Start of my Wms Flash restore

[Mr Pinbologist]

Hi guys, last week I decided to set Flash up and get it up and running, in order to see what else it needs before restoring.

Ages ago I posted a thread detailing how I came to own this machine, but basically a mate of mine picked this up for $500 not working, not sure where he got it from now (he travels a lot) but he texted me one day to tell me he had bought it.. needless to say I was rather jealous lol and made several attempts to buy it off him, without success. I even offered him twice what he paid for it at one point. Eventually some life changing circumstances for him saw him offering me a deal where he would give me this machine in exchange for me doing a cab respray on a Stern Galaxy he bought off eGay from Melbourne.. done deal!!

I DID start on this before everything was packed up to move towns, the game lit up but nothing much else happened, it would attempt to boot up with displays flickering on momentarily but then it’d freeze up. These early Wms games are fairly new to me to work on, so when Ken (skybeaux) offered a refurbished early Wms MPU for sale I snapped it up (thanks again Ken if you read this)    About this time I had packed the game up to move house, so now I finally had some time to start on it!

Ok, a few pics… the game had three dead drop target coils, plus outhole and knocker (3rd pic shows one of the toasted coils), so I had acquired some new drop target coils in preparation for the rebuild when i got the game. Cam (big dog here on AP) got them for me with one of his PBR orders.. thanks champ!!  

2nd pic, someone’s fix for a dead fuse    and  4th pic… I guessed the flash lamps weren’t working because someone had taped two of these LED flashers to the sockets for the flash lamps, these things are activated  by vibration.. I don’t know how well they would’ve worked, as they seem to need a fairly decent whack to start them flashing, I cant imagine there being enough vibration happening to set them off.. yet another pointless mod to a pin  

[Mr Pinbologist]

I started off with the power supply board, replacing the main filter cap for the 5 volts, and replaced a few pin headers, in particular the one for the 5volt supply to the MPU. The power supply seemed to be working fine as it was so not much else was done to it at this stage. Though I might replace the two rectifier diodes a bit later on when I do the full resto.

Next was the master driver board. I had to replace a few of the solenoid drive transistors, I used TIP102s to replace them, plus I changed their pre driver transistors as well. Also I discovered later that one of the 7408 TTL ICs had to be changed when I still had a coil still trying to lock on (outhole coil). Several of these ICs had already been replaced before at some stage, as they were in sockets.  Another thing I decided to do was to replace most of the 27 ohm resistors for the lamp matrix, even though they were working, just to make it look neater. Several dodgey pin headers were replaced also.

[Mr Pinbologist]

Next I replaced the burnt coils, I fitted the new drop target coils… forgot to mention someone had actually put a flipper coil in one of the drop target banks.. AND they had it wired so the hold coil was in circuit.. WTF??  The flipper coil in question was put to use later on when I discovered one flipper coil was dead.

I also had to replace the outhole and knocker coils as well.. I still need to get the proper coils, but I substituted a couple of others I had on hand just to get the game running, used a Gtb A-5194 in the outhole and a new Stern 23-800 in the knocker.. they’ll do until I can get the correct coils.

[Mr Pinbologist]

After the board work had been done I fitted the new MPU board from Ken and the other boards and fired it up.. booted up first go! YAY 

After sorting a few issues with the flippers and setting a few of the game adjustments in the setup menus, I was playing Flash!! I still have some display issues to deal with (see 2nd pic) some segments staying on in the master display which are also affecting players 1 and 2 displays, so in the pic it should read ‘23’ credits!! I’m not sure yet but it may be a display glass issue. I know the 1 and 2 player displays are fine as I tried them in 3 and 4 so it may be the display glass on the master display board. Will look into it some more later during the week when I get time.

[Mr Pinbologist]

Just a few more pics for now… as I said the displays need to be sorted.. have ordered some new display glasses, so I will have one in a week or so if its needed in the master display. And the flippers need to tuned up a bit as they are a bit weak still. I intend on setting this game up and playing it for a while, as the pf is still in nice nick, and my mate Martin who I got the game off spent a heap of time cleaning the pf and replacing rubbers, though some of them are starting to perish now having sat there for so long.

Backglass has the usual faded reds in the “Flash” name, and some missing/faded yellow along the bottom which I plan on redoing during the resto process.

Will add more to this thread later on when I start the full restore.. will be after I get Pinball Pool done.
Stay tuned!!

[goodolddays]

Thats a prett nice looking playfield Mitch .

 Get rid of those black flipper rubbers 

[ddstoys]

I'm very excited another Mitch restore beautiful.   Got to love the mods some people do to these games

[Mr Pinbologist]

Thats a prett nice looking playfield Mitch .

 Get rid of those black flipper rubbers 

  No worries Dave they'll be gone soon enough, they're stuffed anyway. They were on there when i got the game, i think they were new but are all cracked just because the game has been sitting there untouched for nearly two years!

[Strangeways]

Best WMS SYS 4/6 by a mile. Looks to be in good condition. Love the hacks !

[mildflame]

WOW! thats a bargain! your playfield is much better than mine... 

[Mr Pinbologist]

WOW! thats a bargain! your playfield is much better than mine...  

Well having seen YOUR Flash resto thread, your CABINET is looking much better than mine does at the moment   you're doing a nice job of the respray  
mine will be resprayed when the time is right to do so.
Yes i was pretty lucky with this pf, its mylar covered though the mylar is damaged in a couple of places so will be removed come restore time. And wear is minimal on this pf so the resto of this pf should be easy (i hope)  

[PinPal]

I put yellow flipper belts on my Williams Flash as I wanted it to look like the Williams Flash Flyer

[Mr Pinbologist]

Hi guys just a small update ;

Today the new display glasses i ordered from Pinball Life arrived, (ordered Thursday last week, so thats pretty quick from the US me thinks)  (I ordered two 6 digit glasses, one for this game and another as a spare, plus four 7 digit glasses that i needed for a clients Zac time Machine pin im working on).

Well i've had a quiet couple of days so i spent a little more time on my Flash, getting it playing a bit better.. i wasted no time in replacing the display glass in the master display board, which fixed the intermittent stuck on segments  problem it had. 1st couple of pics show the new glass installed and working, The old glass was causing problems for the player 1 and 2 displays as well, which are now working normally 

[Mr Pinbologist]

More pics; a few things that needed doing.. well the spinner paint can wait til the full restore takes place.. but the damaged rollover insert (one on the left in the 2nd pic) was stopping the ball from rolling over the white plastic properly (ball was getting stuck). When i looked under the pf, the white plastic had a small post rubber stuck over the center part of the white rollover plastic to keep it in place   so i removed the whole insert and replace it with one from an old Stern Dracula pf i had hanging on my wall! Thats the replacement insert on the right in the pic of the rollover inserts.

Another little problem was that the wire from the ball gate where the ball leaves the shooter lane was missing, so i just made up a new one from a piece of piano wire..  after looking in the manual, the shooter lane gate wire and the gate at the top left of the top rollover lanes had the same part number so i simply removed the top ball gate and copied it   problem solved!!

[Mr Pinbologist]

When i had originally got this machine i started chasing up some parts for it and among those parts was a flipper rebuild kit (not sure now but i think it came from PSPA) which i decided to fit now as i was keen to set this game up and play it for a while. I still need to do the upper RH flipper but its working ok for now, will rebuild that one later on. The coils arent original Wms coils, they're 'Leisure &Allied' brand replacement coils which seem to work fine, not sure yet if i'll replace them later on or not  

I got to have a few good games on it this evening after doing the flippers and adjusting/cleaning a few switches.. its starting to play pretty sweet now   im now starting to get a bit keen to do the full resto but it'll have to wait a while. think im gonna set it up in the line up for a while and play it a bit  

i remember a couple of weeks ago when i fired it up for the first time and started a game.. the background sounds weren't turned on, so i just HAD to get into the setup menu's and turn that on, since thats the thing that stood out to me the first time i saw or played a Flash pin, was that background sound (and being the first pin to have it).. i mean.. you just CAN'T have a Flash with NO background sounds, that just aint on!!  

When i decide to do the full restore i'll add more to this thread!! Watch this space