Another TZ comes back to life

[Pajo]

After about 2 1/2 years my TZ has been returned to it's former glory!  Thanks to all the people who helped in the process with encouragement, advice and even donated parts.  I really enjoyed restoring my first pinball, have learnt heaps along the way and am really happy with the way it all turned out. 

I guess it went through all the usual processes which have been well covered elsewhere on this forum.  The pin cost me $3500 to buy but parts have added just over another $2,000.  The bigger ticket items were new legs, rails, lock down bar, coin door, complete plastics set and protectors, all new ribbon cables, cabinet decals, clock housing, Treasure Cove pf cleaning kit, and board repairs.  Naturally it got a full pf strip clean and rebuild with all new bulbs, rubbers, coil sleeves, springs, pop bumpers, ramp flaps, flippers etc.  I rebuilt pretty much anything that moved as well as a lot of stuff that didn't!  Of course I couldn't go past a few extra toys for it, so there's a new mini pf edge protector and low rise switches, sparkly gum balls with lighting, a piano, magnet to stop ball bounce on the bridge diverter and a few Cliffy protectors in strategic places.  I also repaired the dreaded trough sensor SW26.

A couple of other challenges were restoring and bluing the shooter gate flaps and recovering the black wooden side rails. 

Below are some before and after shots

[Pajo]

more shots

[Pajo]

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[Pajo]

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[Pajo]

The flame polishing effects can be seen well at the end of the ramp.

[Pajo]

The clock boards were completely rebuilt; particularly challenging was the connector between the boards as it was beyond salvaging and I couldn't find a replacement.  I tried hard wiring the two boards but the wires kept breaking at the board joint.  Fortunately I stumbled across the replacement connector parts at Great Plains Electrical when I was looking for a kit to rebuild the DMD high voltage section (http://www.greatplainselectronics.com/search.asp?pg=1&stext=twilight+zone&sprice=&stype=&scat= ).    

I was then left with a clock that worked fine, but only once the pin had warmed up.  That made it a bit of a challenge to troubleshoot but eventually I tracked the problem to a faulty opto isolator chip on the motor controller board thanks to a bit of help from an old post on rgp.  

I also replaced the clock lights with 'straw hat' led's which have a better light distribution than standard 'cone' led's and which generate less heat than the original bulbs.

[Pajo]

Some relevant links are below

I flame polished the plastic ramp after watching

.  The result was fantastic.

I polished the playfield with the Treasure Cove kit http://www.treasure-cove.net/PolishingKit.htm and was very happy with the result.

Cabinet and header decals at: http://aussiepinball.com/index.php?topic=4908.0

Mini pf planking at http://aussiepinball.com/index.php?topic=5251.msg76468#msg76468

I regrained my ball guides using the technique shown here: http://www.chucksarcade.com/restorations_cleaning_four.shtml

[Pinballer]

Brilliant restoration, you must be very happy with what you have achieved.

[ajlaird]

Very nice work, looking at the result it is hard to believe it is a first-time effort!

[Cursed]

Wow, great job.

I plan to buy a TZ hopefully in the next 6 months or so and i would love to rebuild it like this. Amazing job! I may ask for some help when the time comes. 

[FreePlay]

Wow those under play field Subways came up nice! Little surprised that you didn't just buy a Rottendog clock board but keeping it original is best. It looks really great!! Well done

[Pajo]

Thanks for the kind comments everyone.  It's kind of funny looking back on how much I've learnt.  When I started, I didn't know how to even raise the pf properly!! Then I didn't know how to remove it!  The only way I was able to work things out was with the help of this and other pinball forums.

Where possible I tried to keep original parts for the pin.  Often this was also the cheapest way to go if I excluded the value of my time.  With the clock boards and the SW26 trough sensor, the cost of replacing all the components was a fraction of buying new boards and a lot more satisfying.  The same went for fixing up the mini pf planking, it was cheaper and more enjoyable to repair it.  For me a lot of the pleasure has been the process of doing the renovation so I wasn't too worried about it taking a long time (apart from the nagging thought that despite all the photographs, I might have forgetten how it all went back together after being apart for such an age).

I've already got my next project sitting in the shed waiting for me to get done all the other things I neglected whilst working on my TZ.  It's a MM which needs a full renovation including a new pf (which I also have waiting).  Should be a breeze after the TZ!

[robm]

You've done really well and looks fantastic - as yo u have said, its great satisfaction learning and achieving this sort of stuff, when starting from a low base.

Stoked that my flame polishing vid on youtube was helpful!

Rob

[Pajo]

When I first read about flame polishing I thought there's no way I'm going to do that to my ramp, I'll just use novus.   After I tried novus I realised that it wasn't going to do the job.  Then I saw your video and thought 'I can do that'. So I bought a $15 butane torch on ebay and discovered flame polishing is really straight forward as well as fun to do... so thanks for the video Rob.

[Cursed]

TZ and MM are your first two pins? Holy cow! Look forward to seeing the resto on the MM.