Sea Island woes

My basement arcade has been a complete mess for the last four years.

Recently I figured out a way to somewhat break the literal logjam of games and I've managed to gain access to some games.

I'm slowly restarting games that have been sitting unused all these years.

I was going over Sea Island. Checking for sticking stepper units. Spinning by hand Control / Mixer and Magic Screen motors for unusual sounds and excessive drag from the clutch washers.

Spinning the fan blade of the Magic Screen motor armature. I heard some unusual clicking sounds from the gearbox. I Immediately suspected my old friend: the G-4114 intermediate gear. Maybe it had stripped as they commonly do.

I had a spare motor I had overhauled so I just swapped it in.

I was curious of the actual failure of the problematic gearbox so I opened it up:

I found some super dark almost solid grease. That's kinda usual for these old gearboxes. I inspected the gears and found they were all good. No broken teeth. But when I would spin the motor, It was skipping teeth... strange.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking more closely, I found the cause. The culprit was the shaft for the other intermediate gear. It's supposed to be pressed into the gearbox clam-shell housing on the armature side but somehow it became loose.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Causing over time for the shaft to wobble and wear out the locating hole on the output side of the housing. The locating hole became oval. The shaft no longer perfectly at a right angle. The gear wasn't meshing square with the adjacent gears.

 

 

 

 

 

The upside is that I now have a spare G-4114 gear. Th downside is that I'm down a Magic Screen motor, the gearbox being fatally ruined.

The rest of the game was OK-ish : I had to de-grease and re-lube the Magic Screen feature stepper unit, the Selection feature stepper unit and the Extra Ball stepper unit. I had to clean the payout unit discs and wipers. Clean the points on the Search Index relay switches.

 

I'm still play testing the game as I write this post.

 

Achievements

I don't know what's happening but recently I've had a series of rarely occurring achievements playing some of my games:

Hitting the four corners on Four Corners

Golden Scores of Venice side game

Double Double Double on Mountain Climber

Hitting 21 on Chinatown.

Things are in motion!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of these games I've just recently taken out of storage.

From the Parts Vault: Vintage Monsanto LED's

Found these vintage LED's in my stash of parts and components:

Monsanto LED's! Made in Kuala Lumpur no less.

These LED's are ancient!

Recommissioning an old friend

 

I decided to pull Four Corners out of storage.

It needed surprisingly little work.

A couple of stepper units had to be cleaned and some new grease applied.

I forgot how fun this game is to play.

Cobbled repair on Can Can Arrangeball

So the other day I was playing my Satomi Miracle Can Can (MC-1) Arrangeball machine when I noticed a ball going into 12, but 12 didn't light up on the card.

I thought it was maybe just a fluke so I played the game some more... 12 definitely didn't light up.

Then I thought it was maybe just the light, so I managed to hit the vertical 4 in line 4 - 8 - 12 - 16 and the win didn't register :-(

So I open the game and at the bottom of the cabinet, 3 small black innocuous looking plastic bits.

 

Those plastic bits were part of the leaf switch for #12. A sort of rigid leaf switch extender, that was originally molded to the end of the switch leaf.

Having no proper replacement parts on hand, I had to cobble something.

I managed to solder a trimmed part of a solder lug from some junk pinball leaf switch blade I had laying around. The width and length was just right. It soldered in surprisingly easy.

I just had to tweak the angle a bit for the switch to close properly.

 

I hate having to cobble stuff together like this but with no spare parts available, what are my options?

 

 

Bally Capersville Pinballspotting

 Capersville Spotted

What a surprise to spot my favorite pinball machine in the 1967 film Le Samouraï directed by Jean-Pierre Melville.

The machine can be seen at the 1:17:30 mark in what appears to be a Café, preceded by a wipe transition from the protagonist's apartment to the Café scene. A jukebox and another pinball machine can be seen in the foreground.

Very good Drama / Film Noir, well recommended.

Capersville is itself inspired by the 1965 Sci-Fi / Film Noir Alphaville.

 

 

Check out my other posts on Bally Capersville

Winning on 1951 Bally Coney Island Bingo

Coney Island is bingo in it's most basic form.

3 card game with extra balls.

This was Bally's second wide release title after Bright Lights.

My strategy playing Coney Island is simple:

When I hit a 3 in line, I bet the won credits to win extra balls. Use the extra balls to hit more winning combinations and repeat.

Here's a look at the strategy p(L)aying out: 113 credits won! 11 credits wagered on extra balls for a total of 124 credits.

 

 

 

 

The game is currently for sale and a game-play demonstration video can be viewed here.