Introducing... Corvette!

 Corvette was a bit of a surprise for me.  I was sad to have Monopoly go at first, but I knew I wanted a change.  I had played this game on location before, but didn't quite in to it.
I am not a car person, so the theme was a shrug for me, but then again so was Monopoly.
Now that I've played it again?  I am really enjoying this game!  This one might last MONTHS and MONTHS in my collection, you never know. 

Much of what is wrong with this game is aesthetic. Some plastic parts missing, cracked plastics, painted cab, etc.
I fixed one thing last night and it fixed the main playing issue:

Check out the right flipper:

hard to see, but that right flipper alignment is trouble!

When the ball comes down the inline, it hits the rubber and bounces.  This game is heavy on the "flow", and that bounce acted as a speed bump.
The flipper is obviously misaligned, so I went beneath the playfield and was able to adjust the flipper location.
(the flipper mech looked odd:  someone had replaced the proper flipper spring with a big one on the coil!  uh oh, will order a proper spring.  Might be best to just replace flippers...)

yeah..... pretty sure that spring isn't supposed to be there.

After alignment, I then had to loosen the right ball guide screws and do a tiny adjustment on the guide to make sure it was flush the flipper.
After doing this, no bounce!  The game is that much faster now.

now the ball flows gracefully from the right inline to the flipper

I want to clean/replace the Light KickBack target as it often does not register on a hard direct hit.
Also will probably eventually swap in LEDs.  Warm whites only, most likely, because this game looks great with dim orangey incandescants.

I also went through my now-mandatory fuse inspection.  Not only were a few found to be drastically overfused, I found a few jumpered entirely:

nooooooooooooooooooo

The scoring + rules doesn't seem to deep, but I imagine I will just be enjoying this game for a while.

Some pics of the arduous setup process my space requires:

Introducing... Sinbad!!!

I am in love with this game.  It is the perfect combination of the 70s Gottlieb EM esthetics, but with a more advanced solid state ruleset.  (OK, the casual racism is a touch offputting, I admit)
The rules are straightforward and addictive: 4 drop banks of differing amounts of drops: 1, 2, 3, and 4.  Finishing each bank lights a roll over at the top. 
Each bank also awards a bonus X multiplier, but with the catch that the multiplier won't apply unless you have the prior drop banks down.  i.e. no multiplier X for finishing the third bank until banks 1 and 2 are also down.
And for extra strategy, the third bank lights the extra ball roll over at the top, so risk/reward abounds.

Double flippers mean you face crippling embarrassment of the ball going down right between them, and the lolling ball arcs of EMs means you have to be a few steps ahead to shake away from the outlanes.

a really sedctive layout

The final thing that sold me on this game was the Pascal PI-1/X4 board in it.  All 3 other boards and their interconnects?  Gone.  I'm lucky that I have never had to re-pin a connector, as apparently that is not a rare thing to do on Gottlieb System 1 machines.
The board adds extra features of a skill shot, ball save, and I think more high scores.


Even though this is my first real post on this machine, I probably won't discuss it much since there isn't too much to do any more!
The big issue was the left pop bumper wasn't working, totally jammed up.  I was lucky to also receive a spare playfield with this game, so I harvested the remaining mechs (pop bumpers and flippers) and then sold the playfield.
I was able to use one of those salvaged coils and a brand new coil sleeve and had it going great.

you can quickly tell this one might be a problem.

And then it was stuck again.
What had happened was the switch was getting stuck on and the fuse wasn't blowing and so the coil was bulging/overheating.

I eventually traced this back to the plastics of the pop bumper, which had enough give to allow the switch plate to get wedged under the plastic chasis, at certain angles, and then be always on.
I swapped out the whole pop bumper assembly with a spare from the other playfield, and it has been perfect since.

Hard to see here, but the plastic blue bit is wedged down on the bottom right.  Stuck!

Spare playfield to the rescue!  Time to harvest.

inspecting and cleaning the spare.

LED lights now all behind the backglass.  I am going to get some LED blinkers still, though.  Those incandescent blinkers heat up right quick!
I took the plastics off, did a deep clean, and swapped in LEDs on the playfield.  Added lexan washers to the plastics posts.  Even though many of the plastics have chipped, they still look good all around, so want to avoid any further damage.
Novus 2, Novus 1, then waxing.  Then I used clear low-tack plastic sheets to cover all of the playfield wear spots at the top, around the bumpers, and in front of the drop banks.  Hopefully that will help keep it well preserved for years to come.

All that is left really is to pop in a new rebound rubber, as the current one is going a touch stale and doesn't have the signature bounce.
And one light socket needs replacing, as it is too corroded.
Parts ordered!

some lovely colours

INTRODUCING... omg what the hell just happened? Sinbad! Corvette! Revenge From Mars!

 CORVETTE! REVENGE FROM MARS! SINBAD!

Yeah ummmm hi.  I might have a problem.  And it's name is pinball. 
My whole lineup has shifted.

Surf Champ sold, Sinbad bought.
Monopoly traded for Corvette.
Flintstones for Revenge From Mars.
and Beat The Clock left to be replaced with Baywatch.

GOOD TIMES.

Things were a bit nutty around that mid-September mark and the Ottawa/Gatineau Pinball Show.  :)
Huge thanks to everyone who worked oh so hard to help me make this happen.  Pinball hobbyists rock.  We all go out of our way to make MOAR PINBALL HAPPEN.