Here is yet another of my early restores, my 1980 Gtb Buck Rogers that I did about six years ago.
Purchased in 1994 not working for $100, along with a Charlies Angels (and heaps of System 1 parts) as part of the deal from Christmas Cove caravan park in Laurieton. The Charlies Angels was too far gone (missing parts, shot backglass from being left out in the rain!), so it was parted out, and the cabinet used for my homemade VORTEX pin. I’m kind of sorry I did that now as it had a VERY nice playfield, which I raided parts from and launched it!
Anyway, as for the Buck Rogers, I knew this game well as I used to play this exact same game at the Pinball Parlor in Port Macquarie where I grew up (they bought it from the Pinball Parlor). This game had the same old story, “it lights up but wont work”. It had a dead CPU board, caused by battery acid. The backglass had only minor flaking and the playfield too had only very minor wear, having been Mylar covered from new. The only bad wear spots were near the kickout hole and just above the right bumper.
The cabinet was still in pretty good condition, both structurally and cosmetically, just a few wear marks around the flipper buttons, and a few scratches and dings. Most people would’ve probably been happy to leave it as it was, but not me… being the fussy bastard I am
Although I did leave it like this for about nine years before finally deciding to do a ground up restore.
The pics below are of how the game looked before I did any resto work. Once again sorry for the poor quality pics.. crap camera I had at the time I started restoring it. All of the later or“after” pics were taken when I got my digital camera.