KISS, my holy grail pin is here!!

[Pintoxicated]

BIG congrats on the pickup.  It is a special feeling to get your hands on that wish pin, like me with my recent Superman purchase, you probably feel like you've spent too much on it by other guys standards or comments but that is all forgotten when it is sitting in the line up.  As long as you are happy - which you clearly are, then happy days and enjoy.

If you do the cling wrap thing on the the backglass, make sure you have another set of hands there to help you flatten out the cling wrap very carefully before laying it down.  I tried it before and as soon as it got a few wripples in it I was stuffed - when I tried to move the cling wrap it just started moving the artwork which was similar to yours.  If I had of had someone else to hold one side and me the other side, stretch it out and lay it down nice and flat it would have been good.  When the TT dried, it dried with the wripples in it and the artwork.  It held it in place well but looked pretty ordinary.  Another thing, be wary of the lifted artwork cracking again as you flatten it out, it depends on how dry and brittle it is.

[Mr Pinbologist]

plenty of stuff in the usa for you.

new playfield
http://cgi.ebay.com/KISS-BALLY-PINBALL-MACHINE-PLAYFIELD-PART-1978-UNUSED-/160503194340?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item255ebc62e4

new backglass
http://cgi.ebay.com/KISS-PINBALL-BACKGLASS-BACK-GLASS-MIRROR-PART-1978-NEW-/150513957485?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item230b54ba6d

donor machine etc
http://cgi.ebay.com/KISS-PINBALL-EXCLLENT-CONDITION-1979-/300490205824?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item45f69caa80

I have seen brand new backglasses for around the $200 to $250 USA, I think it was Illinois Pinball or Jeff from Classic Arcades etc.
Plenty cheap stuff in the USA.

thanks for the links.. backglass link looks good but freight would be the killer. Im going to have to make do with my glass for the time being unfortunately. Id rather find one locally if at all possible. None of my usual bg repair tricks could be applied to this one. As for the pf, it will be restored rather than replaced. I wont be spending huge amounts of money on this game (if possible), i know it deserves to have the best, but it will get the absolute best i can do for it, to the best of my abilities.

Pin restoration for me has always been about the challenge of taking a worn out piece of crap machine, and doing the best job possible for the least possible outlay of money. Dont take that to mean im being a tight arse though.. its just that cash has always been tight for me.. i WILL spend the money when i have to I just like to try other things first. Buying a repro PF would take the challenge and the fun out of it for me!!

I have repaired waaaay worse PFs than this one!! Stern Dracula and Wildfyre as examples!!

[Wotto]

Looking forward to watching this one come up to standards  

I was thinking if my 'perspex sheet' idea would help keep your backglass in shape temporarily but I would be worried about it 'statically' grabbing the flakey art when ( or if ) you attempted to remove it later on   Which would NOT be good.

[ktm450]

Congrats on finding your holy grail, look forward to the updates

[Strangeways]

Congrats on the purchase. I know the feeling when you buy the actual pinball you played in your youth. Money is NO object when sourcing that "Holy Grail"
 pinball. As long as you finally own it, how much it cost you, should not matter.

Looking forward to the restore !

[Caveoftreasures]

The fact that you used to play this very machine many years ago does make it very special.

Restoring it, and getting the old girl a makeover, and keeping it original, but fixed up well, gives and keeps the machines real character. 

I would probably replace the backglass in time, but restoring the playfield, and maybe clear coating it one day, will give the old girl a new lease on life.

You are right, chasing down that "elusive machine" that you have wanted for many years, is a special feeling. Walking out to your pinny room and seeing it there now forever is even better. Well done, and looking forward to the strip down and resto. 

[howzat]

Hi Mitch
 I enjoyed going to Laurieton  with you to get your Kiss machine  Its a pitty we could not  get some games but it was great to check it out again  i liked playing it back in the good old days

Im lookig fwd to the resto   great score      Howzat

[deadlydave]

Congrats Mitch
Looking forward to the resto thread 

[big dog]

Congrats Mitch,looks like you'll be living on about 4 hours sleep per night for the next month or so (((yes ,lots of work for you my friend..let the work begin....................................

[Mr Pinbologist]

Congrats Mitch, looks like you'll be living on about 4 hours sleep per night for the next month or so  (((yes ,lots of work for you my friend..let the work begin....................................

so what else is new.. i pretty much do that now!

[big dog]

ALL TOGETHER NOW " I gunna work on pin's all night,and sleep all day , hey"  start writing mitch

[Mr Pinbologist]

ALL TOGETHER NOW " I gunna work on pin's all night,and sleep all day , hey"  start writing mitch

 

[Mr Pinbologist]

WELL GUYS... THE WORK HAS BEGUN!!

As i mentioned before, i moved KISS into the spare room so i could work on it at night, Quick draw has been put aside for the time being (thinking of selling it as i've kinda lost interest in it.. for now at least)

Anyway back to KISS... started work on getting it up and running properly yesterday evening, 1st couple of pics show the boards. In the 2nd pic you can see the hacked power supply board, with the connectors cut and having been hard wired.. and a bridge rectifier mounted off the board with wires...typical of most of these games of this vintage

Power supply hasnt been done yet, all ive done with it so far was to wire a new connector housing for the wires i had to cut in order to remove the backbox to get the game into the car. At this time im only doing enough to get the game to work.. i'll rebuild/repair boards etc as i go through them all one at at time once the game is running.

2nd pic was taken after unloading it out of the car. the power supply was working when i picked the game up so i havent done anything else to it just yet, but it'll be rebuilt later.

today i removed the displays, solenoid driver and lamp driver from the game for inspection and repair/mods as needed. For the displays, first i resoldered the obviously cracked header pins, then plugged each one into my test rig.. i only had to replace the six 100k resistors to get them all working!!, though a couple of them have burn spots in some of the segments, the glasses will be replaced later on.

Now the lamps also were doing some strange things in the game, so the lamp driver was tested in the test rig next. Several lamps were staying on in the game, and others were coming on at the wrong times! In the test rig, about half of the test LEDs driven by U3, were staying on, and this was affecting the other decoder ICs as well. Replacing U3 fixed all of the problems in one hit!! I fitted a IC socket for the new IC. 3rd and 4th pics show the lamp driver being tested.

The only work needed on the solenoid driver board was to replace the header pins, and the usual upgrades from Clays repair guides. The high voltage section had been repaired at some stage, with different transistors, but it was working fine so i'll leave it for now. Also the big cap for the 5 volt had been changed at some stage, and looks fairly new, but i might change it anyway now the game is running.

[Mr Pinbologist]

And now... IT LIVES

i got to play a few games on her tonight, i still have a few things to do, some connectors to repin on the MPU (causing displays to flicker intermittently) One drop target is missing, found one in the bottom of the cabinet. And the auxilliary lamp drive board isnt working right.

Also i need to get the sound board repaired as its doing strange things and playing wrong notes/sounds. I plugged my 6million$man sound board just so i could hear some sounds as i was playing it (it worked, just played the sounds a couple of semitones higher that original pitch). I have some ICs on order that i hope will fix the original, should have them next week.

[ajlaird]

Nice start, always good for the game to work - looking forward to see what you end up doing with this one.