This week kept us very busy at Endless Pinball.
We started the week off doing a partial restoration work on the Starship Troopers pinball that we repaired last week. We cleaned the playfield (polished and waxed it). Since the customer had 2 games (one at work and one at home) we went to his second location and did a partial restoration on a Data East Star Wars. We did some preventative maintenance by changing the batteries. The game was pretty clean, we gently polished the playfield with Novus #2 and waxed it. We went through and made sure all the switches worked and were adjusted properly, checked all the flashers and light bulbs (only 3 were burned out which we replaced), and checked all the solenoids to make sure they were working.
The next service call was a long day. A customer had a Terminator 2 and an Addams Family. The Terminator 2 had 2 coils that did not work (one was a broken wire that had to be soldered on, the second coil was bad and we replaced it.) The drop target also had a crack in it, we replaced that with a new one. The game had a bunch of GI lights that were out, it turned out to be a fuse that had blown. The game was very dirty – no service had been done to it in 5 yrs… We did a restoration to the game which involved changing out 20 bulbs, cleaning, polishing, and waxing the playfield, and changing out most of the rubbers on the playfield. Then we tested all the switches, solenoids, lights, and flashers. The game is now functioning 100%. We finished off by installing 3 new shiny balls in the game.
The Addams Family also had issues, the thing hand did not work, it turned out that the Up opto was dirty. We cleaned the opto and the hand worked again. The outhole coil / assembly was sticking, we had to disassemble that and clean it – its working now. Again, a bunch of GI lights were out, it turned out to be a blown fuse – easy fix. This game was also pretty dirty, no maintenance had been done for 5 yrs. We did a restoration to the game which involved changing out 10 bulbs, cleaning, polishing, and waxing the playfield, and changing out most of the rubbers on the playfield. On Addams Family there is a clear tunnel that brings the ball from the Vault or the Thing Hand into the swamp and kick it back out and UP on the top of the playfield, this tunnel was black, we took that out, novus polished it and cleaned it up. Its important to do this to any tunnel, because if you don’t clean it, the ball picks up all that dirt as it moves and travels and brings it back up onto the cleaned playfield – making the clean playfield dirty very quickly. Then we tested all the switches, solenoids, lights, and flashers. The game is now functioning 100%. We finished off by installing 3 new shiny balls in the game. And as preventative maintenance we changed batteries in both games.
Our last service call for the week brought us out to Orange County. It was a Tales of the Arabian Nights. The customer said the right flipper wasn’t working. It turned out to be a very loose flipper bushing, the bushing wasn’t tight against the playfield, so the flipper was getting mis-aligned causing way too much friction and drag… We took the assembly apart, tightened up the bushing and the flipper is fine. While there and doing my usual test (switches, lights, solenoids, etc) I noticed the vanishing magnet and right post solenoid were dead. Turns out a fuse had blown, replacing the fuse fixed those two issues. We ended the day by installing new batteries and pinballs in the game and a light polishing of the playfield with Novus #2.