In Progress BALLY WULFF FIREBALL CLASSIC. Evening update....

[new forest pinball]

We were not going to repair this part exchange machine as it was coming straight in and out to our usual contact locally that gets first shout on all our part exchanges, but he is currently under the doctor. Never played one so we got curious. Here's the deal.....
THE GOOD.
Very nice non-faded original backglass. (Very rare in this game they are all faded, normally).
That's pretty much it ! Unless you count all boards and score displays present. (We definitely would of done on our Dolly Parton).
Here's a picture of the backglass.


THE BAD.
Not to sure where to start on this, rather a large list unfortunately. But some of the jobs are interesting we think.....So let's do this....
Tripping mains out on power-up. No connectors on solenoid driverboard. (Cables soldered directly to the back of the pcb!!..eeekkk!).
See picture.

Lots of very bodged repairs (we use this term loosely!). And patch ups on the playfield. The worst is the captive ball area. On this game it's held in by two hook shaped plastics which break, causing the captive ball to fall out! This leads to all kind of crazy , wild post fitting and drilling to keep the ball in place and still be able to hit it!!.....In this case three posts have been added. These will need to be removed and playfield removed. Plastics will be remade by our very own @Colywobbles . SEE PIC. With 3 incorrect posts identified.



All three pop bumper caps broken/glued(with wood glue..lol.) and big Philips screw thru the top....terrible, shocking, bodgetastic!


Medusa cap missing altogether, and a blue one used in its place.....crazy...
Another common problem on these machines is the centre yellow "mushroom" bumper gets a real bashing, so is pretty much 99% broken and missing and replaced with a stand up target....this is the case with our game. A second hand one has been sourced from the USA as new bodies are very hard to source these days, being mainly an old E.M. Part. SEE PIC.




Screws addd here...why??.....awful!...
Side rails glued on no longer stapled, so they have been removed...going to respray them but not sure what colour?...definitely not black!..
Maybe yellow,red or what about the sky blue in the backglass? What do you think!.more bad points to follow...here is a picture to prove it's a wulff (games manufactured in Germany to lower costs).

Watch this space...let's save a rare fireball classic!....Keef.

 

[MajesticPinball]

Interesting machine, I'm sure it will be a stunner once you're finished with it!

 

[Slamtilt]

Interesting mods, who needs connectors anyway! How about dark blue on the side rails, to match the colour on the plastics.

 

[myPinballs]

Love fireball , love fireball 2, love fireball classic

I have a new fireball back glass em version coming from USA via cpr

 

[new forest pinball]

Hi Everyone, hope this update finds you all safe and well?
Had a chance to do a bit on this today...so time for a well overdue update......FIRST...and you are going to love this one......
Was tripping out the workshop main fuseboard...reason plug was wired incorrectly, blue to live, earth to neutral , and brown to earth!..lol. Think it was connected in the dark! So that was a pleasant surprise for a change! Still no boot up but the g.i. Is on. (Well some of it anyways).
Next if you recall we had the wonderful solenoid re-wire job!....here’s a reminder..no sockets just hard wired...

So first thing to do is de-solder all those wires and put in a couple of new pin connectors from good ole Big Daddy..like this..


Tidy up the solder on the rear...

Then fit a couple of nice new connectors...beautiful..this job is a paradox, beacause it is particularly boring but when completed so satisfying...one of life’s many pinball mysteries my friends..........new connectors...nooice!


Still no boot up. Mpu pcb led permanently off so best place to start is the battery cell. The one on this mpu looks ancient. Lots of corrosion. So replaced with a remote battery pack and bingo she boots!.....yippee!.....All solenoids operational except for the ball eject. (Pretty essential!....he he!). Others intermittent so u3 and u4 replaced and have all solenoid power.


Playfield stripped foam cleaned and t-cut. Ball trail from out hole to skill shot sanded out to a reasonable degree...new star posts fitted.(red) and new white posts installed. Here is a picture of the new posts(white and red) and those two horrible screws removed, with the correct size rubbers fitted.


Pop bumpers rebuilt. With correct caps and red bumper skirts. Art work corrected. (Of a fashion , artwork is not my strong point). And Mylar rings installed.


Note also in the above picture the yellow mushroom bumper has been refitted.......as per original machine.
Flippers rebuilt and inserts refurbed but do require another layer of lacquer.......


To be continued.....interestingly I seem to be the only member on pinside to own a Bally fireball classic??...surely not...maybe others just not listed it in their game collections.....more progress tomorrow......ciao fer now doodes.........

 

[new forest pinball]

Some more progress.......side rails painted dark blue to match the plastics. Apron sprayed orange and redecalled, but it was to cold and the paint has orange peeled...so not happy with it. Maybe redo when it warms up a bit!?...



Decided to re-paint the legs as they are all different shades of black or grey....gloss red!.....these turned out nice...
I will fit them later and take a picture.....

Cleaned up the backglass with windowleeen and a Stanley knife blade..come up lovely...put some comet 2smd superbrites behind each fireball! Looks awesome!.....

W
Going to attempt some playfield touch ups around the spinning disc as has a lot of wear...also the knocker is missing from the cabinet so I will replace that and fit a new speaker next...more to follow this afternoon...here is the playfield around the disc!....

 

[new forest pinball]

So started of this afternoon with touching up the artwork around the spinning disc.......matching up the orange paint was the toughest.....just need to redecal the “thousands” with dark blue...but it’s so thin...need a very small artist brush for that. Then I will lacquer it, otherwise it will just chip off real quick. Here it is..quite happy with it......?....



Replaced the missing knocker, with an old one from a scrapped hgot..(those were the days when we scrapped old Bally ss).



New 6.5” JBL two way speaker fitted.....no sound from this yet, I will get to that later......



One of the pop bumper brackets had broken in half causing a lot of movement when activated, so the coil had burnt out as well.
So new bracket and new coil fitted...



Red legs fitted and a new clear red start button to match the original flipper buttons....looks cool!....



Clear red target fitted with a wired comet led face on!....should look cool once the captive ball and associated plastics are re-installed.......


No sound currently...so we will investigate that problem tomorrow...it’s got a Bally cheap squeak board......

 

[astyy]

Thank you for this thread, it's a little ray of sunshine

Please tell more about the "laquer", which product, over touchups only or whole pf?