Fixing pinball machines

[K6JEK]

A friend asked me to work on his '60's pinball machine.  It blows fuses.  I haven't said yes yet.

Have any of you ever worked on one of these?  Any advice?

Thanks,

Jon

[WA3VJB]

I think I can hook you up.

PM sent

[WBear2GCR]

wires, switches, relays, fuses, old style power supply... fun!

             _-_-

[W3SLK]

Don't forget solenoids! 

[Ed W1XAW]

I'm not sure what his call is but boat anchor collector Mike Knudson in Bath, Maine seems to know a bit about pinball machines.  Myabe you could look up his call and contact him.  Ed

[AB3L]

I didn't know this was down the road from me till there was a mention of a fund raiser there last week. The headquarters for pin ball wizzards. Maybe they can help with parts or info.

http://www.papa.org/index.php

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

I've tinkered on a few of them over the years, pretty straightforward and simpler than they look. Check the fuse issue as you would with an old radio - power supply forward. And as Mike(y) mentioned, solenoids are a known problem area. If the PS section works fine with the rest disconnected, check for a frozen or shorted solenoid, switch, etc.

Restoration can get into the thousands, so hopefully the machine is clean overall and just needs some simple work.

[K6JEK]

I have Nags working now.  There are some great resources on the web. 

For repair advice:  http://www.pinrepair.com/em/index1.htm#lub

For parts:
 
http://www.pbresource.com/
http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=home
http://shayarcadegroup.com/index.html

And others.

Getting this old pinball machine going has been a whole lot of fun even if I'm really quite a lousy player.

[w3jn]

So, what was wrong with it?

[K6JEK]

So, what was wrong with it?

Old electro-mechanical pinball machines are full of stepper switches and other solenoid or motor driven switches and, of course, dozens of relays.  On this one all of the steppers were frozen with hardened grease, one relay coil was open, several relay contacts no longer made or broke when they should.  The need to bend relay contact leaves is so common there is a special tool for it.  All contacts on everything, relays, steppers and wiring harness connectors  required cleaning, of course.  I've replaced at least a score of light bulbs.  All sockets had to be cleaned.  There's a special tool for that too.  Incidentally, the wiring harness is a thing of beauty -- all those cloth covered wires beautifully laced.

The hardest part, however, was the horse mechanism.  On this game little physical horses move down a track in the back box when the appropriate bumper or roll over switch is hit.  The mechanism, believe it or not, is chains on sprockets with a slip drive and a brake.  Fiber washers must slip against little aluminum discs when the brake is on and not slip when the brake is released. The whole thing was frozen with hardened grease.  Once cleaned, they all slipped all the time.  Small amounts of very sticky grease and some other little shims and things got it all going again.

Two plays for a quarter and a free play if your horse wins.

[W3SLK]

Jon said:

The hardest part, however, was the horse mechanism.  On this game little physical horses move down a track in the back box when the appropriate bumper or roll over switch is hit.  The mechanism, believe it or not, is chains on sprockets with a slip drive and a brake.  Fiber washers must slip against little aluminum discs when the brake is on and not slip when the brake is released. The whole thing was frozen with hardened grease.  Once cleaned, they all slipped all the time.  Small amounts of very sticky grease and some other little shims and things got it all going again.

I remember that game. Not a whole lot to it. If memory serves me it was a Williams machine. I would love to find an old Gottlieb game that had to do with cards. It was a very difficult game to beat. Most of the time you would get another try was a spot!

[K6JEK]

I remember that game. Not a whole lot to it. If memory serves me it was a Williams machine. I would love to find an old Gottlieb game that had to do with cards. It was a very difficult game to beat. Most of the time you would get another try was a spot!

This one, perhaps?

http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?gid=2288