Complete Bally Medusa

[AlanJ]

This has sat in my garage untouched since I bought it nearly a year ago. so dig it out and had a good look.














The art on the apron is crumbling away - water damage.

Playfield very worn, so needs a new one.

mpu battery leak damage, will replace with alltek

cab needs repair and restencil

Plan is to get it going in current state, fuc and issues with mechs, wiring driver boards, sound board etc. once it’s working I’ll dismantle and redo the cab and the playfield swap too

 

[AlanJ]

note the gottlieb flipper mechs

 

[AlanJ]

Alltek mpu in, and it boots, old s&t not booting, so swapped in a mypinballs one. now we have sound and a booting game.

drop target 6 not dropping in solenoid test and 7 is dropping all the time.

4 of the 6 displays in the game are faulty.

self test button first work, but i can short the wire to get into self test.

 

[AlanJ]

Looked at schematic and figured drop targets 6 and 7 are on the same driver circuit.

Couldn’t easily get to the drop target mech with the playfield in the machine, so popped it out on the bench and took the reset bank unit out of the drop target mech




Coil 6 looks burnt out, and tests as open circuit. so replacement needed


Took out the driver board and sure enough the power transistor is shorted. so replaced



Put it all back together and every solenoid now works as it should.

While i had the playfield out i removed and tested the 21 bulbs that are at the very rear of the playfield. all we’re ok. however in lamp test. some don’t light, so next step is to test the two lamp driver boards………

 

[Happypin]

Looked at schematic and figured drop targets 6 and 7 are on the same driver circuit.

Couldn’t easily get to the drop target mech with the playfield in the machine, so popped it out on the bench and took the reset bank unit out of the drop target mech

View attachment 174003
View attachment 174004

Coil 6 looks burnt out, and tests as open circuit. so replacement needed
View attachment 174005

Took out the driver board and sure enough the power transistor is shorted. so replaced
View attachment 174006
View attachment 174007

Put it all back together and every solenoid now works as it should.

While i had the playfield out i removed and tested the 21 bulbs that are at the very rear of the playfield. all we’re ok. however in lamp test. some don’t light, so next step is to test the two lamp driver boards………

This looks like a lot of work Alan, good luck

 

[AlanJ]

This looks like a lot of work Alan, good luck

Cheers Alan. GLW Chemo!

 

[Happypin]

Cheers Alan. GLW Chemo!

Cheers mate

 

[AlanJ]

Lamp driver boards repaired and all lamps now working correctly. (there is one bulb out, but it’s under the 7 drop target mech and impossible to get to without removing that mech, so I’ll leave that for the moment.

Cleaned off the flaking paint from the apron. will get new artwork for that.


Each side of the front of the cab had 4 large carriage bolts. I guess someone installed a security bar at one time over the coin door, so I removed these, more holes to eventually fill!!!


I’ve ordered a new set of rubbers. I’ve got a charity fund raiser pinball day in 2 weeks, so plan is to use this as an additional machine for the day, before I set to and redo the cab and playfield.

 

[stevebm1]

so does it play better with gottlieb flipper mech's rather than bally linear ones?,I guess an owner in the past had broken linear ones,and could not source the correct parts

 

[AlanJ]

so does it play better with gottlieb flipper mech's rather than bally linear ones?,I guess an owner in the past had broken linear ones,and could not source the correct parts

Not really, However I must say I do like the construction of the gotts, so may keep them on when I do the playfield swap. Someone suggested on facebook (Allan Reizman - he was Engineering Lab Supervisor with Bally for years!) that Medusa suffered from weak flippers, so perhaps someone swapped to improve the game.

 

[Poibug]

Only a tiny amount of pins I will buy in the future, but Medusa will be one .
Love it

 

[Jay Walker]

The late Bob Thomson told me about an operator somewhere who routinely fitted Gottlieb flipper mechanisms. That was in preference to the Williams modular flipper though, as I recall.

That's an awful skew on the EoS switch for the upper left flipper, possibly due to the pawl fitted, which looks like a 'linear' flipper part.

What's that additional and unused wiring around the zipper mechanism?

 

[pinballmania]

I had a Bally Kiss here recently with Gottlieb flippers fitted. I removed and replaced them with the correct ones, but there was zero evidence that any other mech had ever been fitted. There were no screw holes where the correct mechs went, except those for the Gottlieb flippers.

 

[AlanJ]

kiss on fire!!!

 

[AlanJ]

The late Bob Thomson told me about an operator somewhere who routinely fitted Gottlieb flipper mechanisms. That was in preference to the Williams modular flipper though, as I recall.

That's an awful skew on the EoS switch for the upper left flipper, possibly due to the pawl fitted, which looks like a 'linear' flipper part.

What's that additional and unused wiring around the zipper mechanism?

yes upper left looks a bit odd.

Not sure what that wiring is. almost looks like the GI lighting wires that have been joined together. I’ll bloom at it when I do the pf swap.

 

[AlanJ]

Machine cost me £1100

New playfield, plastics, new boards, stencils and a ton of parts currently at £1,800 and counting

I guess it’s going to be around £4k to get this really nice

 

[Jay Walker]

That's an awful skew on the EoS switch for the upper left flipper, possibly due to the pawl fitted, which looks like a 'linear' flipper part.

Thinking over this, a 'linear' flipper pawl would have that white plastic bobbin on it, so I'm mistaken. But looking at the few odds & ends I've still got lying about, there seem to be at least four different types over the years;

1. Linear, with that round addition to fit into the cut-out of the plunger
2. 'Pre-linear' with linkage, i.e. a small post to attach a linkage between plunger and pawl, with a washer and hair-clip
3. A similar type, but pinned directly into the plunger (as seems to be fitted)
4. Earliest, without the turned-over 'spaniels ear' for the EoS switch - instead it has a round pin attached for this, "further round", as it were, than the later types

Bearing in mind that the flipper zipper is a '60's gadget, it can probably only use the earliest Bally modular flipper.

Rather hopefully, I thought at first that the £1,800 included the machines' purchase price.

 

[AlanJ]

Crazy isn’t it. £2,918.92 so far! eek

 

[Happypin]

Crazy isn’t it. £2,918.92 so far! eek

Not including your labour, but as we know it’s not about the money.
keep up the brilliant work Alan

 

[AlanJ]

Not including your labour, but as we know it’s not about the money.
keep up the brilliant work Alan

Correct, not including labour. that’s just parts

 

[AlanJ]

Getting it to a players condition playable machine. Clean and re-rubber



Printed some new cards


then some paints arrived, i bought a few cans to try match up the existing paintwork


the outside cab is a brownish colour, but it really should be more purple - best to look inside the cab to match it up properly.

I end up with several cans of the wrong shade but these are useful for inside the cab or undercoats, so don’t get wasted.

 

[AlanJ]

Hate looking at that nasty apron so will take it off and sand it down, and do a prime and base coat ready for new artwork

 

[AlanJ]

 

[AlanJ]

Polishing metal day

Before:


In progress:

 

[AlanJ]

Now I've finished Lost World, it's back on this one. Hoping the good weather will hold out in September so I can get this stripped down and the cabinet and head repaired and re-stencilled.

During Winter I'll swap over the playfield.

 

[AlanJ]

Got stuck straight in. Dismantle :







Now the pesky side rails nails

 

[AlanJ]

Side rails were an absoloute pig to get off, took ages.

Cab in the garage. It’s got the usual rear end issue - missing and flaking chipboard



So my standard fix: First glue and nail a support piece


Then start filling :


Filled a few other holes and dinks


Let that dry then another round of filler tomorrow

 

[Dotteddown]

Absolutely incredible looks a beautiful pin now never mind when she’s done
Wish I had your skills Al

 

[AlanJ]

Struggling to match the original paint. but after a few test cans , i think i’ve got a really good match. It’s acrylic paint, so dries very fast and so will be tricky to stencil with.

In the meantime: metal is getting the de-rust treatment - plastic bits in there too as it also removes the dirt and grime.

 

[Arv]

Alan do you keep reusing that de-rusting stuff? What brand is it also?