course. In fact, I put a round of Ball Baron "Ninja Chrome" balls in all my games.
This was the first time I shopped a game twice. It was an interesting contrast. The first time around I was afraid to work on more than one small area at a time. This time I just dug right in (taking about 150 pictures in the process). I cleaned all the insert bulbs and inserts which did not appear to have been done before. There were still a few stray #44 bulbs I replaced with #47 bulbs. I removed all the posts this time and tumbled and/or polished all the metal. I don't think I had a tumbler before.
Playfield mostly stripped.
This playfield had what was probably factory Mylar. The playfield subsequently developed that two-tone look where the non-Mylared areas darkened more than the Mylared areas. But then someone added a film to the previously non-Mylared areas. This stuff didn't appear to be actual Mylar. It was thinner, much less glossy and somewhat elastic. And the adhesive was more tacky than sticky. I'm against pulling Mylar, but this stuff (whatever it was) looked like it would pull right up. So I did. And I got to clean and wax a few areas that had not been cleaned and waxed because this film was in the way. Then I got to the top rollovers and 1-2-3 inserts and chickened out. There was some underlying insert wear and I noticed that someone had replaced the "2". I didn't think this would stay in place without its protective film so I left it as it was. There were a few small specks of ink that came up with the sections I did pull. If I had to do it again I wouldn't.
There was a dull protective film over the top arch area that I wouldn't peel up. This was as good as it was going to get.
I had previously rebuilt the flipper mechs and they were still working well. So I didn't do anything on that front aside from new rubber. Otherwise I cleaned all the under playfield troughs and mechanisms and replaced all the coil sleeves. Both the slingshot coils had a loose winding. But the coils worked so I reused them. The right slingshot coil was turned toward the long side of its bracket. All those years and I never had a fault. Yet there did appear to be a bit of spark damage at the terminals.
Potential short between the slingshot bracket and the coil terminals.
Same coil turned to the side. Note the loose winding.
My biggest under playfield problem was with the drop target mechanism. First I noticed a nested pair of springs around the plunger. Then I noticed that one of the coil stop mounting studs was sheered off. So the coil stop was racked which racked the coil which (I guess) necessitated the plunger springs. Marco had the bracket (B-11213), but the picture showed the bracket without the mounting studs. What good was that? Next I went to eBay and found a drop target assembly allegedly from a Road Kings. This assembly appeared to have a bracket compatible with what I needed.
Creative use of plunger springs and a sheered of stud at the coil stop.
My eBay drop target assembly wasn't from a Road Kings. I'm pretty sure it was from a Millionaire. Millionaire appears to have been the only game to use this assembly C-11546. Later games like Space Station and Cyclone used a slightly modified assembly C-11212-2. The bracket was almost, but not quite what I needed. The slot for the finger plate was too narrow. I didn't want to use the Millionaire finger plate because it was obviously homemade. So I widened the slot. Nothing that a Dremel and some tedium couldn't fix. Note that the bracket for both of these assemblies was part B-11213 even though each assembly obviously used a different bracket.
The Millionaire C-11546 drop target assembly.
My old Cyclone bracket (left) compared to the Millionaire bracket (before slot modification).
Well that didn't work. I failed to recognize that the two brackets had slightly different circuit board mounting posts. Or in other words, my Cyclone opto board didn't properly fit on the Millionaire bracket. Damn it! Plan B... I punched out the sheered stud from the Cyclone bracket and replaced it with a Millionaire stud. This was by far the better solution. It simply had not occurred to me that the studs would be so easy to tap in and out.
The drop target was cracked so I got a new target to go with my new decal. Here's why I'd prefer not to replace decals. The new one doesn't look much like the old. It's pixelated, vertically compressed and too glossy. I had to do quite a bit of trimming to shape and I obviously should have trimmed more off the top. I didn't trust the quality so I added a layer of Mylar which made the decal even more glossy.
New target and decal.
Reassembled with replacement stud, new coil sleeve and no plunger springs.
Won't you come in?
I had not previously worked on the jet bumpers and was surprised to find no broken parts. So I cleaned and reassembled what was there along with new coil sleeves. The jet bumpers were one place I made a concession to LEDs. It wasn't that I liked LEDs. It was that I didn't like bumper sockets. So I took advantage of the LED's (hopefully) long life expectancy and hardwired them into the game. In this case I picked frosted red. These LEDs don't necessarily like being soldered on. I was quick with the soldering iron. Then I tested that each LED still lit up and I made sure that the lens hadn't come loose in its bayonet housing. I also added new bumper caps.
Hardwired LEDs ready for the jet bumpers.
LEDs and new bumper caps.
Cyclone had lots of switch groupings with common under playfield connectors. For example, the duck targets were a group of three with their own sub-wire harness and connector. This was great for servicing because much of the soldering could be done at the workbench. The duck targets were beat to hell, the decals were faded away and one target had a homemade mounting bracket. I replaced all the targets including new decals. The duck targets sub-wire harness had the WHT/YLW wire transposed with the WHT/ORG wire. Nevertheless, the main wire harness was correct and the markings on the underside of the playfield were correct.
New duck targets soldered to the sub-wire harness.
The cat targets and decals were in good shape. So I just cleaned them up with some Mean Green and Novus 2. I believe the original decals on these games were more accurate and more durable and worth saving whenever possible
The flipper return frames were peened down in typical fashion. I went with the "enhanced" Cliffy frames from Passion for Pinball. These frames were slightly larger and intended to prevent ball hop. The picture below shows an old frame over a Cliffy frame.
Enhanced Cliffy flipper return frame under an old frame.
My new favorite tool for graining ball guides.
No amount of cleaning was going to make the old star posts look good. I just replaced them all.
New star posts compared to old.
I would often add a layer of Mylar under a new set of playfield plastics. The idea was that any errant screw head or ball guide would have to wear through the Mylar before damaging the art on the plastics. Instead of adding patches of Mylar here and there, it was easy to just add Mylar to all the plastics all at once. I peeled the backing off a sheet of Mylar and taped it down to a table sticky-side up. Then I peeled the backing off each plastic and stuck it down on the Mylar. There was lots of trimming and I went through a lot of X-acto blades. I didn't Mylar any plastics that were significantly transparent. For example, I didn't Mylar the upper transparent plastic by the left side of the Ferris wheel.
Adding Mylar to the CPR plastics.
Years of bashing had bent the Spook House scoop back and up into the Spook House plastic. This seemed to be a common occurrence as I looked at pictures of other Cyclones. I had to reform the scoop to get the new plastic to sit flat on the surrounding posts. The CPR set came with an extra Spook House plastic which may be needed someday.
A before picture showing how the Spook House scoop had been bashed back such that the top edge was pushing up on (and wearing through) the old Spook House plastic.
There were four plastics that required riveting. I reused the old brackets and flasher domes. To remove the old rivets I alternately held the rivet against 1/8" and 5/64" drill bits mounted in a drill press. For new rivets I used the "Master Rivet Kit" along with a handheld rollover punch and a short length head die I got from pinrestore.com. I held the head die in my bench vice.
First up were the two plastics with the transparent deflectors. I often struggle with getting the right rivet. Total thickness of materials including the plastic, thin metal bracket and backing washer was about 0.147". The 7/32" rivet seemed a bit too long and some didn't tighten up as well as I would have liked. Yet the 3/16" rivet seemed a bit too short and some didn't tighten up as well as I would have liked. Both were hit and miss, but the 3/16" may have been the better choice. Total thickness of materials including the plastic, flasher dome and backing washer was about 0.220". For this I used the 1/4" rivet which worked perfectly.
Check out that T-shaped plastic that goes between the Ferris wheel and the top rollover lanes. That one was most always broke on any game with original plastics. I believe this plastic was always broke because of ball impacts via the metal ball deflector above the Ferris wheel entrance. I trimmed the plastic to have a bit of a gap between the deflector and the plastic.
Riveted playfield plastics.
Gap between the ball deflector and plastic.
The Freak Shows plastic was the subject of a Service Bulletin which I was not sure how to interpret because I wasn't sure of the plastic's original configuration. In any event, the arrangement of my old plastic appeared to have been modified and had three mini posts and a 2" ring. The problem was that the top mini post was unsupported and the ring warped the plastic. Not only was my old plastic warped, it looked like someone was using it to hold their soldering iron.
Old Freak Shows plastic.
I found some inspiration on the mini-playfield of my Pin*bot where the mini posts were used to support guide plastics. So instead of applying the side-stresses of a ring, I made a rigid plastic to span the three mini posts. I used PETG because I had a scrap at hand. But polycarbonate would have worked just as well. Here's my template. Note that the three posts were not in an exact line so the plastic was not an exact oval. You may need to make allowances for your own post spacing. The plastic virtually disappeared after the game was back together.
Homemade ball trap prevention plastic.
I acquired a flag set from the late Mark Clayton at Pinball Pal. Yeah, it's been a few years. I recall a bit of controversy with this. Mark quit selling these sets because people would screw up the installation and then bitch about it. I got one of the last sets with the understanding that I wouldn't be back to complain. Or at least that's how I remembered it.
Click thumbnail for larger image.
The instructions were excellent at least so far as applying the flag stickers to the springs. Some flags were duplicated. I started with those in case I messed up the first, but it was pretty easy. The instructions didn't say much at all about the springs themselves and that turned out to be the hard part.
First, the springs had no "springiness" as they came. The coils were too tight and stiff. They needed to be stretched out a bit. This was an extremely subtle process. Just a tiny bit of stretching was all that was needed to make the springs springy and allow the flags to wobble about as the game was played. As compared to my one original spring, the new springs were shorter. This created a clearance issues for the hearts flag over the Ferris wheel ramp. I simply stretched out that spring a bit more and made it taller.
Second, most of the springs were mounted over posts with some sort of 6-32 hardware. The spring mounting loops were too small and too close to the spring itself.
A spring mounting loop next to a 6-32 acorn nut. That wouldn't do.
I put a pair of finishing nails in my bench vice. One nail held the spring and the other prevented the spring from spinning around. That made it easier to apply the flag stickers.
A pair of nails hold the spring.
Next I used small needle nose pliers to open up the loop to fit 6-32 hardware. Then I put the spring back over a nail. I used my pliers to pull on the loop and unwind the spring until I had good clearance between the loop and the spring. Each mounting location was unique and required a different angle between the flag and the mounting loop. To change the angle I simply put the spring back on the nail and pulled a little more. This was something of a maddening process. Each flag was its own custom installation. I could do maybe three flags before it was time for a break and a new beer. I could see why this flag idea didn't survive to production. The assembly line people would have gone insane.
Using a nail and pliers to unwind a spring.
Back on the nail again for more adjusting.
My goal with these flags was to duplicate what was shown on the original game flyer. The Pinball Pal placement instructions were nearly spot-on except for the Canadian flag on the Spook House plastic. The flyer showed no Canadian flag so I left it off (sorry Canada). My original Spook House plastic had only a US flag. But I did find an old Canadian flag in the bottom of the cabinet. I believe most domestic production games had both US and Canadian flags. Export games may or may not have replaced the Canadian flag with French and/or German flags. The Pinball Pal kit included a pair of French flags, but no German flag. Note that my old US flag was riveted to Spook House plastic. However, the flyer shows the US flag at the right side of the Comet ramp roll under switch. Note that many of the flags had a "right-side-up". There was one right-side-up discrepancy between the placement instructions and the flyer.
Old flags. Looks like there were about 250 states in 1988. Note how the old plastic was warped and worn from the Spook House scoop.
Seven new flags.
Three more new flags.
Pictures of other Cyclones showed a metal post at the top of the one-way gate above the Ferris wheel. I believe someone blew out the post hole and simply replaced the post with a larger screw. I assume the post was to prevent a ball hang up. But I could not get a ball to hang. So I just polished the big screw and reused it.
Missing a metal post.
I like using nylon acorn nuts. But in this one location I used a rubber post cap. The post was under where the ball drops from the Comet ramp to the Cyclone ramp. The rubber post cap provided a bit of an impact cushion to the floor of the Cyclone ramp.
Rubber post cap.
I typically buy a part, promptly lose the sales receipt and then not carefully inspect or use the part for years. Such was the case with my Starship Fantasy reproduction Cyclone ramp. The width of the reproduction ramp around the entrance was about an 1/8" wider than the original ramp and did not fit the available space on my playfield. I did contact Starship Fantasy and eventually worked out an equitable refund arrangement.
Plan B: I had an NOS Cyclone ramp. There's a story behind this ramp which can be found at the bottom of my Random Thoughts & Pictures page. I had this ramp for sale for many years. Luckily no one bought it. Lesson: Never sell your parts hoard. The NOS ramp had a thin crust of filth that seemed to defy chemicals. I was reduced to Novus 2 and elbow grease and spent hours polishing my way through all the zigzags. As compared to the original ramp, the NOS ramp had no cracks or chips at the entrance and was less yellowed. On the negative side, the finish had rusted off the flap and there was a slight ripple defect along about an inch of the ramp's length.
I removed the old flap and used it as a template to make a new one. I drilled the holes before cutting out the part. I started with a 1/8" (rivet size) twist drill. Even this small twist drill wanted to grab the spring steel A firm hold on the work was needed. To enlarge the two screw holes I used a step bit which was much safer. I rough cut the part with shears and finished the shape on a strip sander.
New flap (left) copied from the old.
For riveting ramp flaps I used a piece of bar stock to make an extension for my head die.
NOS Cyclone ramp. Here's where the reproduction ramp was too wide to fit the availible space.
NOS Cyclone ramp ripple defect.
I didn't like the Cyclone Jackpot decal. It had not been carefully applied. And it was a bit too big for the area it was intended to cover. The edges were curled because they had nothing to stick to. I carefully removed the decal and scanned it. I did some touch-ups where the decal had been nicked and scratched. Then I printed it at 90% of its original size.
I didn't know anything about making vinyl decals. I printed the image on a sheet of "sticker paper" I got from the office supply store. The sticker paper had about the same texture as regular copy paper. So I added a layer of Mylar to protect the image and give it some gloss. The sticker paper was not impressively sticky. So I peeled away the backing and added my own layer of 3M 467MP transfer tape. I cut the combined layers to size and applied my new "decal" to the Cyclone ramp center plastic. In retrospect, I probably could have just used copy paper as the core of my decal.
New Jackpot decal.
New instruction and price cards.
Done with playfield. Click for larger image.
At some point a long time ago I acquired a NOS pair of speaker grills. Pinball Resource maybe? The existing grills were rough. Some previous person seems to have been obsessed with wiping down the speaker panel and grills. The speaker panel was attached to the backboard with top and bottom strips of what may have been transfer tape. The tape was long dead and the panel came right off. The grills were attached to the backboard by a small brad nail at each corner. These popped right out. The backboard had shallow recesses to accommodate the thickness of the grills.
A grill recess in front of the left speaker.
Before installing the new grills I scanned a grill. The scan could be used to make a painting stencil. The old grills could easily be repainted and reused.
New versus old speaker grill.
I used a small dab of clear silicone caulk at each former nail location to attach the new grills to the backboard. I let the caulk cure for a day before proceeding.
Installing a new grill.
To reattach the speaker panel to the backboard I used ½" strips of 3M 468MP transfer tape (which was thicker than the 3M 467MP). I peeled back an end of the backing for each strip and folded the backing over itself at a 90 degree angle such that the end formed a short "pull-tab" extending out from the work. In this way I was able to carefully align the speaker panel without exposing all the adhesive all at once. When I had the speaker panel properly positioned on the backboard I pulled away the tape backings without having to lift or shift the speaker panel.
½" strips of 3M 468MP transfer tape.
Done!
I took a chance on a $20 "untested" eBay display board. Two working alpha-numeric displays. No working numeric displays. Conspiracy? It would seem that the numerics are far more likely to go bad. If you're keeping score, I now had three boards and six working alpha-numerics, but only one working numeric. Still not enough parts to build a complete board. This particular board was from a Big Guns.
Still no luck.
01/23/22: Display repair. A friend gave me yet another display board with one missing alpha-numeric, one dead numeric, but with one working numeric! I decided to use this parts board to repair the board I got from Pinside a few years ago (see my 11/22/19 entry above). I used a vinyl display masking set from Marco, but the windows were about ¼" too narrow and needed to be trimmed. After more than 11 years I'm back to plasma!
Repaired display board about to replace the LED Rottendog board.
Repaired plasma display board.