Free time & empty space. Who needs it? Well, I do.. but I enjoy working on pinball machines too, so those things have to wait. I didn’t get to enjoy 5 minutes of free space this time before the next game arrived for me to work on. In fact, I had a small shuffle around to create some extra space for this additional machine to work on. The freshly cleared area was instantly filled with a beautiful Apollo 13 from SEGA. I say beautiful because the condition is actually really good, with only a few small spots that need addressing. It’s Australian delivered and spent most of it’s life in a home. The game was released towards the end of 1995 and has so many balls (13) it needs two troughs to store them all. You’re up for a slab of beer every time you need to replace the set. That’s something to think about 😉 The game arrives with one known issue (sound not working), which will be my first item to address before I begin working my way through the game like I normally do. Although the game is reasonably clean on top, it looks like it hasn’t been given a good service in a long time (if ever) as there is a nice build up of black coil dust across all the assemblies below the playfield. I’ll be going through cleaning each one and replacing parts where necessary.
assembly
All posts tagged assembly
I had the goal of finishing off Funhouse in time for Christmas. I didn’t quite make it. I’ve been keeping myself busy on the repair & service over the last week and am on the final stretch. First thing to look at for this update is the coin door. It’s been on my to do list for awhile now and no more putting it off. The red and orange have long since faded from the artwork and the coin entry housing is a bit scratched up. There is also a section of the decal ripped at the lower left corner of the front panel. When dropping the machine off, the owner asked me to touch this up and possibly paint the red flags and balloons to give it a bit more colour. It’s also missing the coin return housing, which I will need to source.
Now I feel like i’m getting back into the swing of pin updates 🙂 Progress on the Funhouse has been moving along smoothly this week, so I am keen to get another post up. For this update, I wanted to focus on the lower playfield area. In general, everything just needs a really good clean, although the sling shot plastics will be replaced. Some of the screws used on the clear posts are not correct and these will be replaced too. All up though, it’s a solid base to start with.
Time has gotten away from me lately, with my attention being drawn to family, along with a string of projects all wanting my attention at once. I managed to finish off the final few things on Baywatch a few weeks back, so want to close off the work with a short update. In the last update, the playfield had been put back together after a full strip and clean, ready for testing. One issue I noticed when the machine first arrived was the auto launcher. Sometimes it would not shoot the ball all the way into play, and the ball would roll back to the shooter lane (this isn’t to be confused with the ball serve I issue I reported on and fixed in an earlier update). I thought perhaps cleaning the assembly would be enough, but after testing with the playfield rebuilt, I was convinced it was more of a mechanical issue. So I lifted the apron off the playfield to take a look.
It’s time to get into some heavy duty cleaning on Baywatch. The only way to do that, is get everything off the playfield so I have unrestricted access to the lot. People can underestimate how long this process takes, especially on DMD era machines. Pulling a playfield down can be quick, but cleaning everything and getting it all back on (in the correct layout and order) takes up more time than you expect. As always, it’s best to take a lot of photos along the way with this process. I prefer to do the playfield areas in smaller batches, but due to the number of ramps and rails, it isn’t possible here. The lower playfield area and apron have been dealt with in previous updates, so now I have the top two thirds to contend with. Although the machine is dirty, it’s going to clean up nicely.
