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Pop Bumper issue

RudeDogg1

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10 Years
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Dec 27, 2012
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Barnstaple, Devon
Just started stripping the top of my bsd playfield to give it a quick clean and fix a couple issues. I noticed white dust everywhere. It's coming from the pops the 2 metal arms that connect to the ring seem to be rubbing. Is there any way to stop this? As far as I can see there is no way to adjust the play when it pulls the ring up and down.

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The pop bumber mech can get bent out of alignment. I would strip it down to see if one of the metal pieces is bent - the pop bumper bracket (as was the case on my scared stiff), or the pop bumper ring
 
The pop bumber mech can get bent out of alignment. I would strip it down to see if one of the metal pieces is bent - the pop bumper bracket (as was the case on my scared stiff), or the pop bumper ring

All 3 are like it tho, be surprised if they are all bent
 
Just took the other pop caps off look at the state of this mess

uploads.tapatalk_cdn.com_20170617_8247279bdd635f332ebccc5ec2351080.jpg

Got a new set of rings and fitted one but doesn't look any diff looks like I'm gonna have to strip the mechs
 
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Could it be that metal plate underneath which bolts on to the rings broken ?
Think it's called yoke ?
 
No they are all fine the only thing that wasn't quite right was the amount of play in the coil in the bracket which I've now tightened
 
Time for a full rebuild of those poor pop bumpers.

Unless the playfield wood is physically warped there's no way for this kind of damage to happen unless the plastic (and less likely, metal) parts of the pop bumper are worn and bent to the point where there is contact.

There's nothing special to worry about, you're just looking at probably the effects of someone cheaping out and only replacing a part of the bumper at a time. The fact that pops require removing wood staples and mandatory desoldering/resoldering (in Williams games at least) to fully rebuild means that they're neglected far too often.
 
Time for a full rebuild of those poor pop bumpers.

Unless the playfield wood is physically warped there's no way for this kind of damage to happen unless the plastic (and less likely, metal) parts of the pop bumper are worn and bent to the point where there is contact.

There's nothing special to worry about, you're just looking at probably the effects of someone cheaping out and only replacing a part of the bumper at a time. The fact that pops require removing wood staples and mandatory desoldering/resoldering (in Williams games at least) to fully rebuild means that they're neglected far too often.

Erm... I rebuilt them just over a year ago using all proper parts. So they have actually had bugger all use which annoys me the most
 
I have never seen a pop bumper do this unless the bracket or ring is bent

If you rebuilt with new parts, my guess would be

1. The new parts were the wrong ones
2. The new parts were the wrong manufacturer specification. I rebuilt the ones on my scared stiff. I found that the metal and fibre yokes from some suppliers for example are not the same thickness as the original ones so you get play at the plunger
 
All the correct parts from the legend the only things I didn't change were the brackets, coils and plungers and the rings at the time but now changing the rings to and checking the brackets arnt bent
 
The amount of slop required in the setup of a pop bumper to get the grinding you've shown is really high. You should be able to physically move the bumper ring yourself, if any part of it moves except the ring, and even then only straight up and down, something is either not fixed down right or is totally distorted. These things are supposed to be pretty damn immobile.

Unfortunately if you've recently rebuilt them you're going to have to take it fully apart and measure everything to find out what the cause of failure is. I don't think I could reassemble my F-14's pop bumper to do that if I tried to, sort of not screwing anything in.

EDIT: Just had a thought, I would take it fully apart and inspect the playfield holes for the bumpers. If the holes are hogged out (widened) you would be able to reassemble tightly but it would not align properly.
 
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Pop bumpers are an absolute pig to mess around with. Especially the system 11s with the ridiculous stack of leaf springs.
 
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