720 degrees - another Atari restoration

joeycuda

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I bought my 720 in July of 2010. The project is nearly finished, so I'll do a restoration thread. Another game I never thought I'd own, but one popped up locally, for a fair price.

The Good:

-The game was fully working, and I was told that arcadecup rebuilt the chassis with a new flyback. That was a plus!

-Aside from the front panel being gone, the cabinet was in remarkable condition. Backdoor, backdoor sheet, unrestored game, etc..a survivor.

The Bad:

-Side art mostly gone, but that's expected

-The front panel was long gone. Told it had been kicked in, but I was left with a replacement panel someone made from plywood and covered in upholstery type vinyl.

-Because of the missing front, the weight on the front/bottom had pushed the plywood bottom panel upwards on one side.

-Typical yellowing of any art

-The joystick would barely move, and was totally worn out.

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The casters (not sure if factory) had crushed under the crazy weight of the cabinet.

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With casters/levelers in 4 places, and the shape of the bottom, I knew I needed to add 2 more to help distribute the weight more evenly. I got 6 of the heavy duty casters at Harbor Freight and installed them with 1/4" lag bolts:

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Notice that with the weight on the game, the front panel missing, the bottom floating a bit, the bottom pushed upwards some, warping the plywood:

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There's the slightest hint of swelling in some places, but the silver vinyl is 100% intact. I feel the game is worth far more in original shape, rather than sanding it down and putting new vinyl on it:

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It's ALWAYS nice to see an original back door sheet intact:

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Dirty top, but nothing furniture polish won't fix:

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Dirty, but works.. probably need to repin the power connectors someday:

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Replacing the front panel:

The big problem was that this thing was made with dowels, so no way to reassemble it how it came apart. The bigger problem was that with the front missing and only 4 levelers on it, it had so much weight on the front edge of the bottom, that it had bent upward some. Before unloading it, I had removed the 4 levelers and put 6 very heavy duty casters on it to spread the load - back, middle, and front pair. To put a front on, you'd have to push the cabinet bottom downwards and realign everything.

I chose to use the method Atari often used previously - 3/4" blocking, since I couldn't reassemble with dowels, and dowels wouldn't lock it together as well anyhow..

I started at the top and installed 3/4" blocking, cut precisely to fit between each "shelf" and the top and bottom. I used narrow crown staples and Titebond glue, locking everything into alignment, with the bottom pieces last:

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Here you see one of the original bottom strips still loosely in place. I removed these and replaced them with beefier wood (seen in later pic):

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I figured from the back of the cabinet the correct distance for this bottom most brace/blocking. I had to push the bottom downwards to get it into place:

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All new blocking, incl bottom most pieces, installed. The cabinet bottom is now aligned properly! The blocking spreads everything evenly, locks the shelves to the sides, and provides a surface to attach the front panel to:

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New plywood panel cut to size, with coin door cutout from template traced onto it:

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Applying matte black formica laminate, before flush trimmed:

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New piece all trimmed with coin door cutout:

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I had to make sure this thing was aligned just right before glue and staples. I locked it in place with clamps and made sure it fit well with the control panel:

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Not quite there.. turned out the plywood panel wasn't cut square on the factory edge, had to fix it..

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I then used glue and staples from the backside of the blocking to install the panel. Here I'm checking how the coin door fits. It's done..

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Awesome, this is giving me the inspiration I finally need to start my 720 restoration. Also, I've been wanting to experiment with laminate instead of smooth vinyl or paint on some of my games.
 
Skip ahead.. I had to strip the old boombox overlay off, strip the adhesive off with Strip Eez, sand it, prime it, spray a few coats of RustOleum satin black. Then time to apply the overlay. I carefully aligned it, taped it off, and luckily nailed the application:

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So that the exposed/light area wouldn't stick to anything too soon, I had taped wax paper over that hole:

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The clear plexi piece that goes here was a PITA to strip, but once clean, I carefully aligned it and dropped it into place. You only get one shot at this:

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I also replaced the upper bezel bracket overlay..no pics of the process, but strip it off, sand the metal down, prime, refinish, and apply the overlay. It was a bit tricky because of the bend, but it turned out great!

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I test fit it, but another slight issue was that the screw holes on this particleboard piece were worn out and wouldn't hold the screws.

The solution was to use 1/4" wood dowels, drill out the holes about 1/2" or so down (not through the panel), glue the dowel in, flush cut, repaint the panel, re-drill the pilot holes.

Drill em out:

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Glue the dowels in:

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Using Japanese flush cut saw (cheap Harbor Freight version), flush cut the dowels:

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Repaint the panel, using RustOleum satin black:

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Here is the repro overlay laying over the old one, and I sanded and refinished some screws:

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All fixed and ready to drill new pilot holes:

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Controller rebuild:

The controller was near unusable. Aside from the extreme slop, obvious by the elongated hole in the dust cover, it wouldn't rotate smoothly, as if the chain was sticky. I took more pics, but will briefly go over this.

Here are some before/reference pics:

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Take it apart:

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The metal pieces were not really worn. It took a lot of scrubbing to get rid of the old grease and dirt. The chain was scrubbed until clean enough to put in your mouth.

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I reassembled using Nyogel lube, chain oil on the chain:

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I bought the RAM Controls kit way back when everyone thought "Dave" was a good guy and all. Despite the scams, the parts are great and accurate replacements. I got the upper housing from videogameparts.com

Here's a list of what was replaced: handle, pivot ball, lower ball, roller, bushing, encoder disc, centering disc, dust disc, and the upper housing.

Going back together with new upper housing:

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the finished joystick..

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I had to do the same thing to one of the holes on the top of the cabinet that secures the boom box cover:

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More to come soon....
 
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