A (potential) diamond in the rough....worth it?

elekTRONarcade

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This past weekend, a woman (whom I've dealt with on a few games in the past) sent me some pics of a few games she has available. Nothing spectacular...a converted Centipede-turned-Rampage, a SF Rush, a few others....I almost didn't take a second glance at the badly-converted Bad Dudes. That is, until I consulted my handy dandy arcade silhouette chart and found the same Midway profile for Bump 'n' Jump, Blueprint, Domino Man, Lazarian and Journey. Looking up each via Google Images, I think I may have found an original Journey cab. Here's a pic:

videogames9.jpg


My thinking is that its a Journey, due to the profile curve and blue t-molding (which I figure they would have been too lazy to replace when they converted it). If it is, would it be worth it to do a full restore and convert it back to a Journey?

UPDATE: I went ahead and jumped on it...it's actually a Final Fight, not Bad Dudes. Aside from the bottom right corner, the cab's in decent shape. Once I get the rear door open, I'll know more about it. Stay tuned...
 
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Depends on if you like a challenge :)
Journey parts are not exactly easy to track down, they are not cheap either ;)
Would take a LOT of hunting and patience.
For me personally, no, not worth it :)
 
With the amount of work necessary to repair everything and replace it all, you'd be better off just buying a new cab and going from there. That being said, the parts are tough to come by, and I already know of at least one other person trying to rebuild one from scratch.
 
It would probably be more practical to buy a Journey and have it shipped to you than to try to deconvert that.

That Rampage looks completely unplayable. 3 player controls shoehorned into a centipede cabinet with the buttons UNDER the sticks, eww.
 
That Rampage was obviously a Mr. Do! variant at some point as well.
 
Ugh, you guys are killjoys lol. Here I was hoping to have found something. Maybe I'll buy it anyways and slap it in the arcade to make a few bucks as a Bad Dudes, then contemplate doing a restore after pulling it out of rotation.
 
I assume Journey is in MAME? If so, I wish they'd put it on the vertical game list for the programmable multi board. That would make it a bit easier to build one of these from scratch (something I plan to do someday).
 
I assume Journey is in MAME? If so, I wish they'd put it on the vertical game list for the programmable multi board. That would make it a bit easier to build one of these from scratch (something I plan to do someday).

Heyyyy...that's an idea Phetish....I've yet to build a MAME cab. As much as I detest emulation over original hardware, it shouldn't be hard to track down repro art, restore the outer facade and use it as a MAME'd Journey till I can find the 8 track, harness and boardset.

That Rampage looks completely unplayable. 3 player controls shoehorned into a centipede cabinet with the buttons UNDER the sticks, eww.
That Rampage was obviously a Mr. Do! variant at some point as well.

Yeah, she's an ugly girl. I'd probably convert it back to a Centipede or at the very least, put a proper 3 player CP on it. Luckily it still has the original Centipede side art and its not completely horrible
 
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I assume Journey is in MAME? If so, I wish they'd put it on the vertical game list for the programmable multi board. That would make it a bit easier to build one of these from scratch (something I plan to do someday).

Yes it is, how do you think I took those FizzleFried Journey ROM hack screenshots?
 
With the amount of work necessary to repair everything and replace it all, you'd be better off just buying a new cab and going from there. That being said, the parts are tough to come by, and I already know of at least one other person trying to rebuild one from scratch.

Hmm.... I know at least one person here who has a Journey that has been Re-converted back into a Journey!! ;) Its Quite an understatement on how much work it is - and I didnt even get to the cab-work!
so yeah - someone would be CRAZY to attempt that - AGAIN!

and with THAT being said - stay tuned! :eek:
 
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