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.

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

1952 Gottlieb Chinatown trap hole pinball machine repair: Day four

1952 Gottlieb Chinatown pinball

Day four

By the end of day three, I had a mostly working Chinatown. At the press of the start button, the game would reset properly most of the time (this would require further investigation). The next step was cleaning the playfield...

It's dirty but it works

I have to admit this is the part I dislike the most about pinball machine repair. I know a few fellow collectors that quite enjoy it. Not me. I can spend 30 hours repairing a dilapidated C title EM chasing down some fruity intermittent problem, but when it comes to detailing a playfield, I start thinking to myself. WTF am I doing this for?

Despite my dislike for playfield cleaning, I persevered...
My cleaning technique goes as follows. I start at the top of the playfield. I use a medium bristle brush and a vacuum cleaner to remove the dirt and loose material. Then I use Novus 2 on the wood and art. One pass with Novus and a soft cotton rag. When the rag gets dirty, I get another rag. Then with a dry clean soft rag I buff out the cleaned section. Repeat as necessary.

Work in progress

Section by section, I remove the posts and/or plastics. Clean and buff. I use Autosol on metal parts. I take out the metal parts and polish them on the workbench. Work my way down the playfield.  It was a pretty long process. Took me a whole afternoon. I re-lamp and re-rubber as I go. I use #51 lamps in the pop bumpers and dead bumpers. They're not as bright, but they won't interfere with the cap.

Clean Playfield. New lamps and new rubbers

Once I was done with the cleaning cleaning, I start a game... Disaster! The ball return flap solenoid locks up. The trip bank doesn't reset at all and I hear the chant of the ever cycling score motor! Poke at a few relays with a stick. No effect...Turn the game off.

This was right around dinner time. I pannick a bit. Go to my computer. Find a paper copy of the schematic for sale on ebay. Buy it. Might get it in the mail in a couple of weeks best case scenario...

Then I pause for dinner.

After dinner, I go back to the game. Have a look in the backbox. Look at the jones connectors at the bottom and find that one was half popped out unplugged. Plug it in properly and try the game again. Game starts up perfectly. It's never a bad idea to have schematics I guess!

Here are a few detail close ups

Roy Parker Art

Look at that mess of coils. Is this really the best Gottlieb could do?

Notice for high tap: Never connect the wire to high tap if line voltage is 110V or above.

1952 Gottlieb Chinatown trap hole pinball machine repair: Day three

1952 Gottlieb Chinatown pinball

Day three was a busy day repair wise.

I started by laying the playfiel upside down atop the cabinet. I used small pieces of wood (1 x 2) at both extremities rest the playfield on, being careful not to damage anything. With the playfield upside down it's way easier to work on.

Flipped over playfield resting on strips on 1 x 2

Then I removed the ball return panel to inspect the switches for the trap holes. Disaster! Rivets on 5 switch stacks were broken. The switch stack were falling apart, or barely holding together.

Can you spot the busted switches?

I used a roll pin punch and a small ball pein hammer to extract the broken brass tube rivets. Also used a small piece of 2 x 4 with a 3/4" hole to use as a sturdy base to rest the shutter on when knocking out the broken rivets. 

Line up the switch stack with the hole in the base and knock the rivets out.

I used screws and retaining plates from old Williams switch stacks to fix the ones on Chinatown. Thank Zarquon I have lots of parts to pick and choose from while in lockdown.

Williams parts! in a Gottlieb

Shutter switches repaired. Naturally, I burnished the switch points while I was in there.

Fixed shutter switch stacks

With the trip bank flipped over, it gives easy access to the switch blade points. I burnished every contact. That bank is huge so it took many hours to clean all the switch points. I also checked every switch stack to make sure the switches open and close with the proper gap.

Flipped over trip bank

Lots of work

With the trip bank moved aside, I preventively changed the lamp sockets that are hard to access when the bank is in place. Good thing I did, some were falling apart. Also burnished the rollover switch stacks.

Don't know what tools you need for EM Pinball Repair: Check out 5 must have tools

1952 Gottlieb Chinatown trap hole pinball machine repair: Day two

1952 Gottlieb Chinatown pinball

Day 2

Day two was more like an evening of work on Chinatown. I still have to show up to work a couple of times a week... 

I concentrated on working on the head and reinstalling the score motor panel. Removing the wood clamps and reattaching all the small parts I had to remove to reglue the cabinet. Ball lift rod, ball shooter housing.

The heads stepper units were in exceptionally good condition. They weren't gummed up like I usually see them, they were mostly free but required a little bit of lubrication on the metal on metal pivot points on the set up and reset arms. Also cleaned off the old contact disc grease, burnished the contact pads with and electrician's eraser and reapplied fresh grease.

Once I finished working on the head, I plugged in the playfield and tried to power up the game out of curiosity. The steppers reset properly but all the playfield switches and trip bank trip relays were unresponsive due to corrosion on the switch points. I have my work cut out for day 3! 

Not very exciting stuff, but necessary. Also not very photogenic stuff, hence no pictures, But enjoy a few pictures of backbox details. Also, an interesting detail for Quebec or Canadian pinball aficionados: There is no Laniel stamp.

Gottlieb Chinatown Backbox inside

Notice Stamp

1952 Gottlieb Chinatown trap hole pinball machine repair: Day one

1952 Gottlieb Chinatown pinball

Day 1

Being more or less stuck at home for the moment, might as well take on some project I've kept on the back burner for a few years... Chinatown

Here are a couple of pictures when I first got the machine in June 2018

The first task was to get the machine out... easier said than done. I set the cabinet on my pinball dolly for greater ease.

The machine was a mess. It has some obvious water damage from being abandoned in an old semi trailer with a leaky roof. Fortunately or unfortunately, the mechanics of the machine are in superb condition. The machine was owned by a coin operator until I bought it. I'm probably the second owner. It looks like it was briefly operated and then put away and remained untouched until now,

The cabinet needed re-glue and clamp in one corner. I let it cure for 24 hours before removing the clamps

Added a wood corner for strength

I took out the score motor panel, which allowed me to work work on it with greater ease. Burnished all the points on the relays and score motor switches.

Took apart the score motor to access the actual motor felts to re-oil.

The transformer was replaced at one point. It looked dodgy and it didn't even have a line fuse. I replaced the Hammond transformer with a more recent Gottlieb transformer.  Replaced the line cord also, the old one was dry and fell apart to touch.

Once the cabinet was empty. I vacuumed the inside.

Gratuitous shot of the tilt bob.