With some more progress made on Mariner, it’s time to drop past with another update showing off which assemblies have been pulled apart, serviced and cleaned. First up on the list this time are the flippers. Both flippers work, which is always a nice starting point to have. Unlike other old machines I’ve worked on, the rubber here isn’t hard and cracking (same for the rest of the playfield rubbers actually). The flipper bats are still reasonably white too. So I think the machine has been looked after over the years and likely to have had some replacement parts put in along the way.
coil
All posts tagged coil
Two switch issue have crept into Pinbot over the last few months and I wanted to take a look at them. The first relates to the ramp switch, which lets the game know if the ramp is up or down. When the ramp is down, the switch should be activated. There are two coils which control the state of the ramp and if the switch is in the wrong state, the game will continually try and activate a coil. This was the behavior I was seeing. The ramp would be down, but the coil would continue to fire.
Something that has been been on my to do list for awhile is to make a few adjustments to the chimes. Space Orbit has a 3 chime setup (10’s, 100’s and 1000’s). The chimes work fine, but most of the grommets holding the chimes in place have aged and need replacing. Some posts are missing the nylon washers that sit between the grommet and lock nut too and these need to be replaced.
Time for another update on the repair and service on my Gottlieb Counterforce. The momentum has been pretty good, although playing Pinbot is cutting into my repair time 😉 For this outing, I’ll be looking at the two sling shots and top area of the playfield. Normally my next step after the apron would be to look at the flippers. But while waiting for flipper kits to arrive, I decided to shift to the slingshots. There are two sling shots on the Counterforce playfield. The first is on the left, above the lower flipper. The second one is not directly opposite (as you’d normally expect), but a bit higher up on the playfield – across from the upper left flipper. I’ll start with the lower one first. Sitting behind the slingshot, we have an out lane and two in lanes. Like with the entire machine – it’s seen a lot of action and had much neglect. Lots of cleaning required and some damage I can’t undo. Thankfully the plastic is reasonably good and is not cracked. The green lane hoods are damaged (melted) from the bulb that sits below them and one has a few cracks on the front. I’ll try cleaning these up, but will most likey replace them.
Progress on Counterforce has been good over the last few weeks and the machine has served as an excellent introduction to the System 80 platform by Gottlieb. My attention is now turning towards the playfield and the various assemblies that make up the game. I like to start working from the bottom of the playfield and progress up to the top. It helps break the overall task down into a more manageable state and also allows me to test things as I go. So first up on the playfield will be the apron and ball serve assembly. The apron and shooter cover are in reasonable condition and won’t need much more than a clean. I have the alternative score and instruction cards that were unused and can go on once complete. The shooter rod has already been removed and rebuilt (included in my last update).
