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Any Pinball Fans Out There?

turbine68rt

turbine68rt

Turbine Bronze Member
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Picked up this Bally Playboy from a neighbor's estate sale last fall. He had it since the late 80's and never really put any money into it. After a thorough cleaning, replacing the main power and sound boards, resoldering some loose bulb wiring, replace all bulbs, rebuilt flipper mechs, new LED scoreboards, and a new rubber kit, it plays like it's 1979 again. One of the nice features of the early solid state scoring machines is the ability to show self diagnosing fault codes. This was a very popular machine in those days with a run of 18,250 units.
20250622_110452.jpg
 
I have a really early build High Speed by Williams. A can of DeOxIt, a can of CRC Silicone spray, waterless car wash for the play field, and some brown paper bag cut to strips for contact scrubbing and you can maintain them for years.

Relocate the batteries off the circuit board.

Marco pinball is a great resource for parts.

17506066518559102013127456665015.jpg
 
Billccm said:
Relocate the batteries off the circuit board.
Click to expand...
I made sure to get an all new board that eliminates the external battery. The original board was toast because of the leaking original rechargeable battery corroding the traces.
 
my older sister and her first husband owned a roller skating rink........ with a game room full of pinball machines...... I worked the snack bar and played a ton of pinball for free

this was my favorite......

1750610959584.png
 
This old Gottleib was in my wife's family for many years. Ended up broken in her father's shop. When he passed I made sure that we got it. Had to spend a bit to get her up and running again but it was well worth it. Almost nobody comes into the shop without playing it. One of my son-in-laws liked it so much he bought a similar vintage Gottlied (Sky Jump) and it has the same popularity there. Even with the little kids. We both also own slot machines, but the novelty of those machines wore off. Not so with the pinballs.
IMG_9369.jpg
 
Billccm said:
I have a really early build High Speed by Williams. A can of DeOxIt, a can of CRC Silicone spray, waterless car wash for the play field, and some brown paper bag cut to strips for contact scrubbing and you can maintain them for years.

Relocate the batteries off the circuit board.

Marco pinball is a great resource for parts.

View attachment 1873493
Click to expand...
The High Speed and Fun House were two of my all time favorites.
 
Used to go to this one place and 'learnt' just how much 'persuasion' this one machine would take and got pretty good on it. It was about that time that I thought that I had better things to do besides playing that stuff. lol
 
Anything in the Williams Comet/Cyclone/Pinbot series (including that High Speed) are my favorites.
 
turbine68rt said:
The High Speed and Fun House were two of my all time favorites.
Click to expand...
Electronic and mechanical is the same between the two machines. Just a different play field and ROM programs.
 
YY1 said:
Anything in the Williams Comet/Cyclone/Pinbot series (including that High Speed) are my favorites.
Click to expand...
They are all very similar in computing hardware and architecture. Fairly easy machines to repair and maintain.
 
Ah pinball. My favorite game. Would love to get a machine so the wife and I could play together.

41 years ago. I was playing the only one at the club on the Navy base in Philly and had racked up enough games I was playing for free. I had a pitcher of beer on a little table on my left and went to fill my glass between games and noticed a attractive woman that was watching me play. I asked her if she wanted to play and we owned that machine the rest of the evening. We have been married 40 years..
 
Comet
Cyclone
Funhouse
Pinbot
Gorgar
Bride of Pinbot
High Speed
Taxi

What am I missing?


Black Knight was pretty cool, but I found the "action" of the Williams games more to my liking.
 
Only EMs for me for pinball - buy 'em broke and fix 'em. I'm partial to Gottlieb Wedgehead add-a-ball:
Neptune, Lucky Hand, Ship Ahoy currently
Three William's games; (2) Dealers Choice, Triple Action
Other coin-op:
United "Clover" Shuffle Bowler
Aristocrat 25¢ Slot
Rock-o-la 418 and 408 jukes
Arachnid darts
Joust and Cosmic Avenger stand-up video
 
MarkLevi said:
Only EMs for me for pinball - buy 'em broke and fix 'em. I'm partial to Gottlieb Wedgehead add-a-ball:
Neptune, Lucky Hand, Ship Ahoy currently
Three William's games; (2) Dealers Choice, Triple Action
Other coin-op:
United "Clover" Shuffle Bowler
Aristocrat 25¢ Slot
Rock-o-la 418 and 408 jukes
Arachnid darts
Joust and Cosmic Avenger stand-up video
Click to expand...
EM? You're a braver man than me. I've fixed them, but they are not for the faint of heart. Many pinball shops don't repair EM nowadays. Good for you!
 
All of the games below are basically the same architecture and in my opinion one of the best in reliability and ease of service.


Bad cats - Nov. 1989. 11B
Banzai Run - May 1988. 11B
Big guns - Oct. 1987. 11A
Black Knight 2000 - April 1989. 11B
Bugs Bunny Birthday Ball - Jan. 1991. 11C (the last system 11 game made)
Cyclone - Feb. 1988. 11B
Diner - Sept. 1990. 11C
Dr. Dude - Nov. 1990.11C
Earthshaker - Feb. 1989. 11B
Elvira and the Party Monsters - Oct. 1989. 11B
F -14 tomcat - March 1987. 11A
Fire! - August 1987. 11A
Gameshow - April 1990. 11C
Grand Lizard - April 1986. System 11
High Speed - Jan 1986. System 11 (the first system 11 game made and the highest production run at 17080)
Jokerz - Dec. 1988. 11B
Millionaire - Jan. 1987. 11A
Mousin around - Dec. 1989. 11B
Pin*Bot - Oct. 1986. 11A
Police Force - August 1989. 11B
Pool sharks - June 1990. 11C
Radical! - Sept. 1990. 11C (lowest production run at 1315)
Riverboat Gambler - Nov. 1990.11C
Road Kings - July 1986. System 11
Rollergames - June 1990. 11C
Space Station - Dec. 1987. 11B
Swords of fury - June 1988. 11B
Taxi - August 1988. 11B
Transporter - April 1989. 11B
Whirlwind - Jan. 1990. 11B
 
Wife bought me the Dungeons and Dragons for my 30th birthday (33 years ago). Rare to get one that still has the upper bolt on strobe light box, as they were too tall to fit in many arcades. I did a full refurb on it while I was finishing the basement "daycare" centre a few years ago. Over 100 bulbs, new rubbers, tracing wiring faults, external memory battery holder etc. GD 1 plays it now at 46 months old.
 
For a while, I had a stand up Tekken II, won at game auction for $200 around 2002.

New wife didn't like it and I almost couldn't get rid of it.

The local coin op place didn't even want it.

Not sure why. Perfect except missing lock for back panel.

She now apologizes profusely for that.

My best friend has a sit down Ms Pac Man.

I guess that is some sort of grail.
 
We've had these 2 for 25-30 yrs and have done a fair amount of repairs on them to keep them working. Found both through a now-defunct employee weekly classified listing. Paid $350 for the X's & O's game and $500 for the Eight Ball Deluxe.

20250622_192307.jpg
 
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