1980 Bally Space Invaders Cleanup

[Strangeways]

Looking good, Jase. Space Invaders is an awesome pinball to own (wish I still had mine). Great results thus far. Keep the updates coming.

 

[goodolddays]

Looking good so far .    I'd call this a restore .. you are going far beyond a general cleanup .
Keep having fun with it .. they are a lot of work but well worth it in the end.

[Steve2010]

Looking excellent, and very thorough start! 

[Jango]

Putting the cabinet back together continues.  I've installed new flipper switches and flipper buttons and housings.  I've also installed new ball shooter springs and polished the ball shooter which has come up 110% better than what it was originally.














I have decided not to touch the cabinet artwork and I'll leave it as it is to retain its history.  I'm told its in quite good condition considering its 32 year old age.  If I did try to touch this up, I think it would really stick out and look worse, so I think its better leaving it in its original condition which I am happy with anyway




The siderails were removed and cleaned as best as I could considering their age.  I installed new siderail nails from Marcos.  They were a little too long for this cabinet so I had to trim them slightly.  The new nails really make a difference from the older rusty ones












I hand cleaned the yellow plastic and aluminium earth contacts with nifty and ranex as they were filthy and the aluminium was very rusty.









The stainless steel brackets around the coin door were polished, as was the ball shooter.





I installed new earth braiding from Pinrestore in the US.  A bargain at USD$0.73c a foot from memory.  I installed new leg bolts also - look much more shiny than the old rusty ones

[Retropin]

Looks bloody good mate..

very nice indeed... dont think ive ever seen shiny earth braid?

[Jango]

Thanks mate.... to be honest whilst I am enjoying it (as I have not done anything like this before and I am learning as I go), I really would not have had a crack at this if it were not for the advice from you guys and reading the many forum posts from a wide range of topics that have greatly assisted me

[Olivia_jason]

wow nice work mate, it would be a while before i would attempt a resto like that,
this site is great seeing people taking on these sort of jobs.

[ktm450]

Nice work so far 

[faza]

Looking good the cab artwork looks fantastic for its age

[thefasteddy69]

Really nice machine & is for me an iconic Bally of the eighties. Played this alot at the Space Skate rollerskating rink in Cairns with Playboy & Firepower.

Your cabinet, backglass and playfield all look like they are in excellent condition. Agree with the advice given in keeping the cab as is. Also in keeping the boards & restoring them rather than getting replacements is a great idea and keeps it original.

A big thank you from me too as had removed the earth straps on mine (those metal straps with the yellow jackets)  to clean up (looked like copious amounts of Coke all over them), around the door and flippers. Cleaned up nice but of course in my XXXX enhanced state did not take pics of how they were placed! Now I can follow your pictures of the inside of the cab. Look forward to seeing how it ends up. Great work.

[Jango]

Re the yellow plastic and aluminium earth straps - I had broken one in half when I tried to remove it from the plastic shield.  No-one sells these.  So I went to Bunnings and searched for a lightweight aluminium flexible replacement.  I found a piece of aluminium in the cement and concreting forming section near where the ladders are.  It was only $1 and I could probably make 20 of these things outta that one piece.  I cut it to exact size and drilled some screw holes in it and its a perfect replacement

[Jango]

One thing I found interesting, is allot a paint splattering on the sides of the cabinet.  It looked like dirt or grease splattering when the machine first arrived, but when I removed the siderails I noticed that it was under there also.  Therefore Bally must have used this technique, perhaps to hide imperfections in woodgrain in the cabinets?

[Homepin]

Yes, the spattering was very common in the EM days.

[Jango]

Cabinet cabling and tilt mechanism is back in the cabinet.  I cleaned the cabinet cabling with some Nifty, some baby wipes and an old towel and replaced all of the cable ties and cable holders.  They were quite dirty from years of grime but came up like new again.  As per the advice of others on the forum (I think it was Nino), I replaced the old power cable with a new one from Bunnings.  I just purchased a 5m extension cord, cut one end off and soldered into place.  I cleaned up the tilt mechanism board with some Nifty, Autosol and installed a new tilt ball also that was missing from the machine when I received it

Here are the pics as installed

[Jango]

A further update. I started to strip out the headbox.  Considering the door of the headbox actually has another bracket (containing all of the light sockets) within it (something I had not known before giving it a good look at) I decided to take a tonne of pics to assist me with the putting it all back together phase.  One thing that has really assisted me in this whole process is documenting everything via digital pics and keeping a laptop with the pin so I can view the records at anytime.






I noticed that the factory paint job on the inner lightsocket bracket was terrible and it looks like they only painted one side really
















The whiteboard is going to present me with a few challenges (as I am an amateur).  Do I try to strip the lightsockets, piano wire and looms and paint this gloss white or leave as it and clean it all up as best as I can with some Nifty etc?  Opinions would be welcomed here as I am really not very confident removing it all here.  On the flipside, I will remove the LED score pcb's and clean those