Friday, April 3, 2009

The Pinball Machine

I've inherited a Bally's Evel Knievel pinball machine. It had spent the last decade buried under some miscellaneous junk in my father's garage, but it is now sitting in a partially disassembled state in my library.

Let me start out by saying that the back-glass is in beautiful condition.

Everything else looks pretty bad. The playfield is scratched and very dirty. The protective mylar shapes that had been applied over portions of the field are worn. The rubbers are cracked in places, and the plastics are yellowing and some are slightly deformed. The MPU is dead, so I haven't tested any other components yet.

I've got a replacement rubbers set, and have begun tear-down for a full clean and wax of the playfield, and a full bulb replacement while I'm there. While it has only been in the garage for a decade or so, it's been nearly twenty years since I recall it being in a playable state, and even then most of the bulbs were burnt out, so I figure I may as well do them all now while I'm knee-deep in things.

I will be very happy if I can get it to play again. Once that's achieved, I think I may attempt to sand and re-paint the sides. I've seen numerous places online offering stencil kits for this particular machine. The hardest part would be matching the colors!

I'm having a spectacular time figuring out how it all works. Every time I make another discovery, I am amazed at how well-thought-out the whole thing is.

Please forgive me if this post lacks coherency, it's currently 11:56pm, and my brain wanted to be asleep hours ago.

Pictures of Pinball Progress

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