The Aussie Pinball Arcade
Aussie Pinball Forums => Restorations => Topic started by: Mr Pinbologist on August 21, 2012, 11:13:09 PM
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Hi guys, I thought id start a thread on one of two machines I’m repairing/restoring at the moment.. NOT one of my own unfortunately, but for a client of mine. A Wms Bride of Pinbot, I’ve been working on this for a few weeks on and off now, in between other jobs/ travelling away for band gigs etc. Its starting to come together now so I thought I’d share what I’ve done to it so far. I’m calling ths one a “tidy up” as i basically just have to get it working and then restore the playfield.. only minor touch-ups will be done on the cabinet.
He bought this off ebay not working (or rather his wife did!!) for $1000 a couple of months ago, and contacted me to come and repair it for him at his home. I went out for a look see, only to find a non booting MPU, cracked display glass, and to top it off broken glass all through the playfield where the backglass had been smashed while the pf glass was out ^&^
Well after seeing that lot I knew this wouldn’t be a quick fix. They had said to me it lit up and made strange sounds and nothing else happened. They demonstrated this to me, the game came on with a few lights, a stuck on digit in one of the displays and then the sound board went Crack and smoke came out near the power amp ic. This was enough for me to say “bring it to my workshop” (which they gladly did) as there was no way I was going to try to fix this in their home.
Anyway a few pics of the game after it was delivered to me. Overall it wasn’t in too bad condition cosmetically, a few scuff marks on the cab/backbox and some of the black flaking off the front of the backbox which I will repair later.
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The playfield didn’t look too bad initially, just looked to have some mylar bubbling/lifting issues around the circle of inserts between the slings, (like most of this title I have seen).
Further investigation showed a lot of ball swirl around the posts etc in areas uncovered by mylar, some minor wear in the ball return lanes where the ball drops from the wire ramps, and very dirty. I discovered later on when I removed the mylar there was ball swirl underneath the mylar, so this was put on at some stage to prevent further wear, but it was a little too late as I found out the hard way.. (more on that later)….
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One more pf pic.. this is area between the slings that had had mylar applied straight over worn inserts. ^&^ ^&^
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My first job to do was to make the machine actually work, which naturally was the first thing I started on when the game was delivered to me. First thing I did was to check all of the voltages coming out of the power driver board, all seemed to be in order but I replaced a few bridges and caps (as is usually recommended for these boards) just for good measure. It has had a few connector hacks here which will be fixed later on as the goal at the time I did this was just to make the game run.
In these pics, the MPU has been replaced with a Rotten Dog MPU, bought from MAD Amusements, as the original wouldn’t boot, it was riddled with corrosion and I wasn’t convinced that it’d be reliable even if I HAD been able to repair it. Luckily for me I was able to use the original MPU chip and eprom, the sticker was missing from the eprom’s window, lucky it hadn’t been exposed to any sunlight.
The original display was dead too, cracked glass and I later found out blown regulator circuit feeding too many volts into it. Also I discovered that someone had plugged the ribbon data cable from the MPU to the display upside down on the MPU board!! I only realised this when I was replacing the MPU board. I’m wondering if this contributed to the destruction of the display??
As for the display, this was also replaced with a Rotten Dog LED display also bought from MAD Amusements.
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Here’s the new display fitted (1st pic)
And finally the game up and running #*#
I repaired the sound board too while I was working on boards, replaced a fried cap in the power amp circuit, as well as the power amp ic as well.
The game was playable at this point, but had a few switch problems that have to be sorted.
Next job to do was to start on the playfield stripdown…
As I said before I’ve been working on this for nearly a month now, playfield is actually finished, (touched up/repainted where needed and remylared) and being reassembled. will add some more later on when I have more time…
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I love this game, thanks for sharing.
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Some more progress pics;
Some before and after shots of removing some of the ground in dirt with Magic Eraser and isopropyl alcohol.
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More pics, 3rd pic; this was after the mylar removal… YIKES!! !!! There was NOTHING I could do to avoid this, and was development I didn’t count on. The mylar looked like shit and HAD to come off, but in doing so created more work than I had bargained for. I took ALL the usual precautions and this happened … followed by some swearing. ^.^ ^.^
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There was nothing else for it but to repaint this area completely. But first I had to remove and relevel some of the inserts, as some of them were raised, plus I had to sand the old text and clearcoat off so I could redo the text later.
Then after sanding this area with 800 grit wet&dry sandpaper and Windex, I started masking off to paint the individual colours one at a time. I’m using clear contact for the masking here, same as I have done on most of my restores in the past. First colour done was the white.
In the last pic I’m using a compass and scalpel to cut the circular sections. I double sided taped a piece of plastic the the centre insert for the compass point to dig into rather than the insert.
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More pics; cutting the contact ready to respray the light blue.
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Spraying the light grey… then the dark blue was hand painted in. After that had dried the whole lot was sanded with some 1200 grit wet&dry sandpaper and Windex, to level it out a bit and to take the sharp edge off the paint. Then I redid the black key lines/circles.
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More of the light blue being redone, the colour I used wasn’t an exact match… close but not exact so most of it was redone.
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More light blue being done.. still a bit of work to be done when these pics were taken. :D
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Next job to be done was the missing text from the inserts. I used waterslide laser printer decals for this, created from scans taken earlier. I placed a work lamp under the pf for the pic to show the text better.
The following day I mylared the whole pf. This is where I’m up to at this point in time as of writing this.
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looks great and good recovery. I need to clean up a pf with magic eraser. Is it possible to describe in detail how this process works. I have had a test run on another old pf and wore down to the undercoat quite quickly. Also a picture or brand of magic eraser you use would be helpful. I think I haven't grasped the concept yet. Maybe I'm rubbing too hard or too long or something???
thanks
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Very nice Mitch !
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Looking good ^^^
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Time for a BIG update;
Been pretty busy with this game on and off for the last few weeks, in between other jobs.
Some reassembly pics; after the mylar was done, the posts were all cleaned and refitted after the mylar had been cut where they bolt down, otherwise the mylar would lift and bubble up around the posts, I’ve covered this in other resto threads so I wont go into a lot of detail here.
In these pics, I’m disassembling the head mechanism for cleaning and checking. I checked all of the switches thoroughly, resoldered the lamp sockets and connectors etc and replaced the lamps. The three rollers that the head rotates on (on the right in the 3rd pic) were all seized, gummed up with grease so they were taken off and cleaned and degreased before being reassembled with a couple of drops of 3 in 1 oil so the would spin nicely.
Last pic showing some of the parts starting to go back on, bumper top side parts all refitted, plus rubbers and posts etc in that area.
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More pics; more parts going back on as they are cleaned and/or replaced as needed
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ALL of the metal bumper links were broken so they were replaced along with the fibre parts as well.
Plus more reassembly pics; the left ramp had a piece broken out of it, so a new one was ordered from RTBB. While I waited for that to arrive I did some repair/reassembly underneath the p/f , finished off the bumpers, removed, dismantled and cleaned all the sling and kicker mechs etc.
All of the gates, spinner bracket, screws and wire guides etc were polished in the tumbler before refitting.
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Also I replaced a couple of connectors on the coin door interface board, using crimp connectors I pissed the old IDC connectors off as they were causing some issues with the start button and the tilt switches.
I also had to replace some connectors on the power driver board in the backbox, I don’t have any pics as yet, I might add some later on to this post..
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Another job I did was to clean and polish the legs, as they were just a bit rusty!!
Some Ranex and steel wool made short work of this, just dipping the steel wool into some Ranex and a bit of scrubbing took the rust off nicely! The insides at the bottom where the levellers screw in, I let these soak for a while the I attacked them with steel wool, and a small wire wheel in my drill for the more stubborn bits, the came up pretty good! After this a polish with some Autosol and they looked pretty sweet!
New leg levellers will go on when they go back on the game, the old ones were launched into the nearest bin. :D
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And today the left ramp I was waiting on arrived from RTBB
So this afternoon I fitted the new decal supplied with the ramp, fitted the switches and gates etc and installed it onto the playfield.
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The playfield reassembly is now complete #*# And tonight I got to play a few games, and after a few switch adjustments it plays pretty sweet. I waxed the mylar before I reassembled everything so it plays nice and fast… I even managed to get into the billionaires club.. so the owner has a few high scores to beat when he get is back.. :lol
All that’s left to do, is to polish the leg bolts, regrain the lockdown bar and to make some score cards, and to play test it a bit more. :D
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Looking great as always after a bit of work!
What settings did you have it on for the making of the high scores? I played one of these at the Sydney pinball expo and couldn't lose the ball, and racked up so many extra balls that it didn't matter when I eventually did. But it was probably set to easy.
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Looking great as always after a bit of work!
What settings did you have it on for the making of the high scores? I played one of these at the Sydney pinball expo and couldn't lose the ball, and racked up so many extra balls that it didn't matter when I eventually did. But it was probably set to easy.
not too sure, factory settings i guess !@#
i did set it to 5 balls though after fitting the new MPU and batteries, and made sure specs was set to 'replays' not too sure about the rest of settings as i didnt touch much else !@#
A mate of mine has this title, and he has his set to extra ball on specs, which i think makes the game last too long..especially when i'm playing against him :lol
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Looks great mate. Nice to see all that time and effort paying off in big way.
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Yep looks great. I said it before, I love this game! It's definatly on my want list and it's terriffic to see such an nice example. Great job. @@*
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What a huge effort ^^^ I bet you will be pleased to finish this one
well done Howzat
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Outstanding job Mitch ! It is always a pleasure to play a machine that has been worked on in great detail.
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Thanks for the positive words guys
As mentioned previously I had to replace a few connectors, I’ll add the pics now :D
J121 had been hacked at some stage, and when I was done doing the power driver board upgrades I replaced the J121 connector.
Also I replaced a couple of the switch connectors to the MPU board as I had tracked down some intermittent switch issues to these connectors, so once again I pissed of the IDC type connectors in favour of crimp connectors. All other connector seemed fine so they were left alone.
Another thing that was necessary was to repair the disappearing post that holds the ball(s) on the left wire ramp. The coil mounting bracket which is also the guide for the top of the post itself was totally worn out where the post goes through. And here is a pic of how I decided to repair it (3rd pic). I simply cut the worn top section of the bracket off completely, and fabricated a new piece that screws into the playfield. The post now works properly with no side to side movement of the post itself, and works much better than it did before! The new metal piece is thicker metal than the original bracket material so should last longer.
All of this was done over a week ago, but I neglected to get some pics when I actually did the work, hence why I’m adding them now #@#
And this afternoon I printed up some new instruction/pricing cards, and added mylar over them for added protection.
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Yesterday afternoon I polished the leg bolt heads and bolted the legs on. Notice I have made some cab protectors from black protective adhesive felt, bought from Bunnings.. works a treat and hides the cab damage!
I spent the last couple of evenings play testing and fine tuning as needed, everything now works as it should.
The game is now complete and ready to go back to its owner #*#
EDIT; I went to look at three machines this afternoon for Port Pacific Resort in Port Macquarie that they want repaired, an Addams Family, Jurassic Park... and ANOTHER Bride of Pinbot!!!! the JP and TAF had some pretty major issues so both will be brought to me for repair/overhauls... so it looks like i'll be working on another BOP soon.. #@#
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Nice to see another one come off the workbench Mitch. Great job as usual.
One thing i think Pinfest is going to do is send more work your way as more old, abused machines start coming out of the woodwork to get the full treatment. You guys are a limited and valued commodity.
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Nice to see another one come off the workbench Mitch. Great job as usual.
One thing i think Pinfest is going to do is send more work your way as more old, abused machines start coming out of the woodwork to get the full treatment. You guys are a limited and valued commodity.
Cheers Andy ^^^ hoping to be able to take one of my own games to the next Pinfest, to show people what i do *%* but if you end up taking your two games i sold you next time, would be good to have several there that i worked on... the more the merrier :D
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looks good this is 1 machine i want..... *%* *%* *%*
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Great job, looks great ^^^
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That game turned out great Mitch ^^^ ^^^