Initial D v3 twin cab repair log (in progress)

itsovertoosoon

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I bought an initial d v3 twin cab and thought I'd document my progress for anyone who this might help. This forum has been so nice, thought I'd contribute too.

Upon trying to use my twin cab, I got no video/audio on both sides.

Upon reading the forum, I checked the C29 capacitor on my Naomi 2 boards and indeed they leaked.

I ended up bringing my boards and GD-Rom drives to Ken at irepairsega.com today.

This was his process for inspecting my parts:

Board 1: checked my fans and noticed one seized. He refurbished the fan by replacing a bearing

On the Net-dimm, he replaced a harness

GD rom 1: everything looked ok

Board 2: everything checked out

GD rom 2: he immediately attempted to sniff the drive. Suspected an issue and indeed saw a shorted out section that ended up frying the board at the chip starting with BA59. The solder ended up turning to cement and he wasn't able to repair that part. He ended up rebuilding my drive using parts from a donor board

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He was extremely friendly and I was shocked at how fast and precise he was with maneuvering around checking things and replacing parts. As a complete noob, I was shocked.

He gave some tips on the upcoming challenge of getting my card readers up and running.

I went home and reinstalled one of the Naomi's and gd rom drives, the game booted!

Unfortunately, it ate my card and jammed with a r/w error.

As of today, I'm super happy my game is booting and am looking forward to getting the card readers working and then fixing the alignment on my steering wheel.
 
Update 1:

I have both sides booting correctly and linked together

Left side:
I used the game settings to move the steering wheel 40 degrees, which almost gets the alignment right.

I need to get the set pin corrected, as I get the super common rumbling issue. I also wanna pull the steering assembly to see how bad the stoppers look.

Card reader on the left side is working great now.

Right side:
My steering wheel has a ton of white mold spots. I tried to use 409 today with no avail. I also tried arm and hammer wipes (Citric acid based) and also did not work. I'll try a bleach solution next, and replace the wheel if that doesn't work.

Card reader is super jammed. The cabs didn't come with the keys to the card reader compartment, so I have to cut the locks off, will try next week
 

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For lock use universal key ...1/2" drill bit.

Oh and guess I forgot to take up the steering mech thing when you were here. Use new screws and lock tite on them. Use something like fuel hose over the bushing rather than trying to find the urethane bumper as original.
 
It's been a while since I've provided updates.

Good news: About two months ago, I got both card readers working correctly and had a few battles with my brother. Super fun

Hour after my battles, one of my CRTs goes out.

Contacted a local operator who does house calls. Asked for him to recap both monitors and try to figure out what's going on with the broken one

He came by today to reinstall and test
Broken monitor still broken.
Working monitor is now dimmer than before on one side.

My monitors (Makvision M3129) doesn't have a good reputation for reliability and seems pretty difficult to triage issues.

Repair guy gave a few options:

1. Look over the chassis again
2. Find a replacement chassis
3. LCD conversion

We are going with option 1 for now, but I'm not holding my breath on these monitors. Thinking about looking at those unico 26" 4:3 LCDs….
 
Swapped Naomis and the problem is still happening.

Then tried to use my game card and the right reader wasn't working. Did another round of the cleaning (red shop towel and 99% alcohol) to no avail.

Will try again another time haha
 

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Overdue update

I ended up converting to unico 26" LCDs. Removed the crts, built a custom mount for both LCDs. Looks great. Color is much better and the monitors were practically plug and play.

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Over time, both sides started to get gd-rom errors, some combination of 24 or 25.

I played around with swapping the scsi cables and sometimes it would get better. Tried some contact cleaner and it helped a little.

I ended up buying some replacement cables and they are working again.

Current problem: the card readers.

Left side gets a rw error.
Right side can read and can write to cards, but it doesn't print the name / stars when issuing a card.

Going to spend this weekend trying to rub off some of the corrosion inside the card reader surface.

If it doesn't work, going to reach back to Ken and see what can be done.
 
I can't say I have ever seen a dirty SCSI cable causing these issues. I am sole shop that does repairs on this system in the country. I have rebuilt 2500 + drives and never had issues with SCSI aside from it not being plugged in correctly. If I have not rebuilt the drive in question in last 5 years, I am certain your issue will return.
As for L reader, could be a cracked cap bottom side of pcb causing issue but also could be several ICs in involved. R Reader could be bad thermal print head, bent frame, other alignment issues, bad wiring harness to print head. Cleaning corrosion is not going to help. If mag head or print heads are super cruddy, then yes cleaning will help. I also am the sol shop on planet that services these readers. I have records for over a 1000 of these repaired here.
 
Thanks for taking a look, Ken. You serviced both of my gd rom drives somewhat recently, so I was also surprised I was getting these errors.

I'm going to email you about the card readers. Might as well have you take a look.
 
visited Ken again today and got my gdrom drives and card readers inspected.

Left card reader was fine other than being "very crusty".

Right side had a bad print head (it had some weird residue on it), which explains why it wouldn't print names.

For my gdrom drives, I was getting error 24 and 25 previously. Left drive had dust over the lens (doh)

Right side had a cracked gear and worn out main motor.

One of the drives (forget which one) has a noisy fan that may give out at some point.

Got my equipment home and the games boot (no error 24 or 25).

Upon reinstallation, the right side machine card reader started looping over and over.

Ken recommended checking the connections, swapping the wiring harnesses, and swapping the Naomi boards. None of these seemed to solve the issue. After a while, I jiggled some wires and the looping stopped. Maybe dumb luck…

Happy to say that games are booting and card readers seem to be working. Thanks again to Ken for servicing my parts and helping triage the looping issue.

So recapping my journey so far,

1. Naomi 2 boards
2. Gdrom drives
3. LCD conversion
4. Steering wheel replacement
5. Card readers

Next will be tightening screws in the steering assembly and I'll be keeping an eye out for seat covers with decals. Looks like arcade art shop ran out of seat back decals for iD3, so it's less appealing to buy a blank seat back and add the decal from a different version / game
 
I decided to start working on the steering assembly today.

I followed the Sega bulletin and took everything apart.

The bumper on the steering column non existent and the one on the bumper plate was in bad shape

Here is a pic

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The shaft itself was pretty locked up and I had to hammer off the big pulley

I'm taking Ken's advice and trying 1/2 heater hose to add onto the stopper plate and the steering column.

Now it will be a challenge to put it all together again tomorrow.
 
Reassembled the steering assembly.

Good news - the fuel hose is adding cushion so the stopping isn't metal on metal clanking

Not so good news - at the end of a match, there's now a squeaking noise when the machine vibrates.

I read in a YouTube comment that it's caused by loose set screws on the feedback motor gear. Tried that and didn't seem to help much.

Im wondering if I need to lubricate or if the shaft / bearing isn't fully lined up and all the way in

Going to disassemble and reassemble again.
 
I think my dumb luck ran out with the looping card reader.

Over time, it would take many many tries unseating and reseating to get it to work. Eventually, it just stopped working. Also…I accidentally pulled a wire out of the connector pin.

Going through the chain to figure out what's going on.

Noticed both sides have a wire spliced in from the psu. On the good side (working card reader), it's spliced back into a neutral going into the card reader harness. On the bad side, that wire is disconnected in the back of the cab.

I started by swapping card readers, trouble persisted

Tried swapping card reader side harnesses, problem still happening.

Checked voltage on both sides and they look in range (5.1V and 12.1V)

I emailed Ken to see if he has any thoughts on what to check next beside swapping the internal wiring of the cab. Really hoping it's something straight forward like the extra wire.

And hoping to find which type of connector pin I need. Going to try to solder the wire and reuse, but the better solution is to get the right part.
 
I took a visit to Ken to get my wiring harness checked out and to repair my backup card reader and gd rom drive.

Wiring harness (reader side) was ok other than that broken pin, which Ken kindly fixed for me.

I ended up checking all the pins and continuity for the harness at the back of the machine….everything checked out.

Ended up checking that extra unattached ground wire and that appears to be it. Doh…. Open ground obviously causing the issue.
 
The reset looping came back and got progressively worse.

I ended up testing some theories on voltage drops in case it was a power issue, just in case

Just finally got it fixed today by taking a spare harness from Ken and repinning the Japanese connector with Molex and it worked immediately

I don't wanna jinx, but I think I just need to replace the steering pots, add stop bumper to the right side, and fix a squeak on my left side accelerator and my machine is in great working shape
 
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