In Progress In my house there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, hobbit, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell.... just a very slightly dirty one

[cmrl9]

Rebuilt the whole spider mech beast the same as the goblin

 

[cmrl9]

Rebuilt the other two the same full service

 

[cmrl9]

The trap doors are an absolute pain in the

Getting the retainer spring in whilst holding it up and the spring

 

[cmrl9]

Each trap door got new decals to go on it's new door

 

[cmrl9]

Had a game to test the beast mechs and got this score


The beast play a massive role in the game rules and wizard modes

All 4 have been rebuilt from scratch with new coils

The previous high score when I got the game was something like 800,000

 

[cmrl9]

Next up was rebuild both vuk, new coils etc

 

[cmrl9]

Rebuilt

 

[cmrl9]

Full service on the ball lock thing by the trough

Changed all the bits except the coil, wasn't needed on this

Before



After

 

[cmrl9]

Started taking off all three flippers and rebuilding.

New flipper bats
New coils
New leaf springs
New end stops
New plunger
New bracket

Old

 

[cmrl9]

Rebuilt



New bats with topper

 

[cmrl9]

Again rebuilt

 

[cmrl9]

Re done

 

[cmrl9]

Flippers bat, nice

 

[cmrl9]

Played a game to test all the flippers

On the second game got this score

 

[cmrl9]

Rebuilding all the beasts and flippers made a massive difference

The vuk also now the ball launches up first time rather than the 4 or 5 goes it was doing before

 

[cmrl9]

Starting on the playfield

Took the apron off and removing the kickback

Old

 

[cmrl9]

Old on the right, new on left

Rebuilt totally

Coil
Etc

 

[cmrl9]

Rebuilt

 

[cmrl9]

Have a full set of new old stock plastics

 

[cmrl9]

Started on the playfield,

Old platics



Filth



Fully striped and replaced

Filth



Shiny new plastics, love pulling the plastic off



Other plastic off




Dirty







Cleaned re rubbered themed coloured



New pinsound balls, put one in the lock thing



New plastics again, new ball



Even took the trough out what a pain



Nice and clean



Smaug mouth didn't move, typical problem, got a new motor with the machine. Took smaug apart, what a pain to do. Like a real pain..





Back together




Pops attacked, original yellow going



Filth again




Filthly metal



Filthy plastics all and I mean all plastics have been replaced with new old stock.





Replace both slings full rebuilt



Finished

Replaced all plastics

Themed rubbers

Mechs replaced

lE axes on slings











Sea is now all blue






Put a keyless lock because the headphone volume is linked to the main volume which is stupid so easily adjusted

 

[cmrl9]

What's been done:

All three flippers totally rebuilt with new coils

Two up kickers rebuilt with new coils

Both slings rebuilt with new coils and LE slings and plastics

Drain lane kickback rebuilt with new coil

Drain lane ball lock thing rebuilt

All four beast totally rebuilt with new coils

Playfield fully stripped double cleaned then waxed with pinheadz

Metal ramps taken out and clean with pinheadz metal polish

All metal in the serviced mechs cleaned and polished with metal cleaner autosol

All ball ramps taken off and cleaned

All plastics replaced with New old stock

All rubbers replaced with themed titan colour rubbers

Flipper bats replaced with jersey jack and topped with custom gold coins toppers

New pinsound balls

Keyless lock

Shooter rebuilt and custom shooter rod

Custom start button

New gold leg levelers

New green powder coated bolts with yellow washers

So basically alot, machine plays fantastic now, like new

 

[cmrl9]

Last thing to do

 

[cmrl9]

Is fit the side art blades, but that needs a bit of prep

 

[cmrl9]

As doing it properly

 

[neil1637]

Amazing stuff. Looking forward to the final photoshoot.

 

[cmrl9]

Also full cliffy set to fit, but it's a long wait for that! Ordered but he currently has at least a three month backlog

 

[cmrl9]

Amazing stuff. Looking forward to the final photoshoot.

Thanks, the machine has turned out great, the main motivation for doing it was it just didn't feel like it played properly, my hunch was right, it's now night and day different. (Also I like my machines in tip top clean condition, but that's more me being fussy! )

It's a classic example of every thing worked, except smaug mouth, which is a nice trick but Purely cosmetic, however it didn't really. Flippers where weak, you couldn't seem to make shots, beasts didn't seem to do anything in the game, mechs where tired, the left drain kickback again didn't seem to do what it was designed for which is to hit the right outer scoop.

I've seen this before on other people older games, especially 90's ones and early 2000's you play them, yes they function but there something not quite right, you can't seem to progress how you think you should. It's almost always because repairs haven't been done properly.

I just don't know why you would go to the trouble of taking the time to repair a mech, but only doing the minimum, it doesn't normally solve the root cause of the problem especially if the mech never been fully serviced.

There obviously exceptions you wouldn't take apart a stern spike 2, unless it's been absolutely hammered on a site.

 

[cmrl9]

Just to go back to theme is king for non pinball players

Wife actually had multiple goes on her own yesterday, this was such a major event I even took a video for evidence and a pic!

 

[cmrl9]

She seemed to get excited by the new moving sling axes

 

[cmrl9]

Thanks to @mplayfield for providing the nos plastics from his den of parts