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Complete Terminator 2 Restoration

Didn’t get to much done this weekend, but I did finally made a decision on which combination of star posts and rubbers to go with.

Originally I went with red star posts and clear rubbers, but ended up preferring colour matched post rubbers, clear star posts and red titan rubbers all round.

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Also fitted a comet star post kit to the sling shots as well.

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Didn’t get to much done this weekend, but I did finally made a decision on which combination of star posts and rubbers to go with.

Originally I went with red star posts and clear rubbers, but ended up preferring colour matched post rubbers, clear star posts and red titan rubbers all round.

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Also fitted a comet star post kit to the sling shots as well.

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I've got those on the BSD. Not tempted by stumblors offering?

I liked how his doesn't show an exposed wire or PCB.
 
I've got those on the BSD. Not tempted by stumblors offering?

To be honest I bought these a while back when I placed a big order with comet. I’ll see how they look when lit up and possibly swap them out if I’m not keen on the effect they give.
 
Another little job over the weekend was to paint the inside of the skull mod black. @Judderman kindly let me borrow some of his Stuart Semple's Black 2 paint that he mentioned in an earlier post.

The stuff is good. It’s super black and leaves a nice Matt finish. It also covers with ease. Last job to do is the final fitment of the eyes and leds.
I’m also planning on finishing off the cannon modifications as well as hopefully, if my mini press turns up, riveting some new shiny ramp flaps in in place.

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Next job this evening was to finish the canon mod. The cover is another purchase from @Judge Dreads and is a must, when replacing the standard Williams item.
My plan was to light it up at the same time the canon actives during a game.

So after being polished to an inch of its life, I cut a couple of pieces of mirror hips for the side a back.

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Next I cut and fixed a piece of blue acrylic to the underside of the top of the cover.

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After adding 12v led strip light, I had to cut the wires for the laser and splice them together with the led so that they both come on when the canon motor is activated. This was then resoldered back to the connector that came with the mod.

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Final job was to hook it up to a small 12v battery to test it. I’m really pleased with how it turned out and can now cross another job off the list 😀
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As well as the cheap T800 skull that were fitted to these games, they also came with an even cheaper and crappy looking Aerial Hunter Killer ship.

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The one that was on the game when I got it was literally held in place with blue tac 😂 It’s made from wafer thin plastic, so thin it’s close to the thickness of paper.

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The usual mod that is done to this is a piece of coloured acrylic underneath with some leds to light it. However as with the T800 skull, I ideally wanted the Hunter Killer Ship to be a stand out feature on the playfield.

My original plane was to use a die cast or plastic model. However when I tested these, they were either not big enough or they were huge.

I then stumbled upon a small German company that makes an awesome interactive Aerial Hunter Killer. It’s made from a piece of billet aluminium that is mirror polished. It’s fitted with a load of leds underneath as well as in the tail section and thrusters.

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However its main feature, and what I think will really add to the gameplay is that it’s fitted with a small servo motor that moves the ship when the canon is activated. If you then fire the canon and hit the target, the ship shakes from side to side before going back to its stationary position.

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Once I got the instructions translated into English 🤔, it was pretty easy to fit as it comes with some custom brackets to mount it in place.

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As well as the cheap T800 skull that were fitted to these games was probably an even cheaper and crappy looking Hunter Killer ship.

The one that was on the game when I got it was literally held in place with blue tac 😂 It’s made from wafer thin plastic, so thin it’s close to the thickness of paper.
Nice one. I can't remember though weren't they more gun metal grey in the film? I should know really I've watched that film like 30 times!
 
Nice one. I can't remember though weren't they more gun metal grey in the film? I should know really I've watched that film like 30 times!
Yeah in the film they look like a battle damaged grey/silver. It’s hard to tell as you only really see them at night in flash backs.

I wanted something shiny so it would go with the rest of the polished/chrome look of the game.
 
There a few parts on my T2 that I need to re-rivet. I managed to buy a rivet press kit from PinRestore before they unfortunately closed down last year, and a couple of weeks ago I picked up a used 1/2 ton arbour press for £8 off FB. Bargain 😀

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The instructions seemed pretty straight forward in regards to installing the kit. Firstly I had to change all the old bolts due to poor tolerances and then drill out the hold in the base plate and under the press.
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Once the hole was drilled I could install the locating pin. So far so good.

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Next I drilled and tapped a hole at the back of the press for the locating pin chain.

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I then clamped the base plate to the press and drilled the hole from the bottom to locate the locking pin.

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The final job was to install the actual rivet rollover dies. I drilled a hole in the centre of ram to accept the mounting pin.

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Once this was in place I could drill the hole needed for the head die in the arbour base plate. I used some white paint on the rollover die to mark where I needed to drill to locate the head die.

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The head die was a pain to fit but got there in the end. The moment of truth was to see if the 2 dies actually lined up or if I had completely messed it up 😬

Luckily everything looked ok so I could crack on with trying it out.

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There are 2 ramps on T2, a metal ramp and a plastic ramp. Both as standard have black ramp flaps at the bottom, which I had to removed off of the metal ramp in order to get the polishing done.

However I wanted something that would go with the whole chrome look I’m going for, so I got 2 new stainless steel ramp flaps and polished them up to a mirror finish.

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First job was to remove the one from the new plastic ramp by drilling out the old rivets. I then practiced using the rivet press on the old ramp a couple of times just to be sure I didn’t break anything 😂.

Once I was happy with it, I riveted all the parts that needed doing using the rivet set I also picked up from PinRestore before they closed.
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There are 2 ramps on T2, a metal ramp and a plastic ramp. Both as standard have black ramp flaps at the bottom, which I had to removed off of the metal ramp in order to get the polishing done.

I bought new plastic ramp as the old one was cracked and warped slightly, which came with a standard black ramp flap installed.
However I wanted something that would go with the whole chrome look I’m going for, so I got 2 new stainless steel ramp flaps and polished them up to a mirror finish.

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First job was to remove the one from the new plastic ramp by drilling out the old rivers. I then practiced using the rivet press on the old ramp a couple of times just to be sure I didn’t break anything 😂.

Once I was happy with it, I riveted all the parts that needed doing.

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Damn I need one of those!
 
I was originally going to try flame polishing on the plastic ramp, but upon closer inspection, it had some cracks and was slightly warped so I’m glad I went with a new one. It looks some much better imo.73D1BE71-2956-47A7-9CB5-921467523992.jpeg1DA1106A-2573-4DBC-AE26-C76BDF7BE275.jpegE3428D2B-56B9-4DFF-9188-7B01BB2F1A34.jpegFCC5F709-4641-4724-838C-A24268B6F9A7.jpeg176C8553-9467-47CF-8EDA-215A5B046CB0.jpeg
 
When I was working on the playfield at the weekend, I noticed a couple of small holes behind the hunter killer ship, which I didn’t seem to have any part for.

Looking back at my reference photos of the old playfield it confirmed that there was nothing there when I originally got it. However looking at some photos online, I could see that there should have been another wire ball guide rail there.

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I had a measure up and looked online on the usual websites for a 5 1/2” wire ball rail but nowhere had any available. So plan B was to make a new one.

I checked the diameter of one the other rails and it came in at 2.31mm. So ordered a pack of 10 x 2.4mm stainless steel welding rods for only £4.49 off eBay, so I’ve now got plenty should I need to make some more in the future.

I was really pleased that I managed to match up the curvature of the bends so it looked exactly like the originals.

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Final job was to give it a good polish before fitting it in place.

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So when you starting your own Pinball Restoration service? :D

That would be cool, but this is my first pin restoration so I’m still learning loads as I go. I just really enjoy the whole process.

As soon as T2 is finally finished I’m going to crack on with the next 😀
 
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Wow! First time I’ve checked back in to this thread for a while. The detail on this is next level. This has to be the nicest T2 in existence?! Can’t wait to see it finished. The custom skull mod, cannon, ship, insane! Looks so good! Fantastic work 😎👍🏼
 
Wow! First time I’ve checked back in to this thread for a while. The detail on this is next level. This has to be the nicest T2 in existence?! Can’t wait to see it finished. The custom skull mod, cannon, ship, insane! Looks so good! Fantastic work 😎👍🏼

Thanks Dave, really appreciate it. It’s taken a bit longer than I originally thought but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now 😀
 
I’ve been working on the T2 on and off today but pleased with what I got done, considering this job took me a lot longer than I thought it would.

90% of the new plastics have now been fitted. Overall they installed pretty well without any real need of adjustments.

They do look some much better than the old cracked and twisted plastics I took off:-
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New:-
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However the sling shot plastics were a real pain in the **** as they did need some work to get them looking right.

Next few jobs I plan to install the last few plastics and shiney bits, the skull mod and if I have time, the ramps and wire forms.
That will be the playfield fully rebuilt, so I can start to think about getting it back in the cabinet 😀

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It's so shiny 😍

I’ve only got a couple of small extra shiny bits to go on now.

That being said, I picked up the coin door and apron from the chrome platers yesterday. Definitely going to need sunglasses when these are installed 🤩😎
 
I could finally move on to getting the skull mod permanently installed. First job was to fit the plastic that goes underneath the skull.

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This actually took a-bit of time to get right as when I originally did the mock up for the skull and plastics, I didn’t fit the clear top plastic that goes next to the skull.
When I tried yesterday, I could see straight away that it wouldn’t work as the skull was in the way due to it being a lot bigger.

So I took some measurements and cut and shaped the plastic to fit. I also then had to drill a new hole for the black spacer that was needed to support it.

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Once the plastics were in place, I fitted a longer comet matrix extension cable for the eyes and bolted the skull down.

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Had a couple of hours free today to install the left metal ramp. First job was to rivet the new ramp plastic to its mounting brackets.

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Once this was attached to the ramp, I needed to drill a couple of pilot holes in order to screw the lower part of the ramp to the playfield.

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Then it was a simple job of screwing it down and bolting it to the back board.
The plan for tomorrow is to fit the wire form, a lighting mod for the top left plastic and attached and adjust the switches.

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