Ive started to get my 1964 SPACE GUN working... heres the link of the game
http://marvin3m.com/arcade/spacgun.htmIve already taken the guts out of this gun game, pulled apart, resprayed and put back together again. I did this quite a while ago, then put it to one side due to the impending move that we did.
Well im not out of the woods yet - game almost works - ive had a few games out of it and then the faults start to creep in.
Solenoids locking on and then the game "shutting down" but still working.
Heres what happens..
There is a continuous score motor - this runs the whole duration of the game.. if this stops, it disables the trigger of the gun yet all targets are still active and turn around as usual. In other words, this motor is the heart of the machine.
It looks like this
Continuous motor is the centre right one, the left is for reset only.
What happens is that this motor runs all the time - on the credit wheel, the wiper fingers rotate round to a "zero position" where it is mechanically caught by a solenoid... if credits are scored then solenoid pulls in, wiper moves several postions and is then caught again. What i thought was a problem was that the centre spindle continues to run - no teflon in 1964 and so metal to metal friction is kept at a minimum ( i use that word lightly) by dense fabric washers. I thought they were rubber at first but its just 40 years of crap been embedded in them.
You can see the wiper disc here and the solenoids that latch on the bottom - spindle runs right through
Ive pulled this apart so many times now that i could do it blindfold... it didnt fix my problem.
The fault lies in the motor itself
Makes a terrible noise when running.. even my 8yr old son turned round and said "dont sound good dad, dont like the sound of that at all"
I BLOODY KNEW it was the motor, but i didnt want it to be! So i stripped the left hand side about 5 times.
So whats at fault?
Bearings have gone - they will work one way and then in reverse ( the way it runs most of the time) it will run OK for a while then a terrible grinding noise happens and all you can hear is a locked on solenoid with no spindle turning... and trust me - i REALLY do not want to burn one of these coils out. Not that my reason for this matter now.. i HAVE to pull this apart and i hate doing this kind of stuff.. you dont know what you need till its completely apart and then you got to get it all back together again.
Can see here the bearing housing.. its the copper disc... my guess is that inside here is a shattered bearing
The rivets will need to be drilled out and then replaced with nut and bolt.
Pulling motors apart is always the last thing you want to do on these old games.. I once pulled the motor apart for Judge Dredd Dead World and had a new toothed wheel cut to fix the damn thing.
Its just one of those jobs you REALLy dont want to have to do!
