The last of the trio of games Strangeways brought in for me with his container....
Also the last of the Capcoms I have been chasing is an Airborne. Pretty hard to find, and luckily Strangeways had his eye out and filled the last spot in the container with a last minute one that made it into the container with minutes to spare.
After unwrapping Elivs and Indy 500, expectations were high...Well, it was not like those two games which seem to have recently left a home collection. This game was dirty – I mean there was a layer of dust that was thick – not Euro grime – just dust.
The metal work (and I don’t think there are too many other games with this many metal ramps) was covered in spot rust, but a quick wipe showed it was surface rust only and would come off.
We looked the game over and there were questions right away. The playfield was in extremely good condition, as were the plastics and plastic ramps. But odd things were removed. For example, the 555 lamp holders were missing from a lot of the under playfield boards, but we found them at the back of the cabinet – globes gone. Flipper springs were gone, but the rest of the mechs in place. The odd bolt here and there missing, everything like someone had been pulling odd parts here and there from a dead game. The overall good condition of the game under the dust suggested the same thing.
Then we noticed that the power board had some rough repairs, and decided this game was a dead one, left with glass off for years, and raided for odd parts from time to time. Fortunately the rest of the boards look unmolested.
So here are some before shots.
Quite a bit a dirt to come off!
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I gave the wireforms a bath in baking soda for a few hours, before a rub with a cloth then Brasso.
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After pulling all the connectors to remove the playfield, I found the main supply connector to the power board had damaged wires - it looked like they had been pinched and cut by accident. The damage is on the side that would face away from you, so there’s every chance this is the culprit that put the game out of commission, and the cause never discovered. But that meant a game that has relatively low plays, so a win for us!
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The cabinet main body is almost perfect. The head box has some dings (probably because its the widest part and probably had other games stuff in beside it over the years while it sat unloved as a parts game). The colour scheme of the game will make repair and touch up pretty easy (even for me).
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Playfield scrubbed up OK.
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