1952 Gottlieb Chinatown trap hole pinball machine repair: Day five

1952 Gottlieb Chinatown pinball

Day 5... and beyond

Day five consisted of test and tune. Play, observe, fix, adjust and repeat.

Fun Fact: Front door is from a 1951 Gottlieb Globe Trotter

Here is a list of problems that was found during test play:

Changed a few more lamp sockets that fell apart shortly after being relamped.

Cleaned and lubricated the pivots on the slingshots, flippers and outhole flap.

"1" hole wouldn't register: Switch gapped too close would close and trip relay at reset due to vibration. Readjusted.

"I' dead bumper not lit: "I" trip relay would tip during reset from mechanical interference of shutter opening and closing. Moving a few wires solved this

"W" switch wouldn't register: Broken wire on the switch lug.

"8" hole would count up to infinity when capturing ball and trip relay wouldn't trip: cold solder on the coil's lug. Reflowed and good to go.

Stock trip bank coil lug picture, Not from Chinatown

21 light panel wouldn't light due to trip relay not tripping: again, cold solder on one the coil lug. Reflowed.

Gong... 21!

Game not resetting properly from time to time:

Some of the wiper fingers on the 100 000 point unit were a bit too worn out.

100 000 points unit

Causing the fingers to catch on one of the contact pads and the wiper not resetting completely to zero. The zero on the 100 000 unit closes a switch that allows the reset sequence to continue.

100 000 points unit at 0 closing switch

 I found some good wiper fingers in my parts stash and swapped out the worn out ones.

Worn out wiper fingers. the tip isn't supposed to have a flat spot

Gameplay rules:

5 balls per play

C or A rollovers light pop bumpers

Completing C-H-I-N-A not in sequence lights the center top rollover to score replays.

Completing C-H-I-N-A-T-O-W-N, again not in sequence lights the bottom center rollover to score replays.

T-O-W-N

Any number hole combination that adds up to 21 scores 1 replay.

Trap holes... It's a trap

1-2-3-4-5 trap holes score 1 replay

5-6-7-8-9 trap holes score 1 replay

No out hole so the balls are played until every ball is trapped by the numbered holes.

Tilt ends game.

The chrome triangular flap at the bottom of the playfiels between the flippers is to evacuate ball(s) during game reset if game was previously tilted with free (non trapped) balls in play.

Personal Impressions:

Owning similar Williams games from the same era (Spark Plugs and Four Corners), I don't find Chinatown as fun as it's Williams counterparts. Maybe the comparison isn't fair, however. It doesn't have that "one more game" appeal. I did find myself wanting to play the game from time to time but I'm not sure if it was more for testing purposes than actual want to play.

The obvious gameplay objective is to score 21 and that feature is pretty cool. The machine adds up the trap hole values for you on the right side of the backglass under "Points". Maybe the 21 feature was a "skill game" kind of thing. Hitting a perfect 5 ball 21 would get you a beer or a cigar at the bar?

The real question:

Is it a gambling machine?

The flippers are anemic, they feel almost vestigial. The bottom slingshots, like in a late pre flipper game, or a later Bally Queens game makes the game lively. Makes you want to nudge the game to reveal the full power of those slingshots.

Slingshot

There is no out hole. In a game of skill, you have to risk losing the ball. With Chinatown, you bat around the ball until it is trapped by one of the numbered holes.

Hidden behind the flippers, handle to lift up the playfield carved in the wood apron.

It doesn't have a knock off button, but the credit unit reset coil has a special adjustment to fully reset to zero, so it's a bit of a clever work around. However, the credit unit only goes up to 26.

What do you think: Gambling machine or not? Or maybe light gambling?

I have the back door for the head. But my basement ceiling isn't high enough to reinstall it