restoration

All posts tagged restoration

I’ve often heard people talk about how important the flippers are on a pinball machine and it makes sense. It’s your primary interaction with any pinball game and if the flippers have issues, then making shots becomes difficult and it can have some negative side effects on the game play. The flippers on my Nugent are in need of some attention. While I can make any shot on the table with them, they often bounce when catching the ball. This sometimes acts as a trampoline by making the ball jump or causing the ball the bounce off in unexpected directions. I’ve seen this described as “doughy flippers” by some people.

Flippers

I purchased two sets of flipper rebuild kits from a local pinball supplier here in Victoria, Australia. They only came in sets of two, so I will have a left flipper kit spare once all three flippers have been rebuilt. First step was to get the play field lifted up so I could get access to the flipper parts below the play field. I decided to start with the left flipper since it was the worst of all three.
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I just have to keep tinkering with my Nugent. Since it’s my first pinball machine and my knowledge on pinball is small, I enjoy getting under the hood and making changes. I’ve started with a number of simple things like changing the bulbs and rubbers but want to start focusing on a few other areas of the game play. I’ve purchased a flipper rebuild kit, which I plan to use shortly. Before that though, I decided I’d change the flipper buttons and shooter/plunger.

The old buttons has faded in colour and were quite dirty. They are cheap to replace, so wanted to do it.

Old nugent buttons
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It’s been awhile since my last update on my Pole Position cockpit restoration. With some Christmas holidays on my side, I decided to start working towards completion. Over the last few months I had been gathering the last bits I needed to complete the project. The artwork arrived, the paint was purchased and a few minor parts were sourced. There was still quite a bit to do on the machine, so I decided to split the remaining work into two sections – basically the front half and back half of the cockpit.

To start with, I decided to focus on the back half of the cockpit and get that 100% complete.

The first step was to fix up the broken corners on both side panels. These had broken off at some point in the past – maybe by vandals, maybe just from movement between owners or locations. Anyway, some builders bog came in handy here to redo the curved corner. Once it had set, I used the router to cut a new t moulding slot (not shown).

Broken corner fixed
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I performed some minor changes to the playfield today. The original Nugent machines came with solid red lane guides at the top of the playfield. They look OK, but are a little dull. When looking around at various pinball spare parts shops I spied a few transparent red guides that would look awesome, so I purchased them. Replacing them is as simple as removing two screws.

This is how the original red guards look:
Nugent playfield lane guides
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One of the first things I wanted to when I got the machine was have a look at the game board and power wiring. Most of this lives behind the backglass. There is a lock on the top right of the machine. Sadly this lock came with no key, and I could not locate one inside the machine. Looking at the lock, it appeared that the previous owner had also misplaced the keys as the lock itself looked like it had been attacked with a screwdriver. Using a screwdriver myself, I undid the lock.

With the lock undone, I could then slide the actual backglass up and out to reveal the bulbs, score displays and door containing the components.

The lock itself controls a long metal rail that runs across the top of the backglass. With the lock engaged, the backglass cannot be moved. With the lock open, it removes the metal rail, allowing the backglass to be slid up and out.

backglass lock
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