Introducing... No Good Gofers

incoming!

My biggest purchase ever, I am so happy to have this game down here.  It's a fabulous table, and a great kid-friendly theme as I do want to keep my games really appealing to young kids while my daughter and friend's kids are all relatively young.

One new thing I want to do here is include high res photos of all of the boards I take before I disconnect the wires.  Figure this might be a useful thing for people at random times in the future.  Games have to have their heads off to get downstairs.

A few little things to take care of right away

not having the ramp secured to beneath meant the ball could fly away as the ramp warped

the right screw on the slam ramp was perpetually loose, so used Loctite to secure it. 

I have a playfield protector for this game, but have yet to install it.  The game is in incredible shape, so I definitely want to preserve it.

The game came with a NOS set of extra gofers, but I will opt to not put them on at the time being.
The gofers are also having "locking" issues, where the game raises them up but they fail to latch in the upright position, falling down and taking the ramp with them.
I purchased Cliffy-made latch replacements and once I install them it should solve the issue.

Introducing... Triple Strike

This is a real treat to get down in to the basement!  A member in Pinball Women Ottawa had a machine that had been in her family for decades, but no place to really set it up and work on it, so we are going to work on it together and get it back running.

First thing to note is that a long time ago someone put masking tape along the back of the backglass.  The tape has dried and came off in strips, but with the artwork near perfectly adhered to it!
Luckily I was able to find someone on pinside who was ordering a repro from bgresto.com and offered to mail us their old glass!  HUZZAH!
So that is on the way.


It came down in more pieces than most games because that's how she brought it.  It's my new thing where I will put the effort in to take the head off, AND take the playfield out, taking the cab, head, and playfield down separately.  But she also had the central logic block / transformer removed, so made getting it around a snap.  EMs are great for coming apart in to serviceable bits.  I wish I knew quite how much back when I first started.


The game is not in playing order right now.  We turned it on and sometimes we could hear a relay coil lock on or sometimes pressing something that scores on the playfield causes a coil to lock.
I realized that you shouldn't be able to do much of anything with a playfield when it first comes on.
EM games almost all have a Game Over relay that controls all of the stuff on the playfield.  When not engaged, the playfield should not be activating anything.


Took a quick look at the Game Over relay and found a switch that was always connected.  Re-gapped it so that it was Open when the relay was not engaged.  Note the bottom switch here, one activated, one not.  Full contact.

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Backglass arrived!

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Getting back to the game after a long break:
Cleaned a bunch of stuff and put the coin switches in different positions, and suddenly we are in business, able to coin up.


Left flipper is strong and punchy.  Right flipper is weak as all heck, but no obvious reason as two why.  Took it apart and cleaned the parts, but still couldn't get it going much better.  Getting a full rebuild kit anyways.

The 4 standup targets all work, kickout saucer, and the rollovers mostly work.
Some of the 10 rollovers stuck on occasion but my EM friend JF taught me a trick:  A little bit of sewing machine oil, very thin and fine, to help stop it from sticking.


Rollover #1 wasn't registering at all, alas.  Under the playfield is a bank of relays for each of the 10 rollovers.  When we triggered the relay for rollover #1 manually, and then hit the rest, the bonuses advanced and they all reset, as they should.
Seems that the relay coil, one S27-500, had been getting super hot and managed to desolder.  New coil on the way.

One obvious issue was that the plunger housing was not attached, and no screws were to be found.
I did pick up a brand new plunger tip recently, but gotta figure the proper screws to secure it.

ahhh there we go

anyways, I'll get back to this eventually!

updates

oh crap, I hadn't update this since November 2016?  Shit, whatever could have happened then to take the wind out of one's sails?
Expect a bit of a forthcoming flood here as I try and get things up to date, and review a few technical aspects as well.  I keep getting feedback from people as to how helpful a lot of my trouble-shooting on Surf Champ was for them, so I really want to dive back into debugging EM logic.

Hollywood Heat was a bust.  We had to send it to a local electrical genius who found multiple points of simultaneously collapse across a few of the boards.  Board work, beyond changing a resistor or transistor, just isn't something I can do.

Triple Strike came down and is still in project mode.
Kick Off left.
Rollergames left and was playing wonderfully.
Stars left and is now in a good friend's home.
I picked up 2 grail games that should stay with me for a while:  No Good Gofers and Mousin' Around.  I sold my games that were off at friend's houses, and now these are the only 2 I actually own.
I had two main motivations:  I wanted to stop bringing games up and down my wretched stair case every few months, and so got games I really wanted, instead of just taking what popped up next.
I also wanted to find titles that would appeal to my young daughter and all of her friends on the block.
Jurassic Park left to a friend's house.
I bought Mousin' Around and No Good Gofers.
A Sure Shot project arrived and I've made excellent progress on it.
I got a late 70s Heiwa pachinko machine.
I got a 1932 bagatelle named Goofy.

And last year we also had a basement flood and everything in the basement was derailed for like 6+ months.  Minimal STUFF damaged, but flooring and walls needed to be redone.

But now I'm back on my bullshit, rekindling my old loves, and finding new ones by actively searching for a Japanese Smart Ball machine. (help a gal out???)
I am also actively looking for a payazzo / pajatso machine from Finland/Germany.
AS WELL as another mid 1930s prewar pinball machine.
I would be ever so grateful for any leads you might have, and I am willing to ship.  ESPECIALLY for working Smart Ball or payazzo / pajatso machines.

My arcade art collecting has really tapered off as I am hitting maximum saturation.  I have acquired a number of cool and rare marquees for putting up on the wall.  I plan on mounting my pachinko first, and once that is done I will redo the marquee layouts and put all the new ones up.
I scored a CPR repro of the PINBOT backglass (not translite,) as well as a Centigrade 37 backglass.
There are still a few backglasses I want to find, particularly Fire Queen and Fairy, but they would be replacing other choices on the wall as space is indeed limited.

Pinball Women Ottawa broke 100 members on facebook, and our sister groups Pinball Vixens Toronto and Montreal's Ball Bustin' Bitches are both going strong.

I am delighted by the renaissance of original pinball themes, with America's Most Haunted by Spooky, Full Throttle by Heighway, Dialed In by Jersey Jack, and Total Nuclear Annihilation (made independently, now manufactured by Spooky) all being lovely machines.

So stay tuned, I have lots to show and tell.