John, the level of effort you go to is amazing.

What I cant work out, is how you remember where every nut and bolt goes.
How long have you been refurbishing machines for ? you make it look easy.Again, like Nino in Australia with his work, very talented. 

Thanks!

I think it goes back to the way I was raised. My father takes longer to do most jobs than anyone else I know. But, if he did the work, you know it's solid and even if it looks the same as a job that took 1/4 the time today, it will hold up. It was hard to understand that growing up (and it still baffles my wife sometimes), but now I take a lot of pride in it.

He and I raced radio control cars, both 1/10th scale electric on carpet, asphalt and dirt, and 1/4 scale on asphalt, for years. The process of building the car from the ground up, maintaining it, improving it etc was a great way to learn mechanics. When we stopped, mainly due to lack of a place to race them locally, I wanted another project. I bought a project car, but Dad and I never found time to work on it enough to keep it moving and keep it interesting. Around that time, I was dating the woman who is now my wife, and we'd visit a local pizza parlor that had a Rollergames. I loved the game, got hooked at first because I watched the show on television growing up, and had to have my own pinball.

I bought my first game, a Rollergames, back in 2001, and it was incredibly rough. And I continued to buy games from the same seller, until he stopped selling games. I learned a lot that way.

Regarding what goes where, I take a lot of pictures, and also, a lot of stuff is not game specific - while this game has a pile of assemblies, a number of them are 'common' from game to game - so a flipper assy is a flipper assy whether it's for a TZ, Addams, Creature etc. The coil value may differ, the plunger/link/return spring and coil stop may vary, but they go in the same places etc. With my first pin, I was afraid to take both flippers apart at the same time, so I did one flipper, and once I was sure it worked, I moved to the next. When I rerubbered it, I took one slingshot plastic off, loosened a wireform, replaced that ring, reassembled, moved to the next one etc.

Now, I do everything but playfield touchup work, as that's out of my league. At least it is today. I do all my own PCB repair too. I was dangerous with a soldering iron when I started :)

My wife's not so hot on the pins anymore, I think I kinda burned her out. But, every now and then, I can talk her into playing them.

Once the kids (1 and 3) get hooked, I'll have a better chance at getting her hooked again, too.