Hello everyone! This'd be my first post on the Aussie Pinball Forums!
I've been experiencing a few problems with my first pinball machine, a Bally Black Rose, and posted the following over of pinside.com earlier today. Thought I'd re-post it here as I am a fellow Aussie myself;
Recently I picked up my first pinball machine, a majestic Black Rose! I'm 17, still in school and had been saving up for a machine ever since I re-discovered the wonders of it. Two days ago one popped up on "Gumtree", an Australian website similar to ebay. It was in decent shape, fairly cheap for an Australian machine ($2550) and not too far away from I lived so I thought I'd check it out, though the cabinet was pretty faded.
I ended up buying it, it was in great condition as it was a home use machine. Upon taking it home and setting it up, I did have several gripes with it though and was wondering if some of you friendly pinsiders could give me your opinions on fixing some of these problems (surprisingly, the cannon is in decent shape, and the fact that the ball is sometimes effected by the grooves on it doesn't really bother me as much as the following):
- The first thing I noticed was that the plunger seemed either a bit weak or was not hitting the ball in the center. On a full plunge, the ball can make it into Davy Jones Locker to load the cannon, but cannot go the whole way around the upper loop as it does on other machines. The problem may even be that I need a different spring in the plunger to get it all the way around that loop?
- My second issue that also has to do with the plunger is that if the plunger is pushed forward a couple of centimeters, the ball will roll the same distance up the shooter lane and stay there, unable to roll back without taking the glass off. The ball will usually sit a couple of millimeters out of reach from the plunger. A real pain!
- The last and possibly the biggest problem is to do with the multiball. Instant multiball, achieved by hitting the ball to broadside while the "multiball" light is lit, works fine. It traps the first ball in broadside, releases another into the shooter lane and you have yourself two ball multiball.
The conventional multiball is what does not work properly. Lighting the locks is fine, but when you shoot to the Pirate's Cove to lock the first ball, a second ball is not released into the shooterlane as it should. The game goes into multiball mode anyway, despite there being only one ball in play, offering the same scoring, etc.
While I am not sure as to the reason why a second ball is not released, I believe it has something to do with the two switches inside Pirate's Cove. Whenever a ball is shot into the Cove, whether to start multiball or not, the kicker shoots the ball out but then goes off two more times, despite nothing being there for it to kick! I have noticed that the left switch in the Pirates Cove stays down during and after the ball is in there, but comes back up half way on the second kick from the kicker and then all the way on the third. Sorry, if that's a little hard to understand!
So, if anyone (especially those with a Black Rose) has any ideas on how I could fix these problems that'd be great and much appreciated! The problem with the multiball is the one that makes me want to pull my hair out the most! I haven't included photos, as I reckon these problems are pretty self-explanatory, but if anyone wants some, I'll be sure to add them!
Thanks for your time, Tom
