On the home stretch now – the last part of the game under the hood to receive some attention is the saucer kicker. I haven’t really had to worry about this at all since it’s working fine from day one. But like everything else, it can do with a clean and this is a chance to learn some more about it.
Stern
All posts tagged Stern
I’ve been a bit quiet on my Nugent lately – more playing than tinkering.
I’ve got a batch of parts arriving in a week or so to fix up a few more things, so will hopefully have more work to report shortly.
I have been meaning to get under the apron for awhile and check it out, so decided to do it last night.
The apron itself isn’t in bad shape. There are a few marks across the “for amusement only” text and some very minor scratches around the edges. But overall it’s clean, solid and the artwork clear.
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.
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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After doing some work on my Nugent yesterday, the game play had some scoring issues. The game would start fine, but the moment the ball was in play, I was being awarded many more points than I should have been. Further to that, certain targets failed to register and some roll overs would cause the lights to flicker.
I took the glass off, started a new game and hit each target with my finger. I narrowed the issue down to the three roll overs at the top of the play field and the static target. All other targets and roll overs were functioning fine.
I then put the game into test mode and found that switch #4 was stuck. Looking at the Nugent manual. Switch #4 was the left and right roll overs at the top of the play field. Ok, so getting somewhere.
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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.
