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TZ outhole kicker - too powerful

DRD

DRD

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The tz out hole kicker can leave 4 balls sat on micro switches. Mine worked fine, but I cleaned the solenoid plunger and replaced the sleeve as it was horribly rusty, covered in old oil, the sleeve was scored. So it was a sticky mess. I cleaned the plunger with brasso to remove the flaking rust, but it is still nastily pitted

Now the damned thing is so powerful that balls bounce back, so it might rake 2 to 4 attempts to get the ball pushed correctly.

The first ball is fine, the second one is fine as they sit further down the little ramp. But the third one regularly bounces back to the bottom of the playfield

It has a 27-1200 coil, I could reintroduce the gunk to slow the coil down, I could roughen the plunger or coil sleeve. I could roughen the pivot points. I could put a stronger return spring on (mine is rusty and a bit weakened) But these seem the wrong fixes. The coil is just too powerful

Is it safe to reduce the number of turns in the coil to make it less powerful? Or do I buy a less powerful coil - I know this is not the done thing, but it would deal with the source of my problem

Thanks
 
Hi,
I'm not quite sure what you're describing; is the third ball to go over the top rebounding off the two already there and ending up returned to the drain position, under the flippers?. If so, there's a non-return wire gate missing from the top of the ramp. I think it's listed as 'Runway Gate Wire' or 'Baffle Wire Form', p/No. 12-6542. It was used until the opto-sensor trough came out, so Twilight Zone was its last appearance.

PS; reducing the number of turns on a coil would make it slightly more powerful.
 
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Hi. Thanks for the advice, your analysis of my game was spot on. I will look into this missing part.
 
Spare part received. All fixed now. Quite remarkable how it worked perfectly under test at the vendor's house. I get home and remove deeply rusty plunger and make it work better.

Then the lost wire becomes an issue!

Twilight zone is putting up a fight
 
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