m_mcgovern
Active member
Warning...long post with lotsa pics. I just wanted to share my latest score!
As of this past Thursday, Satan has one fewer game to play...
Some of you may remember this post about rebuilding a Star Wars Cockpit
Well, Steve was talking about this very gem in Brent's Hellcade:
At the time, I told Steve I would be interested if he passed on it since I was in the process of putting together an upright, so I had the internals & yoke covered.
Well, it took nearly two months to negotiate price and line up the schedules of the machine's owner and availability of my buddy's trailer...
But, on Thursday night, I was ready to return home (a mere 12 miles) pulling this:
Although it is a perfectly playable Great 1000 Mile Rally 2, I think I will convert it back to its original form...
The cabinet itself looks to be in pretty good shape. The bottom edges are missing no chunks and the edges themselves look quite solid. Here is one of the back corners and maybe the worst spot along the bottom:
That's gum in the second picture...from the 90s? Let me know if anyone wants it!
The plastic bezel is in good shape, but... R2, how am I supposed to fly...uhhhh....drive this X-Wing? Where are the brakes?!?!?!?
As you can see, the conversion did include adding a nice white button to the control panel.
I'm not sure the best way to repair this as I don't believe there are any reproduction cockpit CPOs available. Maybe I will leave it as-is for an eventual SW/ESB kit. At the very least, I'll change the white button to green to make it a bit less obvious...Any other suggestions?
Also, the driving gauges that have been added are stickers under some clear plexiglass. I am hoping that a little goo gone will help me take care of those.
It looks like the curved smoked plexiglass clearly is not installed properly yet either...
However, underneath the 3 stickers and black paint is the original SW marquee glass...in what (from the back) appears to be in pristine shape.
Now, onto the insides. There appears to be not much left from the original machine. No Star Wars PCBs or vector monitor (duh), but I have both of these, even if the amplifone monitor I have is 19"...Also, the wiring harness has been hacked out. And, I'm not sure that the monitor mount is standard issue for a cockpit, either...
The best part is that the volume control was bypassed so playing Great 1000 Mile Rally is quite ear-splitting...
I think the first order of business will be removing Rally and doing a bit of cleaning.
The big job will be removing the new "sideart" and black paint from the sides. I am hoping that the black paint has served to preserve the original artwork, which is hopefully in good shape. To do this, I was planning again to try Goo-Gone to remove the 1000 Mile Rally stickers, followed by either Safest Strip or Citristrip. Has anyone tried both and want to offer their opinion on what is most effective?
So, I will definitely be leaning on the KLOV community to help me bring this guy back. I certainly don't want to end up having this entered again into the Hellcade, worse than before!!
Sorry for the long post, but I am pretty excited right now...
As of this past Thursday, Satan has one fewer game to play...
Some of you may remember this post about rebuilding a Star Wars Cockpit
Well, Steve was talking about this very gem in Brent's Hellcade:
At the time, I told Steve I would be interested if he passed on it since I was in the process of putting together an upright, so I had the internals & yoke covered.
Well, it took nearly two months to negotiate price and line up the schedules of the machine's owner and availability of my buddy's trailer...
But, on Thursday night, I was ready to return home (a mere 12 miles) pulling this:
Although it is a perfectly playable Great 1000 Mile Rally 2, I think I will convert it back to its original form...
The cabinet itself looks to be in pretty good shape. The bottom edges are missing no chunks and the edges themselves look quite solid. Here is one of the back corners and maybe the worst spot along the bottom:
That's gum in the second picture...from the 90s? Let me know if anyone wants it!
The plastic bezel is in good shape, but... R2, how am I supposed to fly...uhhhh....drive this X-Wing? Where are the brakes?!?!?!?
As you can see, the conversion did include adding a nice white button to the control panel.
Also, the driving gauges that have been added are stickers under some clear plexiglass. I am hoping that a little goo gone will help me take care of those.
It looks like the curved smoked plexiglass clearly is not installed properly yet either...
However, underneath the 3 stickers and black paint is the original SW marquee glass...in what (from the back) appears to be in pristine shape.
Now, onto the insides. There appears to be not much left from the original machine. No Star Wars PCBs or vector monitor (duh), but I have both of these, even if the amplifone monitor I have is 19"...Also, the wiring harness has been hacked out. And, I'm not sure that the monitor mount is standard issue for a cockpit, either...
The best part is that the volume control was bypassed so playing Great 1000 Mile Rally is quite ear-splitting...
I think the first order of business will be removing Rally and doing a bit of cleaning.
The big job will be removing the new "sideart" and black paint from the sides. I am hoping that the black paint has served to preserve the original artwork, which is hopefully in good shape. To do this, I was planning again to try Goo-Gone to remove the 1000 Mile Rally stickers, followed by either Safest Strip or Citristrip. Has anyone tried both and want to offer their opinion on what is most effective?
So, I will definitely be leaning on the KLOV community to help me bring this guy back. I certainly don't want to end up having this entered again into the Hellcade, worse than before!!
Sorry for the long post, but I am pretty excited right now...
