At Nino's request, I will post some information on the repair/minor restoration of a Gottlieb Countdown Pinball.
For those that may not no me, System 1 Gottlieb Pinballs have been my passion for many years and I hate to see one of these parted out. I wrote a small article once in the Flipper Arcade review magazine that was around and spoke of my passion for these machines, some of you may have read it.
Anyway, the repair of these Countdowns is done adhoc for me as I tend to jump from one area of the machine to the next as I get boared easy. I also enjoy the electronic repair more then the cleaning of the machine etc, so I usally end up working alot on getting things working rather then looking good first. I then once its working tend to clean and play, clean and play as I go along. I also find that this gives me time to iron out any electrical issues as I am doing cleaning etc as I continually play the machines over the weeks or months of the full restore and this assists with ensuring they are reliable.
Unfortunatly I did not take any before shots prior to today, so some of you may or may not have seen the condition of these machines at Mark C place. Like all these project machines, nothing is impossible and all that is required is a little time and patience and TLC.
One had the biggest ugliest dead spider in it that I had seen.
Anyway to date this is what has been done.
Both machines have had the playfields removed from the cabinets and the cabnets cleaned internally and externally, and yes with Nifiti as Nino does. However I do not go to the trouble Nino does of removing the transformers etc. Nino does a much more thourough job then I and I hope one day to have his patience in this area.
Both machines have had new 240v plugs fitted and with insulated pins for compliance to AS3000.
All playfield plastics and posts were removed and cleaned. Playfields were cleaned thouroughly. I did not remove the protective covering (mylar) and this is still currently in place.
I then started on the electronics and had to fit 8 player displays and 2 ball/credit displays, some of the displays required repair and most re-charging as they were dim. These have been fitted to one machine only at this stage. Then had to repair two CPUs. I have attached a picture of the boards I was working with (eight in total) and swapped components to get two operating. Including swapping a spider chip, these are a pain in the ass to desolder. Anyway have both CPUs somewhat working at this stage. Both still require further repair but from not working at all they at least now function with faults. I have diagnosed the faults and just need to sit down and replace some components . One backbox also required new edge connectors as these were badly corroded so these have been fitted to one machine.
As can be seen one machine is further advanced then the others i.e One has the playfield re-installed, minus the plastics & rubbers, CPU working (with minor display fault).
The other is waiting for me to repair the cabinet that has come apart, probably tackele this between Xmas & New Year.
Have quickly cleaned all surface rust from the exterior of the coin doors and cabinet rails etc on both. Still to buy the rust remover recommended by Nino to tackle some other areas.
One machine I will keep in my collection, the other being done for a freind.
Will keep you posted.
Cheers
Dean
