As I continue work on various games, here you will find a link to the YouTube playlists of the entire series of work on each individual game. On the site itself, I will have individual articles on major elements of each project (i.e. rebuilding a certain board, fixing flippers, touching up a playfield, etc.) but below you can find playlists which are broken down by individual games which encompass all the repair work I have done thus far on each game. The videos in the series are ordered chronologically, so often the first few videos will be “before” shots of what the game looked like when I first got it, and you can follow along as I try to bring them back to life, discovering problems, and hopefully fixing them, as well as making plenty of mistakes along the way.
Remember, the goal here isn’t as much to produce a very slick “how-to” series of videos as much as it is to chronicle my experience. Many of these games I’m working on for the first time – and I never edit the videos so sometimes my dialogue or the shots are bad, but the idea is to give you a look, alongside me, as I try to figure these things out and bring these vintage games back to life.
NOTE: Most of these playlists are incomplete, as these are ongoing works-in-progress. As I complete more of the restoration and publish the videos, I continue to add more videos to the playlist.
Thanks for watching!
- Air Aces (Bally EM)
- Raven (Gottlieb Sys80B) Pinball – This series starts with a showcase of gameplay and rules, and then goes back in time to chronicle the work done on this game. It had all sorts of weird problems with the power supply, light matrix and more. I also show how to set a Gottlieb System 80b game to free play.
- Balls-A-Poppin (Gottlieb, 1956, EM)
- Black Rose (Bally WPC) Pinball – This series shows off a lot of common maintenance issues as well as some custom work on parts unique to this game.
- Bram Stoker’s Dracula (WPC)
- Caveman (Gottlieb System 80) – Pinball with integrated video game
- Farfalla (Zaccaria)
- Flash Gordon (Bally-35)
- Kings Of Steel (Bally-35)
- Mr. and Mrs. Pac Man Pinball (Bally-35) – A fun game that has a sound issue that continues to confound me. See also: http://pinballhelp.com/tag/mmpm/
- Jet Spin (Super Spin) Pinball (Gottlieb EM) – A game in beautiful condition that I work on preserving and making play like new.
- Haunted House (Gottlieb System 80)
- Iron Maiden (Stern)
- Jurassic Park (Stern)
- Earthshaker (Williams System 11b) – This game came to me in really bad shape. Completely non-working and with major damage to both the playfield and the cabinet. I’ve managed to make a reasonable amount of progress but am currently waiting to find a better cabinet to transplant the game into, so this project is on hold until then.
- Bram Stoker’s Dracula (Bally/Williams WPC) – This machine appeared to work but had some weirdness happening on the MPU board as a result of battery damage, among other things.
- Escape From the Lost World (Bally 6809)
- Flash (Williams System 4)
- Funhouse (Williams early WPC) Pinball repair – Fixing a broken “Rudy” and making the game all happy again. (work in progress)
- Jacks To Open (Gottlieb System 80a)
- Memory Lane (Stern / Bally-35)
- Mystic (Bally-35) – Picked up an early/prototype game and will be getting it into shape.
- NBA (Stern S.A.M.)
- Paragon (Bally-35) – Including custom ruleset programming with BSOS
- Red & Ted’s Road Show (Williams WPC-S) – A recent Craigslist find in pretty good condition so I show what it looks like when I first pick it up and drill into the coin door and see what’s inside.
- Sharpshooter II (Game Plan)
- Slick Chick (Gottlieb Wedgehead, 1963, EM)
- Slugfest (Williams WPC) – A pitch-and-bat game using pinball technology
- Space Mission / Space Odyssey (Williams EM)
- Sorcerer (Williams System 9)
- Target Pool (Gottlieb Wedgehead EM) – A good solid playlist of complete work on many areas of EM games
- Taxi (Williams) – Multiple games from different sources
- Top Score / 300 – (Gottlieb EM)
- Trident (Stern Bally-35) – Includes BSOS programming
- Theater of Magic (Bally WPC-S)
- World Cup Soccer 94 – Work on reset issues, goalie fixing and other common problems.
Game Architecture Video Playlists
Specific Game/Architecture Recommended Mods
Other Playlists
Hi,
I have really enjoyed your videos, especially liked the BSD repair videos – watched each one! Hope you get a chance to add more like these.
Thanks,
Mark
Wow, thank you so much for making the videos rebuilding flippers on the Black Rose. I have had a couple machines for about two years, and the parts to rebuild flippers for a world cup soccer for almost that long. Today I decided to finally “do it” so being a visual learner I went to youtube to “learn”… My experience was almost identical to yours. Watching the video I even diagnosed a broken bushing, long story short I followed your advice down to springing for some lock-tite and now I can make some shots with ease that used to be difficult.
THANK YOU SO MUCH! Keep up the good work.
Hello, I just aquired a bally mr and mrs. pacman pinball and its my first machine. The machine lights up to some degree but thats it, it does appear to have acid damage and maybe a wire hack or two i dont know anything or anywhere to start on this machine. Any and all help to make this investment not become a total loss would be so much appreciated i can send pics or do whatever. You have my email so I hope to hear back from you. Thanks so much
When a machine “just lights up” that usually means the general illumination circuit is intact, but otherwise no indication that the game is near working condition. If the main processing board is damaged and non-functional, you’d experience the same symptoms. The best approach is to check all the boards and connections and if that doesn’t help, then start swapping boards (find someone with a working game or pick up an Alltek MPU) to see if you can identify where the problems are. If you’re not familiar with board-level repairs, it may be hard to dianose a problem when the game won’t boot up.
Hello.I just watched the Top Score fixing video.It was very educational but I didn’t see how you were able to fix the scores from scoring in all different wonky ways.Can you please tell me how you fixed that problem? Thank you.
Have a 300 machine that is stuck on tilt tilt light stays in and the game won’t start do you have any ideas we live in the country and have no access to anyone who knows anything about them please help
I just repaired a squak and talk board on my bally Mr and Ms Pacman. I found 2 main ground wires not attached to anything. One is a braided ground strap coming from where the main power wires attach. It was just hanging. Some of my lights go out when the game is played but they all work. I don’t want to just attach the ground anywhere. I cant see where it came from. Looks like maybe a stud? Any help would be great. Im a Mechanic but this is my first attempt at pinball repair.
Thanks
John
the main ground strap should connect the bottom cabinet to the top – make sure they are connected – usually inside the head
Thank you
Hey I need help
I have a Bally six million dollar man pin ball machine.
Where should I start looking for when the numbers don’t show?
Flippers work but bumpers don’t.
Please help
Andy
I am having some problems and thought you might be able to steer me in the right direction.
I have a Chicago Coin Casino em. Some times the ball does not kick out after going down the bottom hole. It happens intermittently on different players and on different balls. It just cycles endlessly until I manually flip it out.
The manual does not tell me the name of the coil that flips the ball back out. It does not have a drawing for what is under the metal cover on the bottom of the play field.
Is it the Automatic Ball return kicker coil or the ball return kicker? Is it controlled by the out hole relay or the bottom hole relay . What is the name of the switch that the ball activates when it goes down the bottom hole.
It would be nice to have a better description of the different relay functions.
I have a Williams “Jungle Lord” machine I just bought and it was playing fine but now it will not reset when it’s turned on. The ball will not move to the shute and all of the targets that were down stay down. This is my first machine and hoping this is just a simple fix, thanks for any advice
I would check your fuses first, then the connectors on the boards in the game to make sure they’re all seated well.
Could also be an issue with your ball trough switch. If it doesn’t recognize a closed switch, it won’t tell the game to kick a ball out to the shooter lane. You can go into the diagnostics and manually close that switch to see if it’s corresponding # shows up in the credit window. Good luck!
Hello! Great site! I have a problem that maybe you could help me with. I have a 1969 Target Pool that the ball kicker activates during the game. Usually when the pop bumper is activated but will also do so when other items on the field are activated. I did some troubleshooting and I have ruled out any of the score wheels. I figure there is a short to the kicker solenoid. It’s intermittent but is getting more frequent. It may be unrelated but occasionally the game will go to game over (stop) during the 5th ball. This doessay not happen very often. Thank you!
I would check the switch associated with the ball kicker.. I bet it’s very close to being set closed by any significant vibration in the game.
i have a six million dollar man machine the play field lights all the ones under the plastics that stay on all the time to light up the play field have gone off not sure why any sujjestions i haev checked the fuses they all seam alright it was flickering the other day then it all just went off now wont come on when playing the machine all other lights are fine when playing the machine its only all the lights behind all the plastics
i have a six million dollar man the lights under all the plastics on the play field where flickering and now gone out and wont light up the play field checked fuses all good all other lights on the play field are working its only the light s that stay on when playing to light up the play field under all the plastics any ideas what could be wrong
It’s hard to diagnose issues like this because there could be so many problems, but the most likely culprit, provided it’s not a fuse, is a loose connector somewhere.