This Old Pinball Machine – Dogford Studios

Small repairs, tweaks, and improvements to the play and condition of vintage pinball machines.

If you own a collection of pinball machines, keeping up with repairs is an ongoing battle. I have a collection of eight pinball machines ranging in age from 1959 to 2022. I’ve restored a few more and sold a few but right now my collection is in a holding pattern so rather than doing full-out restoration projects that can take months, my attention turns to the growing list of minor tweaks.

Anyone with several pinball machines, especially vintage EM or electromechanical machines from the 70s and older will tend to keep a list of minor repairs that are needed. None of these stops one from playing the machines but they can be annoying.

So without further ado, let’s knock off some of these repairs in this post-holiday winter time.

Bally Hang Glider – ball five light out.

This was a simple fix. Take off the metal backboard – key needed. Pull out the two metal sliding brackets that lock the backglass in place. Lift up the backglass from the front and remove it. Locate the dead light socket. Try putting the light bulb in and out. Try a different bulb. Clean the socket with some sandpaper. Put everything back together. Done.

World Series – 2nd base and 1st base lights not working.

Part of the fun of World Series, a baseball themed pinball machine, is getting the runners around the bases. On my machine the 2nd base and 1st base lights were not working. On close examination I had tried soldering them to improve contact but they still didn’t work and since I had a bag of NOS (new old stock) light sockets I got off Ebay, I decided to just replacement them.

So now the first base works fine. The problem with the second base turns out to be a contact switch issue on the relay. Also, I stupidly turn the machine on with my drop cloth inside which caught in the score motor and knocked something out of wack. So anyway, I need to pull the rely board out at some point and address these issues. It’s just too difficult to work on with the board inside the cabinet.

Pinball Light Sockets

You can try cleaning up old pinball light sockets and try to solder the base. But sometimes old pinball light bulb sockets are too far gone and can be replace easily with these new pinball light sockets. Try to fix your existing pinball light sockets first because a vintage pinball machine has dozens of the pinball light sockets and you’ll go broke replacing them all with new pinball machine light sockets.

Certain pinball machine manufacturers used better quality pinball machine light sockets than others. You might find one old pinball machine with rusty old light sockets and another even older pinball machine from another manufacturer and the pinball machine light sockets will look brand new. Of course it also depends on where the machine was kept over the past 40 years or so.

Notice the different configurations of the brackets on these “Bayonet” pinball machine lightbulb holders and order the ones that match your machine. If you restore a lot of pinball machines, these are good to keep on hand.

Stern Meteor – broken drop target

One of the drop targets on the upper bank broke. Replacing it is not as simple as pulling out a new one because they are lettered. Not only that but the reproduction ones are not “tombstone” like the originals. The reproduction ones have “hats” and there are several versions on the market – blank ones that you add stickers from Marco ($85) or hot stamp printed ones from PBR (Pinball resource) – $60. There are also some 3D-printed ones which are closer to the originals and claim to “brick” less often from a guy in Australia which end up costing $10 or $11 each ($150) after you get them shipped halfway around the world. I just went with a set from PBR.

While I had the drop target unit out of the machine (thanks to the wire harness connector!), I was able to clean it up and make sure everything was working good.

This connector is handy for removing the drop target bank from the machine to work on it.

The reproduction playfield I got from CPR has the pop bumper opening off by a bit near the M. I had to sand off a bit of the corner to make sure it didn’t hang up.

Note: The reproduction drop targets on the market are more flexible than the originals. Probably less likely to break but they tend to “brick” more.

This is a set of hot stamped targets from Pinball Resource compared to the sticker one that broke.

Photos for assembly reference – Stern Electronics “Meteor” pinball machine M E T E O R drop target bank.

Stern Electronics had terrible metal plating. You can’t do anything to get the pieces to shine up. When I can, I clean the metal parts and put down a spray paint coating of “chrome”.

Stern “Meteor” drop target bank with drop targets removed.

Stern Meteor – proper pop bumper skirts

When I was populating my new reproduction playfield from CPR, I had some yellow six-hole pop bumper skirts around that I used on the “dead” or “dummy” bumpers at the top – the “1” and “2” ones. These worked but they were not the proper part. So in my last order to PBR, I got some proper 4-hole pop bumper skirts and installed them. Whew! Now the purists will be happy.

Notice the four-hole pop bumper skirts have a little arrow at the top.

Stern Meteor Number “2” Drop Target Not Resetting

After finishing up replacing the M E T E O R drop targets and putting the game all back together, one of the “2” drop targets refused to reset. No once. Upon looking at it closer, it seemed the little lip that the drop target uses to hold on was worn down into a ramp shape.

I did two things. Clipped a bit off of the spring to give the drop target a bit more pull towards the front and I took a nail file and filed the lip into more of a 90-degree shape. Now it works. Hurrah!