First post Sega Turbo attempt at restore

Orion7319

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Hello,
This is my first post on KLOV. I am attempting to restore a Sega turbo and feeling a bit out of my depth on this one. I only own three other machines, PAC MAN, Galaxian and a 60 in 1 (wish I would have just built a MAME machine) this game is completely different and I'm not sure where to begin(100 volt monitor...que????) I purchased the game today as the price was right and my son has been asking me to get a racing cab. This cab is the most filthy cab I've ever seen in my life! It's completely caked in mud and had several rats nests in it and still has lots of droppings in the bottom on the audio amp and power supply and transformer. I've already gotten as much as I can with the shop vac and leaf blower, but it's really on there. I'm not sure how to best clean that as I really feel I need to sterilize it but how to clean that off of electrical components I'm not so sure. I'm thinking perhaps isopropyl alcohol as it will evaporate quickly and I've doused lots of electronics in it without issue in the past. How do people usually handle this? Other than being filthy and a potental harbinger of the plague (damn I hope I don't get that working on this thing) it actually kinda works! It has 3 main issues that I can spot. Issue #1 the monitor is dim (could be the mud caked on it) and seems to be missing the green completely. Issue#2 the big sub woofer is rotten. Issue#3 steering. No matter which direction I steer it only moves right, so it's stuck in this weird anti NASCAR mode at the moment. I'd like to begin obviously by cleaning the crap out of it... the literal crap out of it... however I have no idea how to disassemble the thing. I'm not sure how to get the back glass off or the steering wheel off or the control panel. Any help with that would be very much appreciated. So far today, I've done some cleaning to it, found a replacement woofer online, and found all the manuals online. I hope that I can manage this restore, I'm good with cabinet work but the electronics not so much.
 

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Figured out how to get the control panel out and the back glass. Opened it up and instead of a florecent tube, found another rats nest. This thing is really bad, lots of mouse droppings everywhere. It's a plywood cab and I'm seriously considering taking the monitor and the pcbs and the control panel out and hitting the entire inside and outside of the cab with simple green, bleach and the garden hose. I would hope that the audio amp and the transformers should be fine if I dry it out really good and then let it air dry for several months. Not sure about the power supply though. Can that be swapped out with a standard switching power supply? Thanks.
 
Take a look at my Turbo restore thread, maybe there's something there that will help. I have links on the first post to places for parts, including a new subwoofer from parts express that works great.

I would not recommend hosing the cabinet directly, but everything else you mentioned, definitely do, just wash it by hand. I usually do a few rounds, vacuum, simple green, bleach, then plain water, then vacuum again. Put a fan in front of it to ensure it dries completely.

You can find cap-kits for the power supply and audio amp at iankellog's site or arcadepartsandrepair.com who both put together kits at my request.

I sent my monitor out to Chad / Arcade Cup. Mine originally had a bad discoloration going on, I thought it would need a tube balancing/rejuvenation but it turned out to just need a good chassis rebuild. Came back in excellent working order and it looks incredible!

I did find a modern switching unit on ebay for the game, Turbo uses a slightly less-popular voltage so you need to be aware of that when looking for one. I ended up keeping the original switch in mine, so if you really want to try a new one I can send you the new one I bought for the price of shipping.

Lastly there is a high-score save kit you can get for it once you get it all up and running. Easy to install if you don't mind desoldering one IC.

Turbo is definitely a more complicated game than your pac-man and galaxian (and most others), but just take your time and photograph everything, especially all the circuitry on the bottom of the cabinet, and you'll do fine!
 
Take a look at my Turbo restore thread, maybe there's something there that will help. I have links on the first post to places for parts, including a new subwoofer from parts express that works great.

I would not recommend hosing the cabinet directly, but everything else you mentioned, definitely do, just wash it by hand. I usually do a few rounds, vacuum, simple green, bleach, then plain water, then vacuum again. Put a fan in front of it to ensure it dries completely.

You can find cap-kits for the power supply and audio amp at iankellog's site or arcadepartsandrepair.com who both put together kits at my request.

I sent my monitor out to Chad / Arcade Cup. Mine originally had a bad discoloration going on, I thought it would need a tube balancing/rejuvenation but it turned out to just need a good chassis rebuild. Came back in excellent working order and it looks incredible!

I did find a modern switching unit on ebay for the game, Turbo uses a slightly less-popular voltage so you need to be aware of that when looking for one. I ended up keeping the original switch in mine, so if you really want to try a new one I can send you the new one I bought for the price of shipping.

Lastly there is a high-score save kit you can get for it once you get it all up and running. Easy to install if you don't mind desoldering one IC.

Turbo is definitely a more complicated game than your pac-man and galaxian (and most others), but just take your time and photograph everything, especially all the circuitry on the bottom of the cabinet, and you'll do fine!

I've been following your thread, great job so far! It sounds like my monitor is doing about the same as yours. I'll probably just ship it out to Chad and have it done. If you don't mind me asking how much damage did the shipping charges set you back? Of course some of my wiring is all messed up. Don't know if rats chewed it up or what. Could just be the wire for the green channel is chewed up... need to look at that once I dismantle this whole thing. I hope my opto board just needs a good cleaning, can't seem to find a replacement for less than $80.00! When I bought this machine I didn't quite apreaciate how nasty it was on the inside. I don't think I'll bother capping the machine for now. The guy I bought it from had rebuilt this machine about 10 years ago, had the boards redone and had it looking good. The people he sold it to stuck it in a barn and the rats got to it. He bought it back from them, and sold it to me as is. I'm going to have to completely strip this thing down. Once I do that I can do some serious cleaning on this thing. I'll feel better about it once it's cleaned out and the insides are repainted.
 
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I've been following your thread, great job so far! It sounds like my monitor is doing about the same as yours. I'll probably just ship it out to Chad and have it done. If you don't mind me asking how much damage did the shipping charges set you back? I hope my opto board just needs a good cleaning, can't seem to find a replacement for less than $80.00! When I bought this machine I didn't quite apreaciate how nasty it was on the inside. I'll feel better about this when it's all cleaned up.

Cool, glad it's helping!

Yeah these cabinets really collect the dust, I blame the air hole on the bottom of it for a lot of that, which is why I put in those dust filters on the bottom and the top of the cabinet.

I'll dig that up and PM you.
 
Cool, glad it's helping!

Yeah these cabinets really collect the dust, I blame the air hole on the bottom of it for a lot of that, which is why I put in those dust filters on the bottom and the top of the cabinet.

I'll dig that up and PM you.

Yep, your thread has helped a ton already! It's a great resource! I appreciate you passing all that info along, I'm trying to get an idea of how much this is restore is going to cost me. As I have already found out with one of my other restores the costs can get away from me rather quickly. I figure mines going to take me a while to get done as I only got $50.00 left of my original budget... once I go past that it will take me a while to convince the wife to let me blow more cash on this thing! Lol
 
Took the machine completely apart this weekend. I sprayed down the monitor, the pcbs and the power supply, regulator, amp and transformer with simple green and a garden hose. I hosed down the cabinet with dishwashing detergent, let it dry over night and then sprayed the bottom of the inside of the cab with a rattle can. Was going to paint more than I did, but ran out of spray paint, I'll get back to that latter. The cabinet held up no signs of water damage, swelling, delaminating or anything. It's now super clean and I'm feeling a lot better about this project. Next weekend I'll find out if all the electrical components are in the same shape as before I hosed them all down.
 

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I got everything back together again after hosing everything off. Everything came back in the same condition it was in before I took it all apart. I managed to fix the monitor, which was missing green and was very dim. The RGB sync pins on the PCB were bent, so I straighten them out and the colors were corrected. I adjusted the screen knob on th fly back and the monitor is now looking good. I have two issues with this machine now, the steering only goes one direction and there is a high pitched whine coming tough the speakers on top of the game sounds. I'm going to have to find another opto PCB or find the parts I need to rebuild it. I'm afraid the audio PCB is the most likely culprit with the wine as the machine is quiet when I unplug the audio input to the amp. Compex PCB repair is beyond my skill set, hopefully I can find someone to fix it or source another board for a decent price.

https://youtu.be/WgtYnwMWCOg
 

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I took the audio PCB out and started playing around with the pots on it. When I turn VR1 all the way down, the high pitched whine goes away. I still have sounds, just not sure if I'm missing any is all. Going to put figuring this out on the back burner for now, unless anyone has any suggestions and concentrate on repairing or replacing the opto board.

Edit : How many freaking caps are on this thing anyway... was thinking about recapping this thing, but um yeah that would be my last choice!
 

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Got a lot done on this this weekend. I'm probably about 90% done at this point. This weekend I finished most of the painting. I installed a new 13 inch 10watt fluorescent tube and a universal starter into the original marquee fixture. I stripped apart the control panel and all the rusted parts got soaked in CLR over the weekend and cleaned up. Sanded down the shifter knob and put some fresh poly stain on it, cleaned the control panel and plastics and wiped it down with dollar general armor all knock off, cleaned up the wiring harness rewired the coin counter and test switch as someone had cut those out. I replaced the 12 inch speaker with the parts express one. Cleaned the top speakers with isopropyl alcohol because they were covered in old dirt dobber nests. Painted most of the metal pieces. Still need to put the control panel back together and rebuild the coin door. Waiting for the optical board to come in and the missing parts for the coin door. I'm going sand all the pitted chrome off of the steering wheel and polish the carbon steel to a mirror finish, which could take me anywhere from 5 to 16 hours so that should be fun...
 

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This Home Depot paint is only 97 cents and is made by rustolium
 

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More pictures
 

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Going to strip off the chrome and polish the carbon steel to a mirror finish. Also someone wrapped this in handlebar tape and it left a permanent impression in the rubber. This is a picture of it removed. I'm going to have to rewrap it as well. This steering wheel is going to be a lot of work.
 

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The coin door that came with the game was incomplete. It was missing one half side of the coin mech, one coin reject button and the sockets for the lights. I found an incomplete door on eBay for $25.00 plus shipping. Between the two I had enough parts to build a complete coin door. Tonight I picked the best parts from both doors and was able to put together a complete door in really excellent condition. I've got to break it down again to clean and paint and wire it up, but I think it already looks great.
 

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