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Fireball Classic has 3 mushroom bumpers on the play field. These are small ‘passive’ pop bumpers. No coil attached, and are simply hooked up to a switch below the play field. The yellow cap sits just high enough so the ball gets under it and lifts it up. That causes the switch below the play field to close. I had never seen them before, so was curious to pull one a part to see what it was made up of. Plus, there was one missing on my play field, so was going to have to track the parts down.

In place of the mushroom bumper, was a stationary target. This allowed the game to function properly. The problem with this though is it would cause the ball flick up and hit the glass constantly when hit. A previous owner also put in two small posts to give it some protection, which has added two additional holes to the play field.

The bumper sits in two holes on the play field. A large hole for the threaded body to sit in, and a smaller hole, which I presume to was help align it and prevent it moving around the play field.

Pulling one out shows the interesting shape it has.

Pulling one a part, we can see the pieces it’s made up of.

The rubber was an easy part to replace, as is the nut attaching the body to the play field. The yellow ‘cap’ is also readily available from a number of online sellers. The rest however is a different story. They are listed in a Bally manual, but the part numbers were almost impossible to read which made life a little tougher when trying to google for specific parts.

After lots of searching I was ready to give up. I placed a few wanted ads around forums as a last resort. I was put in contact with a fellow Australian Pinball enthusiast who actually had some spare and was willing to sell me one. This was a huge relief.

I tracked down a spring that would suit and also purchased a new yellow cap (well 3 new caps so the other two mushrooms could have bright new yellow caps too).

Before I’m done though, I will need to sort out the two holes left in the play field by those star posts. I’ve tried using some smaller 1 inch posts, but they are slightly too tall and force the yellow cap to lift. I’m investigating a few options for smaller 3/4 inch posts, or maybe creating a custom rounded rail to insert.