Job 6: Refinishing the Head

Finally, we get to some of the big jobs. As I wrote in an earlier post, the machine is in good mechanical shape, but needed a cosmetic facelift. Over 40 years of dings, scrapes, grime and cigarette burns have taken their toll on my Fun Land, but there are no major holes or cracks to address. However, this part of the restoration did take me a few weeks, mainly because I had to wait for layers of paint to dry.

I figured the best way to do it was to break up the cabinet refinishing into smaller jobs and tackle one at a time, starting with the head. First, I took out the backglass and the mechanical guts and set them aside. EM machines are so easy to take apart - everything is modular.

Next, I sanded it town to the bare wood. It was made in the 60's, so they probably used lead-based paint.

I filled in a few of the small dings and gouges with wood filler and gave the whole thing a coat of primer.

Then, I was ready to paint. I chose a classic creamy off-white - the color of a vanilla milkshake - rather than a stark white.

Next, it was time to stencil the designs back on.

Finally, it was time to re-install the hardware and mechanical parts. Looking beautiful!

I also re-finished the pedistal at the same time. I decided to re-assemble everything, just to make sure the electrical connections were good.

And it works beautifully!  Notice how the blue and red are a perfect match to the un-refinished body cabinet. And how clean and bright the head looks next to the body.  

Just as a reminder, here's the head before restoration:

...and here it is now:

Job 5: Soldering

Upon close inspection under the playfield, I found that the leads on a couple of relays had come unsoldered. It was a quick repair. While I had the iron out, I also too care of this:

The transformer was wired for medium voltage...

So I moved the wire over to the high voltage node. That should give the pops and kickers a little extra oomph.

 

Job 4: Cleaning & Waxing

This is one of the bigger jobs and one that will make a huge difference in the game's performance and appearance.  First, I needed to strip the playfield of all the major components and light bulbs.

I made sure to lay out all the removed pieces in their relative positions to make re-assembly easier. The rubbers were so old and out of shape that if they didn't crumble right off their posts, they held their shape. There was no bounce left in any of them.

Here's what I found in the corners of the stripped playfield - years of dust, grime and gunk.

I started with a basic de-greasing cleaner and a clean cotton rag to get the major grime off, used Novus 2 and 3 for the next levels of dirt and touched up with rubbing alcohol and a Magic Eraser for the gunk that was stuck between the grains of wood.  Then, while I cleaned the posts and plastics with Novus 3, everything got three coats of carnuba wax.  

The brand new flipper bats are installed and all the plastics were added back into place with brand new rubber parts.

Look at that shine!  Beautiful once again. And I love how the old off-white posts contrast against the new white rubbers.

Job 3: New Lightbulbs

My Marco order arrived and the first order of business is replacing all the dead bulbs.  It makes a huge difference!

Job 2: Spin Relay

The main feature of Fun Land is the spinners, which do a lot of different things. They're the main gateway to the top of the playfield, making them an important target during the game. Activating the spinners also advances the arrows around the dial in the center of the playfield.

If the arrow stops on a lighted number, it scores a free game. This feature works fine. The spinners also score points of their own, alternating between 5, 50 or 500 points (as indicated by lighted inserts). This feature did not work and it didn't take long to figure out why.

This mechanism is the spin relay and Fun Land has two of them. One controls the arrow lights and the other one (the broken one) controls the spinner scoring and score lights. When the spinner spins it moves a leaf switch, which activates a magnet on the relay. The magnet pulls and releases a metal armature with a claw on the end, which turns a plastic gear attached to a pair of contacts on a printed circuit board. Changing the position of the contacts changes which lights are lit and what score is added.  It's a very clever piece of engineering.

I looked at the working one and I looked at the broken one and realized that the claw part of the armature had broken off. I was incredibly lucky because the broken bit was sitting on the bottom of the cabinet. I wish I had taken "before" photos.

I first tried super glue but that barely held. Next, I used some stronger stuff - JB Weld adhesive epoxy  - and it didn't work much better. Then I had the brilliant idea to splint the broken piece on with some metal wire, so I put down a layer of the epoxy, pressed two short wires over the fissure, and covered them with more epoxy. When it was dry, I did the same thing to the back.  There were two problems with this: first, the wires on the bottom were hitting the magnet, preventing the armature from moving completely and it wouldn't push the gear. Second, the wires were too short and the piece broke off again after only a few spins. But I felt I was on the right track, so on the fourth attempt I epoxied one long wire to the top, close to the inside and another long wire on the back near the edge, away from where the magnet hit.

Success!  This arrangement has held up ever since and the spinners now work perfectly! I had the wire already and spent about $5 on epoxy - so much better than buying a new armature online for $14.50.

Job 1: Small Stuff

I've made my first assessment of my Fun Land pinball machine and was at last ready to make my first parts order. I checked out Pinball Resource and Bay Area Amusements but, even though they're a little more expensive, Marco Specialties was the only resource that had everything on my list and I know from experience that they're lightning fast and highly dependable.  Here's my shopping list:

• 50 #44 bulbs
• Game-specific rubber ring kit
• Game schematic
• Felt cabinet protectors (that go between the legs and body)
• A leaf switch blade
• A set of leg levelers
• New acorm post caps for the plastics
• Two keyless latch locks
• A pair of plastic flipper bats
• A bag of 100 4" cable ties

While I was waiting for the order to arrive, there were a few small things I could do. First, I disconnected the tilt mechanism.

I tried adjusting it first, but that thing is so sensitive that I ended up unscrewing the wire and disabling the whole thing. Now I can play a decent game.

Next, I set out to clean the contacts. The best tool for the job is good old fashioned US currency - the linen paper has just the right texture and weight. Just fold it up, slip it between the contacts, press them together, and pull the paper out. So how dirty were my leaf switches? Here's Abe before I started:

And here he is after cleaning all the contacts:

It's amazing what a difference clean contacts make. Bulbs that I thought were dead came back to life and features that I thought I'd have to take apart started working. Finally, it was easy enough to create new instruction cards, so I got that done too.

Assessment Part 2

The next step would be to have a look inside the machine and with no keys, this would be a challenge. I Googled "how to pick a lock" and learned the basic theories involved, all while getting red flagged by various law enforcement agencies. About an hour of experimenting, jiggling and jabbing at the lock with paperclips and tiny screwdrivers, I got the coin door open!  I immediately took the lock off the door and made a note to add a new one to my shopping list. Two in fact - the back box needed a new one as well.

I knew from my previous machines how to get the lock bar off and slide the glass out, but it took a minute to figure out that there's a second lever inside the machine. I pulled to release it and the playfield and lifted right up.

I was surprised to find it relatively clean! Just a few cobwebs in the corners, some dust, and bits of stale popcorn, along with a handful of loose bulbs, washers and nuts rolling around on the bottom.  I can't wait to explore around and figure out what all this does. 

The underside of the playfiled was also relatively clean for a 40+ year-old game and I just spotted a few places that would need attention.  With the machine open I could start making a shopping list and come up with a plan for getting everything in proper working order!