The Pinball Diaries

The right-hand “Shooting Star” cage is misbehaving. Occasionally, when the ball enters the bazaar, or activates the tiger lock electro-magnet, or disappears under the genie, the cage fires momentarily. However, it never misbehaves while the ball is in play, and it still catches the ball when it’s supposed to. I can’t seem to reproduce the problem reliably either…

Test Report:

CHECK SWITCH 17 RIGHT INLANE

Phil sez, check left inlane too…

Tested right inlane switch (#17), it’s bad.

Tested left inlane switch (#26), seems fine.

Test Report:

CHECK SWITCH 17 RIGHT INLANE
CHECK SWITCH 28 LEFT WIRE MAKE
CHECK SWITCH 41 RAMP MADE LEFT

Received replacement leg-plates from Marco Specialties.

Replaced the front right leg-plate, which had the broken bolt. Also replaced the rear-right leg-plate ‘cause the threads on bottom hole were stripped.

Replaced the batteries.

Replaced the “Genie Eyes” lamp bulb.

Taped up and re-attached a broken plastic to the right of & behind the genie. The plastic was broken in half when I got the machine and the two pieces had been knocked loose and the ball was getting stuck behind the genie. Here’s a pic of the plastic:

Cleaned the playfield and the machine is sweet!

There’s a metal plate mounted into each corner of the machine cabinet. These plates are what the leg bolts screw into. As a first step I removed the plate with the stuck bolt-chunk. Check it out (that’s the end of the busted bolt stickin’ out of it):

As you can see from the chunk of bolt sticking out of the plate, I made some futile attempts to unscrew it with some channel-lock pliers.

I’m thinking that as a short-term solution, I’ll “borrow” a plate from one of the 11 machines sitting idle in my basement.

ToTAN has been selected as one of the machines for my new office space, after 10 months of storage. Unfortunately, when taking the legs off to put the machine in storage, one of the leg bolts broke off, leaving a chunk of bolt still threaded inside the cabinet. Damn! So now I’m faced with the challenge of getting that chunk of bolt out so I can remount the legs.

Replaced skillshot assembly with a used one in better condition.

Replaced Genie eyes flasher.

Cleaned playfield.

• Skillshot assembly needs replacement
• Genie eye-lights are out

• Very dirty