Bally Corvette Reconditioning

[Strangeways]

A sleeper title that I thought I'd start "in between" some SS and EM restorations. no real reason for starting this game other than I really wanted to play a fully reconditioned game. This machine will be prepared for sale, but does not have an owner as yet !

Condition Report

Playfield - 9/10 - Looks very good - FILTHY with limited wear around the outhole. Very happy with it. No broken plastics, but the LT-5 ramp will be replaced as it is damaged.

Cabinet - 9/10 - Very nice except a small dint in the right siderail and some minor scuff marks.

Electronics - 9/10 - All good. Boards are all in VERY good condition with NO hacks.

The Game is in working order, and it is complete. It could meet eBay standards quite easily 

"Before" pictures














This is a classic. An oversized rubber under the slingshot plastic has been wrapped around the post 





Some general filth around the filthy pop bumpers !





One smashed ramp ! Luckily I had reserved one of the last populated Pinball Inc / RTBB Ramps.





FULLY stripped playfield. All posts and pop bumpers removed. First pass is a quick clean with Nifti and Novus 2.





Playfield has been polished and waxed. The metal hardware is regrained and the posts are polished.











My absolute "pet hate" - Pop Bumpers that are not replaced. I cannot believe these cheap parts are nearly ALWAYS left on "reconditioned" or "shopped" pinball machines. Simply lazy to not replace them. I'll leave the first post on this restoration with a photo of the old crappy pop bumper assembly with a BRAND NEW pop bumper assembly next to it. I just cannot believe that this shortcut is so common these days !





 

[RottyGuy]

Very good game Corvette. I had one of these in the past and i enjoyed. Love the drag strip feature.

[goodolddays]

Looks like this one won't need much TLC Nino .
Certainly agree re replacing Pop Bumpers .
Its inexpensive, not hard to do and makes a huge improvement to the look of the machine .
Also well worth taking the time to rebuild them to improve performance.
I consider this step mandatory on any game being overhauled/restored.

[Cursed]

Looking good Nino, Great game and the best car themed pin by far i believe. Sorry Getaway fans!

Love watching your restores and i am sure this will find a happy owner in no time! 

[Mr Pinbologist]

Lookin good so far Nino 

Gotta love the ingenuity of some people, ie the sling rubber wrapped around the post.. CLASSIC  i've never come across THAT before 

Best one i've seen has been elastic hair bands replacing the sling rubber(s).. was done to my Stellar Wars when i got it 

[v8racefan]

Great work Nino will be watching this with interest. The drag strip can be a pain to get right  still got problems with one of my cars not moving on the dragstrip!

[ktm450]

Slingshot rubber is a pisser, gotta love what some of the operators came up with to keep the money coming 

[Strangeways]

The mechs all need to be rebuilt. Broken parts and coil sleeves all need to be replaced. You can a lot about the history of the game when doing this. Sometimes the pop bumper yokes look ok, but you won't know unless you disassemble properly. All these mechs are rebuilt ;





All mechs rebuilt. Cleaned and then tumbled. Ne sleeves installed





The engine and ramp assembly are next. I've never seen a "shopped" game with this working 100%, and I've never seen this assembly have all it's coil sleeves replaced. For some reason, it is overlooked - probably because it is a time consuming process.





Fully rebuilt





Installed in the playfield - ready for testing.





Playfield re assembly is coming along nicely. I've decided to use purple Cliffy posts. I've also installed a Cliffy protector - this game didn't need one, but they look great. LEDs are tested at this stage to ensure they are the right color.








POP Bumpers - All the plastic parts replaced, so they "pop". Not replacing them is the first sign of a shortcut.











Next update will be the LT-5 Ramp rebuild - which is one of the most complicated ramps to replace.

[el_timbo86]

Nice work Nino,

I just finished a Corvette at work myself and it was probably the most grueling rebuild to date for us.
The game play of this game is incredible but relies heavily on everything working perfectly (thanks ddstoys for his sweet tech work).

Keep up the good work.

Tim

[Caveoftreasures]

Hey, lets organise a Pinball Build Off. lol
We need 2 x pinball games the same, we give one to Nino, one to El Timbo, and give u guys the same amount of time, then after the machines are fully finished, we can vote on the winning machine (like biker build off TV show).

I ofcourse can donate 2 x machines for a Free Restoration.   

Ok, I will be serious now, great work, its looking excellent. Playfield shine is Terrific. Never seen one of these ever cleaned up properly.
Fully working, it will be a winner.

[spacejam0]

QUOTE

A sleeper title that I thought I'd start "in between" some SS and EM restorations. no real reason for starting this game other than I really wanted to play a fully reconditioned game. This machine will be prepared for sale, but does not have an owner as yet !

Sound's like your enjoying the new career Nino. Great gig if you can get it...restore a machine (which is a passion not a chore) play it for a while (because it's fun and because you can) then move it on to some lucky buyer and move on to the next one.
Living the dream now well done.

[ddstoys]

CORVETTE SUCK......   I seriously cringe whenever I'm asked to work on one.   Looking good so far niño just hope the gremlins stay away from this one.

[Strangeways]

Thanks for the kind words. I consider myself very lucky that I get up every morning and work on something I love. I'm sure Tim feels the same way. We are both very fortunate 

Although Tim and I are "full timers" there are many very good restorers on this site that are as good, but have not taken the step to full time. The key to pinball restoration is that you have to love what you are doing, and restore every game as if it is your own. Funnily enough, I have not done a "keeper game" for 6-7 years !

The Corvette pinball in an engineering marvel. Right up there with ST TNG. Very difficult to have everything working 100% - and strangely enough, I cannot recall playing a perfectly working game. So I'm keen to play this game when done !

[johnwartjr]

Corvette is a great game. If you have a spare set of Sys11 drop targets, I suggest putting the drop targets back in the game.

I have a frankenproto Corvette pin - a NOS wired prototype Corvette playfield dropped in a production corvette cabinet from a partout. I pulled the playfield out of the rafters of a corvette speed shop in Bowling Green, KY USA - Bowling Green is where Chevrolet builds the Corvette.

George Gomez and team took prototype Corvette pins to the Corvette Museum in Bowling Green back when the museum opened.

The guy I got the playfield from bought a game, and bought a spare wired playfield for parts. When he sold the game to someone, the person didn't want the spare playfield. So, he put it on eBay.

The prototype Corvette playfields have some neat differences. George filled me in on most of them. The yellow inserts with the cars are blue with a neat overlay on them. A few protos had a 4 speed shifter assy on the side of the cabinet. I'm working on retrofitting this to my Corvette.

[Strangeways]

Corvette is a great game. If you have a spare set of Sys11 drop targets, I suggest putting the drop targets back in the game.

I have a frankenproto Corvette pin - a NOS wired prototype Corvette playfield dropped in a production corvette cabinet from a partout. I pulled the playfield out of the rafters of a corvette speed shop in Bowling Green, KY USA - Bowling Green is where Chevrolet builds the Corvette.

George Gomez and team took prototype Corvette pins to the Corvette Museum in Bowling Green back when the museum opened.

The guy I got the playfield from bought a game, and bought a spare wired playfield for parts. When he sold the game to someone, the person didn't want the spare playfield. So, he put it on eBay.

The prototype Corvette playfields have some neat differences. George filled me in on most of them. The yellow inserts with the cars are blue with a neat overlay on them. A few protos had a 4 speed shifter assy on the side of the cabinet. I'm working on retrofitting this to my Corvette.

There's not much info out there about the prototype, although I can see that the game is so cluttered that it should have been a wide body game.


Update


The Pinball Inc ramp arrived and it is a ripper of a ramp. Fully populated except for the gates, coil and other items that need to be moved from the old ramp. There's more "going on" with this ramp than meets the eye. Considering the main "toy" is part of the ramp, it is an engineering marvel. Really well designed. Of course there is a bit of work with installing the ramp, but the good news is that it fits perfectly and looks great !





The front door and ugly carriage bolts are taken care of by a repaint. There's not much that can be done unless a new front decal is installed, but I like to paint the bolts and clear them. The front door and frame are removed, cleaned and repainted to the original look. This door was a semi gloss instead of the flat black of the previous doors. Still looks a lot better !





There was a previous repair done to the headbox which I didn't like. The back panel was removed for some reason and a dodgy repair done. I was curious to know "why" so I removed the back panel to see for myself. It looks like a section was pushed back as it broke the ground braid. I ended up removing the back panel completely and refitting it correctly. Took a while, but it is 100% now.





I'll have to attend to this - the only blemish on the cabinet





Here's the repaired headbox. A fresh coat of paint on the inside and also the outside








All the boards have been checked and repaired. They are all 100%.





All the cleaned head hardware is re assembled.





Back to the playfield !