He’s on fire! Jedidentist’s NBA Jam TE Restoration

Jedidentist

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Donor 3 years: 2011-2013
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He's on fire! Jedidentist's NBA Jam TE Restoration

NBA Jam seems to be one of those red headed step-children of the collecting community. Maybe it's too commercial? Too mainstream? I don't know..maybe it's just because it's a 90s game. In any case, it's a game I played my entire freshman year in college after lunch in our cafeteria, and then in the years after on my friend's SNES. So for me, it's another nostalgia game. It's also a 4 player game (which I have none of) and is an easy game to play for non-gamers who visit my house. It wasn't something I'd originally planned on getting, but was fortunate to find one an hour from my house via eBay. Even better, it was the Tournament Edition and happened to be Version 2.0, so it has the hidden Mortal Kombat characters!

So here I was at the pickup. I've managed to fit several cabs in my wife's SUV, but unfortunately, even with the control panel removed this baby wouldn't fit.

Driving50.jpg


However, after keeping it under 55 mph, it made it home safely. Here's what I started with when I got home:

LeftSidePre.jpg


PreFront.jpg


PreFrontBottom.jpg


PreCPO.jpg
 
Everything was fully working, which was a bonus. However, the artwork was severely faded and the bottom had some swelling and chipping.

PreBottomLeft.jpg


PreBottomRight.jpg


There were scratches in the artwork and stains on the control panel. The real bummer about this game, at least for me, is that there's no repro artwork out there. Gameongrafix.com used to have some, but they pulled it due to concerns with NBA licensing. Classicarcadegrafix.com only has one sheet of conversion decals for $99…and that's too rich, even for me, for 2 small stickers for my monitor bezel. I managed to find a NOS marquee from Quarter Arcade (on the top, the yellowed one is on the bottom):

Marquees.jpg


I also scored a NOS CPO from Mylstar:

CPOComparison.jpg


For those of you who may need it, I paid to have it scanned at 600 dpi. I've contacted someone about having it reproed for those interested, but until then, here's a link to the file (it's huge at 543MB):

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5F67JH48

So I started about this in typical fashion. I stripped everything down, sanded, wire-brushed, and steel wooled all of the metal parts. It would be nice get metal parts powder coated, but I don't have the time, nor do I feel like wasting money doing it. I primed and sprayed them all down with satin black. It holds up well enough for my minimal-use basement arcade. I also started the awful process of Bondoing and sanding:

Bondo.jpg
 
The front was originally a gloss black, so I masked off the side art and sprayed the front:

photo50.jpg


From there, I jumped to the monitor bezel, which was severely faded:

PreBezel.jpg


A little masking and a Sharpie helped a lot:

PostBezel.jpg


The body of the control panel was also severely faded.

PreSideControlPanel.jpg


PreFrontControlPane.jpg


I used a Sharpie as well to fix the faded Midway and front, and the results can be seen in the final photos.
 
I stripped off the CPO using a heat gun, then let some Citrustrip go to work:

ControlPanelStripping.jpg


Unfortunately, that didn't do the trick. I used Goo Gone, Goof Off, Brush Cleaner, WD-40…everything I had…and finally got it off and wire-brushed up:

ControlPanelStripped.jpg


I installed the new CPO, replaced all of the joysticks and all of the buttons. All of the T-molding got replaced as well, and got rid of the Peter Chou power supply.

The final thing to decide on was what to do about the side art. If any of you have seen my other projects, I always strip off everything and replace the artwork or repaint it or whatever. Well, there's nothing out there for this cab. My only option would be to buy a scanner and scan the entire side and have it reproduced. I may eventually do that. However, I don't have time to mess with it now, and my kids both have their birthdays coming up, so I needed to think of something to make this presentable. I used a combination of Sharpies and was able to take care of a lot of the gouges and scratches. I found that you could actually blend different colors to get a better match:

PostSharpie.jpg


Some of the larger gouges I just left, because the particleboard underneath actually somewhat matches the floor board pattern of the sides. However, I still had the chipped junk on the bottom. That's where these cool guys came in handy:

CarpetEdging.jpg


They're some sort of black vinyl edging I found in the carpeting department of Home Depot…and they were the exact length of the cab! I had to thin them so they'd fit underneath, but after tacking them to the bottom, they covered up the worst parts pretty well.
 
And into the lineup!

NBAJamlineuplightsout.jpg


Fulllineuplightson.jpg


Fulllineuplightson2.jpg


Oh…and another surprise:

TMNTBoard.jpg


I've got a 6:1 JAMMA switcher on the way, and will be adding other boards in addition to TMNT. Likely candidates will be The Simpsons, WWF Wrestfest, and X-men.

Thanks for reading!

Derek
 
Boomshakalaka! Looks great. I love my dedicated NBA Jam, but the art is really faded. Never seen a dedicated TE cab in person. Great job! :)
 
Very very nice!!! nba jam is one of my fav's my v1.0 roms are on their way right now, and i have both regular and TE :D

one of my buddies always insists on playing every time he's over, it's got great replay value.

so you did all of that work on it yesterday/today too?! wow talk about being motivated and prepared :D
 
Very very nice!!! nba jam is one of my fav's my v1.0 roms are on their way right now, and i have both regular and TE :D

one of my buddies always insists on playing every time he's over, it's got great replay value.

so you did all of that work on it yesterday/today too?! wow talk about being motivated and prepared :D

No, I didn't do all of it in 2 days ;) it actually took me about 2 weeks. I basically had it all done before Wednesday, when I started running around getting it scanned. I stripped the control panel when I got back later that day, and finally get it all installed Saturday morning. I'm not re-installing the control panel plexi, because I hate the look of it. I covered the pre-cut CPO holes with some pop-rivets, which are flatter than the original security screws. I also replaced the locks and used Teflon leg levelers.
 
awesome, if i can get my hands on a MK cab i'm going to put my Spider-man back to 4 player. i've got a bunch of 3+ player games.

excellent idea using those pieces from home depot to cover up the bottom and protect it even more btw.
 
I agree that is a cool solution for the bottom edges. I don't think I've ever see the art scanned and available anywhere so there's not much option at all for replacing it. Still looks great.
 
I agree that is a cool solution for the bottom edges. I don't think I've ever see the art scanned and available anywhere so there's not much option at all for replacing it. Still looks great.

I think we found your next scan jedi, i'd definitely want that if it ever happened. i'm sure megaupload could handle it ;-)
 
I think we found your next scan jedi, i'd definitely want that if it ever happened. i'm sure megaupload could handle it ;-)
I'm all for preserving it too. I noticed in one of Jedi's earlier posts, he mention gameongrafix had it available but pulled it due to concern of an NBA lawsuit. I recall only seeing NBA Jam side art, but never TE. Their art looks good, but I don't think the alignment of the art would match the original just from eyeballing my cab vs their art. It would be nice to see it improved a bit to fix up all the faded NBA Jam cabs out there.
 
Lookin' sweet! I was never big into sports growing up, but I always loved playing NBA Jam! That, and Blitz.
 
We'll see if the scan ever comes to fruition. I'm to the point where I really can't fit any more than one more game in the basement, so that means no other "projects". That's when I'll probably get bored enough that I'll get around to scanning it. As for my next project, my 6 in 1 JAMMA switcher came yesterday with extra 3rd and 4th player wiring harnesses and 3-way wire splitters. I also bought some diodes, so I need to figure out how to put it altogether and start adding boards.
 
We'll see if the scan ever comes to fruition. I'm to the point where I really can't fit any more than one more game in the basement, so that means no other "projects". That's when I'll probably get bored enough that I'll get around to scanning it. As for my next project, my 6 in 1 JAMMA switcher came yesterday with extra 3rd and 4th player wiring harnesses and 3-way wire splitters. I also bought some diodes, so I need to figure out how to put it altogether and start adding boards.

ah, you can easily fit atleast 6 games around that couch and those poles. you could make a life sized labyrinth ;-)
 
That looks fantastic! TE artwork is so awesome.

NBA Jam is the game that got me into this hobby. I will own one again someday.
 
Thought I'd add this addendum. I finally got my JAMMA 6 in 1 switcher installed, added the -5V and test switch mods, as well as extra 3rd and 4th player harnesses for my TMNT and The Simpsons boards. I did not add any diodes to the harnesses (some people have reported doing this because of feedback issues) and I didn't wire in the ground wires of those harnesses...although I probably should. I've got some pics of the inside of the cad itself, but I'll add those when I get them downloaded. Until then, here's a little iPhone video showing it actually works!



Derek
 
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