Surf Champ: DID SOMEONE ORDER A PERFECT GAME?

FFFFFIIIIIXXXXXEEEEEDDDDDD!!!!!

Yessssss, just in time to hopefully sell it, Surf Champ is playing 100%.

Without a tilt, you forget sometimes how MUCH a tilt bob adds to the game.  The drama of each shake!  The trepidation of each potential save!

I used alligator clips to wire in the tilt bob.  I like this method, similar to how I set it to free play, because it is easily disabled when need be.

I was also not happy with the final ball performance, ye olde BX relay.  Final balls means double bonus automatically, so this was important!  But it turns out the BX was fine, and it was other sub relays controlling the double bonus.  I cleaned them, and also cleaned the player unit in the head, and now it is running A-OK.
The player unit position was the main component in the circuit for those sub relays, so by far the most obvious part to approach.  Sanded it down, cleaned it with rubbing alcohol...

then used some fabbo PBR grease on the contacts:

Surf Champ is an awesome game.  Now, it is also perfect.

Surf Champ: flipper fixed, plastic fixed

Surf Champ is coming together nicely!

Finally got an A-5141 coil and soldered it in as a replacement for this on the left flipper:

Check that out on the Pinball Medic Coil Chart:  A-20095 is referred to as a Gottlieb Super Flipper.  Pull in ohms of 1.55, but HOLD ohms of 35.5!

A-5141, the factory default, has a 1.7 pull ohms and a hold ohms of just 6 ohms.

So this 20095 is NOT for this kind of machine.  I wonder if it was put in just because of the slang name for it?
Since the 20095 coil had a 6x higher ohms, it couldn't hold the ball, so when it tried to catch it, the flipper would depress until the EOS switch opened up, activating the PULL ohms, with strong strength, thus causing an annoying flutter.  And a total inability to hold the ball.

Now it plays great!  Yaaaay!


The game also had one broken plastic, up near the drops.  I took it out and it was quite warped, so I flattened it using my oven technique.  I then superglued it together, then coated the back with a low-tack plastic sheet.
When putting it back on I also used lexan washers on all posts to minimize future ball impact.

looking good!

All that's left?  Well I was just reminded there is no tilt attached in the game.  Like, not even a snipped wire as you might normally find.  So I should probably try and rewire that up.
Also the final ball (BX) relay does not seem to be snapping on right now, so I will look to clean/adjust that soon.