I last left off with my restore the weekend before Thanksgiving.  I had some "me" time on Sunday, so I decided to take off the legs to sand and spray paint them with a nice flat black textured finish from Rust-o-leum.  They turned out as good as expected, which is often pretty rare for paint.  After a few days of letting the legs dry, I received another parts order in the mail.  The wife was kind enough to take over the nightly duties with the kids on Tuesday (kind in that we hosted her entire entire family for Thanksgiving from Wednesday to Sunday) and I was able to knock out a few hours working on my machine.

I had ordered a new set of levelers for the legs, since the others were a bit rusted out.  Getting your game level is essential for good play, so spending the $10 or so it costs for new levelers is a no-brainer; I replace the levelers on every pin I get, unless they are already very nice.  I also ordered some cabinet protectors, which not only keep the legs from digging into the wood of the cabinet, but also look fantastic.  I went with yellow for this machine, but I might switch them out with green or light blue the next time I put in an order.  You will notice from the picture, that I also put on a new Bally sticker on the coin door, the color on the previous one had completely faded to gray.
 

I purchased some chrome polish/rust remover a few days earlier at an auto parts store and shined up several of the ball throughs on the playfield, the chrome which holds the glass, coin door, lock down bar, and side rails.  The majority of the night was spent installing some new white flipper bats.  Since the flippers were playing pretty strong, I decided not to do an entire rebuild for this machine.  Instead, I replaced the coil sleeves and plastic bushings that house the flipper rods on all three flippers.  These parts tend to mushroom, bend, and muck up, and for less than $15, I was able to replace the bats and get them operating smoothly.  With new flippers, new rubbers, balls, levelers, and a waxed playfield, I could already tell that the game was playing completely different than before; shots that were more difficult earlier, became a lot easier to make, the ball bounced better off of slings and posts, and raising the pitch made for a faster and less "floaty" game.  **Sorry, not picture of the flippers.  I'll try to include one next time**

Though it was getting late, I pushed through and decided to install the new topper.  While not a part of the original machine, I thought that the 3-D topper (which came with my plastics order) was so well done, that I decided to use it.  It really goes well with the theme of the machine and basically plays off the backglass.  The artwork for the topper is actually original to the machine and can be found above the rollover lanes.  I think it really adds to the experiece and I might rig up some way to light it up in the future.


Well.................I did manage to fudge during my wife's familys visit and sneak out to my machine to put on the spinner decals that arrived in the mail on Friday.


After a long and arduous Thanksgiving, I decided that I would like to go ahead and tackle the drop targets that I had been dreading.  I called my buddy over and we decided to tackle those tonight (Monday).  It wasn't quite the major pain in the ass that I was expecting. but it still took us a few hours to dismantle some of the mechanisms and ensure that they were working properly.  Completely worth the effort:






It seems that the game is playing top notch now and that the only thing left are a few minor repair issues (replace knocker coil), cosmetic addtions (new pop bumper caps, black leg bolts), and install some brighter and more efficient LED lights to really make it pop.  I have sunk a few hundred additional dollars into this machine to get it in great playing and physical condition.  I was reassured on my investment after I followed this listing on eBay:  http://www.ebay.com/itm/1..._trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649. Though this lisitng included a new reproduction playfield, if I ever decided to sell this machine, I feel confident that I could at least triple my investment.  Not bad.

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