SOLVED!
I got this game cheap but it is in really rough shape, a 1973 – Gottlieb Jumping Jack. Here are some initial photos after just wiping the dust off the playfield. This game has been sitting in a storage unit for about 20 years or more.
Playfield is actually not too bad. Cabinet really needs a lot of work. Backglass is in terrible shape. Plastics are yellowed and one piece is cracked. The relay board is grimy.
Update July 28, 2021 – Unexpected activity
What a week of progress for Jumping Jack. Here is a sad-looking machine that I picked up for $200 – rusty, beat-up tobacco-stained cabinet. I’ve been wondering if I should have ever picked up this project.
But the reviews on this machine are good and they were very popular back in the day, 4,975 units of this two-player version were built plus a whopping 8,300 of the four-player version called “Jack In The Box”.
There are even two different online restoration articles about this specific machine since there are so many available on the used market Unfortunately these games got a lot of love in the arcades due to the “attractiveness” of the backglass and the enticing row of Gottlieb drop targets.
When this game came out in 1973, the new electronic pinball machines were many years away so they stayed in the arcades for a long time.
So anyway, I’ve been focusing my attention on the 1961 Egg Head Restoration because at least that machine is mostly working.
But my pinhead friend John came for the weekend and was keen on looking Jumping Jack over so I gave it a dusting and put it up on some legs.
He dove right in and installed the new electrical cord for me and we fired it up just to see if anything would happen. Lights came on, the score motor turned a bit but then nothing else – as expected. The game needs a total cleaning of all the switches – as expected but he said he’d seen worst and it is salvageable.
We make plans to work on the cabinet in his workshop over the winter.
A few days later he contacts me and says a friend of his has a 1974 Megatron cabinet in his shed. Players hate Megatron and he is parting it out. It’s destined to become a prop in an upcoming high school production of the play “Tommy”..
The cabinet is in better shape than Jumping Jack so he is willing to swap cabinets for the sake of preserving a great old machine.
I cleaned up the coin door with Evaporust and glued up the bottom of the cabinet as a friendly gesture. Didn’t want it to fall apart and the way down.
And then John says he has a friend who knows Shay of Shay’s Arcade that does reproduction backglasses and he visits him regularly. So I put in an order for a Jumping Jack backglass and one for Egg Head.
I’ll be able to do the cabinet swap and maybe pick up new backglasses all in one night – just have to drive down to Massachusettes.
Had a good time at Mike’s house in Arlington, MA swopping out the better parts of the machines between the two cabinets in his driveway. Then headed inside to check out his newly renovated basement and a great collection of pinball machines.
He caught the pinball bug a few years ago just around the time my friend John was “hovering up” a bunch of machines. Mike’s got a great nose for bargains and managed to snatch up a bunch of great machines at great prices and has been restoring them.
He has been doing a great job with cabinet repaints using stencils from Pinball Pimp. So far he’s done five cabinets, restored the gameplay with John’s help, put down pinball protectors, installed new backglasses and plastic. It’s a great-looking collection.
Unfortunately, he has to give up some room in the basement for a teenage hangout space. Like all obsessions, compromise has to happen at some point.
Stripping and sanding the Magnotron donor cabinet
I’m trying some Citrus Strip on the cabinet overnight to get a start on the paint removal. The plus side of striping is no dust compared to sanding.
Overnight the Citrus Strip ate through the tobacco, old clear paint and some of the bumper stickers. A bit more Citrus Strip and about 30 minutes and a good amount of the paint came off – now to follow up with sanding.
Lots of names scratched into that old cabinet!
Touch up and Clear Coating
All playfield elements were removed and switches were dropped below the playfield.
Typical of this game, Jumping Jack had deep grooves down to the wood and beyond around the kickouts at the top. I filled those with wood putty and then put on a coat of pink, matching the color the best I could. Luckily that area isn’t seen too much from since it is way in the back.
The whole playfield got cleaned up with a Magic Eraser and alcohol.
Then the sunken inserts were filled with drops of Varathane – many thin layers until they were level. Then the whole playfield got coats of Varathane glossy sprayed on. Thin coats with plenty of drying time in between. After about 8 coats the playfield was allowed to cure for two weeks.
Relay Board and Underneath the Playfield Clean Up
Long story short I installed a new power cord and then started to clean up the relay board. Every switch and contact was cleaned with alcohol and Q-tips.
The parts of the relay board were unscrewed and the whole guts were slipped off the plywood panel which was then sanded and varnished. New relay labels were found online here.
Under the Playfield
Once the playfield clear coat was dry, time to clean and reassemble the playfield mechs and switches.
Found two loose unsoldered wires. A few replacement wires. Someone had been working on this machine at some point. There is so much that can be learned about the game simply by taking the time to look closely at every wiring connection in the machine.
From my experience so far restoring several machines, I’d rather work one that has gone dead due to lack of play, dirty contacts or some broken or loose wire than a machine that was partially hacked at – Hang Glider was like that – partially worked on with problems created by missing switchers and quick fix wiring.
Backbox
The glass is trash. I purchased a new backglass from Shay Arcade.
Credit Unit – Wires to the solenoids on the credit unit have been snipped.
Score reels are sticky and will need a lot of work getting them working smoothly again.
I found one EOS switch missing. Luckily I had on hand some old donor score reels I got from a parted-out machine via Ebay.
I replaced the EOS and gave every switch a quick cleaning. Put score reels on zero to see what the next issue would be.
Playfield
Bonus unit under the playfield fires repeatedly. Seems to be missing a switch and a wire? Nope. Just some dirty contacts and misaligned switches.
Mr. Pinball Tip:
The following information is taken from the January 1975 Gottlieb Out of Sight manual. This may be helpful when debugging a startup problem with this or other Gottlieb 2-player games from the same period.
1. Inserting a coin or pushing the replay button actuates ‘S’ relay (Start relay).
2. This relay will lock-in through its own switch and a motor 2B switch.
3. ‘S’ relay starts the motor running.
4. ‘SB2’ and the total play meter are actuated by a switch on motor 2C through a switch that has been closed on ‘S’ relay.
5. When ‘SB2’ relay is tripped, the score units and player unit reset sequence starts. The 1st player score units reset to zero through the P3 switch stack on the player unit by motor switch 1A. When these units reach zero the player unit steps once, the 2nd player score units reset to zero through the P4 switch stack on the player unit by motor switch 1A. When these units reach zero the player unit steps until P5A opens. The score units and player unit are now reset.
6. The control bank is reset by a switch on motor 1B through a switch on ‘U’ relay.
7. Inserting additional coins or pushing the replay button will actuate the 2nd player relay (PB) through motor 2C switch.
8. Place the ball in the out hole. The ball return switch closes and completes the circuit to ‘O’ relay through the zero position switch on the bonus unit and ‘QB’. ‘O’ relay locks-in through its own switch and a switch on motor 2B. When ‘O’ relay is energized, motor 4C actuates the ball return coil (which kicks the ball onto the runway) through a switch on ‘O’ and normally closed switches on ‘P’ and ‘XB’ relays. The ball is now on the runway and is ready to be put into play.
9. The remaining balls that enter the outhole are kicked across the trough switch which pulls in ‘P’ relay. ‘P’ relay pulls in ‘O’ relay which runs the motor. Switches on ‘XB’, ‘ZB’, motor 2C, ‘P’, and motor 1A advances the ‘Player’ unit the required number of steps determined by the ‘Player’ unit switches and the player relay. (PB)
Progress
I spent a few hours cleaning a single score reel. The next ones should go faster now that I’ve familiarized myself with the process.
Hitting the START relay and then manually coaxing the score reels all to their zero position got the bonus unit to turn but then all kinds of craziness broke out with the score motor turning and the score reels turning by 100 point increments.
I figured a switch on the playfield must be making contact and tracked it down to one of the switches on the drop targets.
Now the score motor stopped spinning and waited for a ball in the outhole. Placed a ball, it kicked out (kind of mellow like) and I could play a game – with some issues:
- Game ends but the score motor spins forever
- Score reels are gunky
- Drop tarkets are gunky
- Game is on two player only?
Learning to read scematics – “CONTACTS” tells the number and type of contact switches used on specific relays. “4A,1B,2C” means this relay has 4 normally open switches (form A), 1 normally closed switch (form B), and 2 make/break switches (form C). The letters following the numbers are known as “forms”. Form A is normally open, Form B is normally closed, and Form C is make/break. The number before the form is the number of this type of switch form used in the relay.
Trouble shooting update
I’ve been at it off and on for weeks. Mostly hunting down switches that cause the score motor to run non-stop. I’ve fixed those misaligned switches, dirty contacts, bad solder joints and disconnected wires. Also, I cleaned old grease from the score motor and worked on sticky score reels.
Now the machine snaps into start-up mode well enough.
The remaining problems come down to this:
1. The game doesn’t end. After ball five it doesn’t trip the “game over” relay.
2. Sometimes the scoring will switch from player one to player two and back.
3. Some random points are scored when the ball is in the outlane (bonus unit?)
Ok, more time troubleshooting.. The game just refuses to end and even if set at 3 ball, it goes to five ball and then on and on.
Finally tracked down the problem to the player unit. One switch was miss adjusted and not making contact when it should have to activate the “last ball” relay and allow the “game over relay” to activate when needed.
One major problem left – something is too close and causing the scoring to go from player one to player two even in a single-player game! I suspect the player unit. There are a lot of switches there and some are hard to see. (Turned out to be a mis-aligned switch on the score reel).
Troubleshooting the Player Unit Guide
https://www.planetimming.com/Pinball/troubleshooting/Player%20Unit%20Troubleshooting.pdf
Final issue?
Feels like I am down to one major issue left to figure out. Hitting 10 points on a one-player game causes the game to flip over to the player two score reels and score points! Crazy and maddening!
I did find this broken wire on the player one 10 point reel. (Turned out to be a misaligned switch on a score reel).
New Problem – No Reset
Score motor stopped running. No reset after coin drop.
If I lifted the score motor I could get the reset to happen so it had to be a frayed wire. Close examination of the wires around the score motor found a suspect wire in the area where the wires would be stressed when the score motor is raised. Tested it by clipping alligator clips between the wire and the switch – yup.
Cut out the damaged section of wire and soldered a new wire between.
Lingering issue
After reset. First 10 point scored triggers the last ball relay and then the next 10 points scored ends up moving from player one to player two.
Something seems to be triggering the player unit to advance one click. Nothing seems to move – not the score motor or any relay other than the 10 point relay. Suspect a short somewhere in the head.
Tried using paper to block each switch on the N relay (10 point relay). Found one with a white-blue color that could be the issue
Points still score for player one but it doesn’t switch over to
player two on the second 10 point hit.
Unblocking and it’s back.
Will unsolder the white-blue at the player unit and run an alligator clip between to see if that wire is shorting with something.
Solved!!!
Duh! After looking for shorts – tracing wires all around the machine I decided to look at the 10 point score reel yet again. Lo and behold the lever that lifts the switches was in the wrong place. The switches were working yet touching each other. and causing the short.
A two-minute fix.
But then the bonus unit was locking on and the game start button was not working. Watching the score motor carefully I noticed that when it stopped, I could push it forward a tiny bit and the bonus unit would stop.
Looking at which switch should be closed, I noticed one on the 1 stack (1C) that was closed but not making contact. Just a simple adjustment and cleaning and it was making contact as it should.
And that was it! I was able to play through several games on one player and two play modes!
Now just some tweaks with some light sockets and the AX relay which is a little wonky.
New problem – Outhole Kicker is weak
I’ll be exploring the outhole kicker problem today.
Seems to just give a weak little kick.
- Maybe something didn’t go back into place correctly after cleaning. It worked initially after putting it back in place.
- coil might be bad (someone suggested switching with the knocker coil which is the same). Although people say coils usually just go totally bad or not.
- or it’s not getting enough power via a score motor switch.
A mystery to be solved…
Solved – Seemed to fix itself? Cleaned contacts on score more. Cleaned the coil stop and put in a new coil sleeve. Resembled and it’s working.
- New issue – chimes not sounding. 100 pts not scoring. Pop bumpers not scoring. Ignored it and they came back – Probably alcohol on a switch contact needed to evaporate. Solved. – overzealous switch cleaning on the bank under the playfield knocked a few switches out of line. Plus the lingering alcohol.
- New issue – ball count not advancing. Going for a walk…Solved by ignoring.-
- New issue – ball return kicker weak again! Solved – On close examination, the spring was missing! Found it 10 feet from the machine.
Problem: End of ball bonus not scoring
I didn’t notice this issue until I got everything else working and started playing a few games – when the drop targets drop, they are suppose to count off bonus points at the end of the game (if you drop all ten you get the bonus immediately).
I checked all the relays related to the bonus unit but then watched the bonus unit. Rather than moving one step with each target drop, it was resetting to the zero position each time.
Ah…wait a minute..the EOS switch wasn’t touching with each activation. There are three positions on the bracket. For some reason, the switch was a bit over to one side and the lever wasn’t hitting it. I don’t recall moving that switch and the indication on the metal seemed to indicate that it was always in that position. Maybe something got pushed out of line while I’ve been working on it.
Anywhoo, I moved into the center position and now the bonus counts down at the end of the turn.
Sticky Upper Right Flipper
The flipper in the upper right was sometimes not returning i.e. staying in a semi-upright position. The coil wasn’t stuck on. I checked the EOS switch. Adjusted the spring for a bit more snap-back.
Finally, I ended up replacing the coil sleeve and the coil stop and cleaning up the return spring. That seemed to fix the issue.
But…
Starting up the machine the bonus unit started to fire non-stop….
Solved! During my flipper repair work, I had dropped a part on the E Relay or “Add extra bonus relay” the plastic that holds the switches together was knocked out of alignment. Easy fix.
This restored machine is now for sale: https://www.dogfordstudios.com/for-sale-jumping-jack-pinball-machine/