Most dodgy operator mods /repairs youve seen?

[TUF-427]

Interesting topic I think what are some of the more dodgy repairs you have seen on your machines? worst Imho are the ones made to rip off the player and make the operator more money..

couple of pics Ive come across on my couple of machines alone!

F14 Return guide pushed level to make ball outlane easier and a couple of tekscrews for good measure, dont want it back in the shooter lane for another go!

Firepower What Ballsave?

[Homepin]

"SEEN" - I used to DO them 

Spare a thought for the poor tech (in the olden days) - sliding around a greasy chip shop floor, being swarmed by kids the second you slide the glass off - all trying to steal the ball and generally be a pain in the arse.

I used to do the absolute minimum to get the machine fuctioning then (if it was bad enough) schedule it for a swap so major things could be attended to in the workshop.

Yup - I'll put my hand up as guilty to many many dodgy patchups......

[Pinprick]

"Dirty pool old man!"
"I don't like it!"

(With apologies to Gomez Addams)

[TUF-427]

"SEEN" - I used to DO them 

Spare a thought for the poor tech (in the olden days) - sliding around a greasy chip shop floor, being swarmed by kids the second you slide the glass off - all trying to steal the ball and generally be a pain in the arse.

I used to do the absolute minimum to get the machine fuctioning then (if it was bad enough) schedule it for a swap so major things could be attended to in the workshop.

Yup - I'll put my hand up as guilty to many many dodgy patchups......

Brave admission I recon,Please Dont get me wrong not trying to throw mud here,
I guess we all know the difference between and understand the reasoning behind keeping the machines running to make money,
but some of the things done out there are purely to rip off the player,
that ball deflector in on the FP playfield would of taken some time and fabracation to do!

Peter..

[Pinprick]

Is this what you mean?
*note the shape of the eye on the BG 

[pinnies4me]

Once had a Melbourne dealer tell me that a shaker motor was working on a game. When we opened up the motor at home the brushes were non-existent. Not sure what black magic/dodgy repair had that motor working for him, but must have been true because he confirmed it with his tech by phone while I was there, right in front of me!  

At the time I chucked to myself at the dodgy used-car tactic, not concerned as the parts were there and we'd sort it soon enough.

[Caveoftreasures]

the most dodgy repair/pinball machine sale i ever heard of was the 2 mentioned below >

1. a KISS pinball sold to a bloke from ebay. add said boards need some work. (machine arrived with all boards completely rooted, and the boards werent even for that machine). Buyer ripped off bad.

2. the 2nd most bodgy pin repair ever, was the idiot who redecalled a fishtales for me and placed the new decals directly over the old decals with 500 big bubbles showing, and then asked me for double the $ cause he had a hard time making the new decals stick/take to the cabinet. the same bodgy/dodgy seller sold a Sega Lost World/JP 1997 pinball with half the playfield mechanicals missing and said it didnt need it/all would still work fine. that bloke is still in business and is a scumbag from willowbank QLD.

there is dodgy/bodgy, and there is just downright dishonest. lucky our industry these days is 95 percent fine. word travels at lightspeed if anyone see's a dodgy pin seller/repairer these days which is great for the hobby/industry thankfully.  

[Strangeways]

Rubber bands tied together to replace the 5 inch rubber on a WMS Flash.
Wood screws used to fix a coil stop in a Bally KISS
A nail soldered on to the casing of a fuse on a Bally Paragon
A piece of plastic glued on to a broken plastic bat on a GTB EM (I can't recall the title)
A Separate arcade style power supply mounted in the lower cabinet of a DMD (can't recall the title) supplying +5 Volts and hacked into the wiring loom.

That was years ago !

But what REALLY is dodgy these days are the amount of route pins that are filthy and not serviced. VERY rare to find a fully working machine. Operators don't care anymore - in the old days, they did everything they could to keep the game going, these days, they do absolutely nothing.

[pinsanity]

2. the 2nd most bodgy pin repair ever, was the idiot who redecalled a fishtales for me and placed the new decals directly over the old decals with 500 big bubbles showing, and then asked me for double the $ cause he had a hard time making the new decals stick/take to the cabinet.

Having done quite a few cabinet re-decals this is a classic. 

There was an IJ I saw last year on ebay US where the owner had applied new decals straight over the top of the old ones - he also didn't bother to take the cabinet bolts off and went straight over the top of them, so there were these rounded nubs pushing up under the new artwork on both sides of the cabinet.

[4_amusement_only]

^^ Lol what a knob jockey!

[RatBag]

Im in the process of restoring a Dr Dude ,so I stripped the playfield today and found this,would of taken some effort to punch that in there

[Pinprick]

Im in the process of restoring a Dr Dude  

"Dirty dudes, done dirt cheap . . ."

[Caveoftreasures]

I mentioned in a previous post that a dodgy operator redecalled a pinball machine for me, and did a bad job on my fishtales.
The operator was from Willowbank (not willowvale), I mis-spelt the suburb. Not to be confused with my good mate Martyn who does the best re-decalling of any machine, anywhere, anytime.

sorry for the confusion. My mate Martyn WASNT the bodgy operator, it was someone different entirely from Willowbank !

[beaky]

There is a tech somewhere in brisbane that when he comes across a wpc 95 with a reset issue replaces the bridge, large caps and the voltage regulator. but he replaces the fixed 5 volt reg with a adjustable reg.
to do this he cuts tracks and drills holes in the pcb to accommodate the diferent pin configuration and trimpot and resistor for the reg. 

He does this because the machine still resets after he changes the large caps and bridge. I have said it a million times, just replace another 2 100uf 10 volt caps and it will work fine for another 10 years.

I have seen this on 3 boards and they have all come from the same seller.

[Mr Pinbologist]

I just found this on a Bally Mr&mrs Pacman i'm repairing for a client. he bought this off eGay several months ago, and i dont know at what stage this was done

The black and white wires have been cut from the service outlet and wired to the ballast and starter for the backglass fluorescent tube  
Notice its not even insulated, this is how i found it   Looks like the ballast and starter arent original either   not sure as i havent worked on one of these before..

Being wired like this meant that the bg lighting was on ALL THE TIME.. even when the power switch was off  

I have just finished correcting this mess..