Continuing with my vintage pinball machine restoration. My Bally Hang Glider pinball machine came with a cracked backglass. I haven’t found a replacement and doubt I will as there were so few of these made.
But I sealed the crack with glass glue and I’m moving on to touching up some of the missing paint.
First step was to spray the back with Triple Thick, a clear coating. This sealed the existing paint.
Then I’m painting from the back and filling in any missing color, basically to block any white light coming through.
The biggest areas of missing paint were in the red areas, for some reason red tends to peel before other colors. The flacking paint was also most apparent near the cluster of lights in the top center where the heat of the bulbs lead to the demise of the paint.
I ended up putting on two coats of red over the entire red areas of the kite.
I used a small paintbrush to fill in the areas. If the glass wasn’t cracked I might have brought out an airbrush, masked off the areas and the sprayed on a smooth coat of paint but my crude paintbrush method actually looks rather good. Certainly better than having no paint in those areas.
Bringing in the Expert
My long time friend, the electrical engineer and EM Pinball restorer John, lives about two hours away. I finally hit the brick wall with this machine and drove it down to his house where it will get a closer look. Hopefully, he’ll find the last few problems that I can’t figure out.
Back to the main repair log – https://www.dogfordstudios.com/pinball-restore-project-hang-glider/
John ended up finding the issue with the bonus unit.
He also fixed the following problems for me:
- Soldered loose light sockets
- Put a thin plastic disk between the layers of the bonus unit to insulate it and remove the short.
- Fixed drop targets
- Replace the ball shooter coil – the wrong one had been installed. Now the ball ejects every time.
Issues that pop up from time to time
Buzzing from the 00-99 alternating unit. – every time a 10 point switch is hit, the score changes by 10 points but also the alternating unit turns. This controls things like the match at the end of the game, the change of the bonus lights, and the right orbit light which is set to light one out of ten times.
Every once in a while this unit would lock on. On inspection, the alternating unit found in the back of the head had shaken off its nuts and was loose. I replace the nuts and bolts and cleaned the unit but this didn’t fix the problem.
I then looked closely at every 10 point switch on the playfield and discovered one slingshot switch was a bit too close. Every time conditions were right due to vibration, the switch would make contact and stay on. I adjusted the switch and the problem was solved.
00-99 Locking On Again!
Occasional stuck on 00-99 causing a buzzing sound that would go away after hitting some 10 point switches.
I thought there was something wrong with the 00-99 unit itself. Cleaned it a bit then thought, hmmm maybe one of the 10 point switches was stuck on.
Looked at them all. Tried to trigger it with my finger. Determined it was the right slingshot that was causing the 00-99 unit in the head to stay on. Made sure the switches were not touching (sometimes fresh rubbers will cause them to move closer together).
Looked underneath the playfield and it turned out to be the gap on the EOS switch for the slingshot. Too close. Adjusted and voila!
— Ed