Lethal Weapon 3 semi-restoration

[brypten]

Tell you what, you do a pass with your magic eraser, two passes with Novus, and a pass of wax. How long does that take?

I went over the entire playfield 100% three times. Each of those passes is actually several passes in one. All of that including vacumming and wiping in between passes and a final rub down with a clean rag to remove the #1 residue in about an hour. Next time will be even faster because I have experience.

I've done the Novus+rag thing. This blows it out of the water in overall finish, and the time investment is about 5-10% of what I would have invested for comparable Novus/rag results.

Oh, and it did make the mylar circles look very good. I didn't invest too much time into them either.

It's a lot of elbow grease with the magic eraser and alcohol. Just scrubbing the playfield with the magic eraser seems to take at least a 1/2 an hour if not more. Cleaning the haze with novus 1 is pretty quick but still another step. I don't even want to estimate how long waxing takes because of the wait between applying and polishing.

 

[shardian]

Nothing major with this posts - just some notes for my benefit. I haven't had alot of time to work this week, so the playfield reassembly is slow going.

- someone put lithium grease in some of the coils. If any of you have ever experienced this, you know how much of a PITA it can become. For instance, I was replacing a flipper coil sleeve and it was overly tight/gummy. So much so that the new sleeve broke about 80% in. I just trimmed it up and called it a day. The only other option would be to replace the coil - which I don't plan on doing.

- I was shorted all of the 5/8" rubbers in my ring kit. I am never ordering a kit again. I'll build my own damn kit since I have YET to get a 100% complete 'kit'. I should have known something was wrong when the star post rubbers were nearly impossible to get on the post! I was using the 1/2" rings since that was the only small ring in the kit. I didn't know something was wrong until I ran out. Luckily I have some spares on hand.

Reassembly is by far my least favorite part of pin restoration. It is just so damn tedious!

 

[WarLordAG]

Looks great.
You did a really good job repainting that left side imo.

 

[shardian]

Well other than a single plastic I have to let the repair cure on, the playfield rebuild is finished. I can't wait to see it fired up so clean and with 100% working bulbs tomorrow.

Now I just have to finish up a bit of cabinet restore work tomorrow, and it will be done.

I would have loved to load some pics, but I can't find the camera. We took it to the easter bunny today, and now it is MIA.
I also have a pic of a clever repair I had to make on the pop bumper lamp socket. I used my heated decal remover to cut out part of the sides of the socket, then used that access to solder the wires back to the socket leads. THe decal remover gave me a real clean cut. That thing came in really useful!

 

[ovfdfireman]

I just want to know what the compounds are for the treasure cove kit. If we on the group knew that and the process we could do it our selves. I found where treasure cove gets all of the polishing attachements. Sounds like Bleache white is on of the compounds. Care to share with us, the process and what you think the compounds are?

I say Bleache White, Scratch out (or Novus 2), and wax

 

[shardian]

Pics as promised. I tried several times to do this today, but the website keeps crapping out on me.

First two are of finished playfield. Last is a pic of the hack I had to do to salvage the pop bumper socket I broke when I thought it had quick disconnects.

And for the record, I am refusing to put the flipper buttons and gun back on the cabinet until I am 100% done with the restore.

 

[ovfdfireman]

This is inspirational, I just picked up a lethal weapon about 2 weeks ago, have been watching closely. I hope to do the same. Keep on posting! Looking great!

 

[shardian]

Welp, she's all done!

I finished the touch ups today, painted the cabinet back, repainted the side rails and lockdown bar, and took care of minor adjustments and playtesting.

The display was definitely toast since it still had the lit column and ghosting after rebuilding the PSU and having the display controller tested. I traded in the new display from my Whodunnit, and will put a new DMD in the Whodunnit later. It is really sharp now. I have to say, removing a DMD from a Data East and a Bally Williams is like night and day! With a WPC game, the display is in and out in like 2 minutes. In a Data East, you have to remove the display controller, remove a metal shield, remove 5 PITA standoff posts, and then take out the display. I don't have any deep well 6 mm sockets, so I had to use a frikkin wrench...

The translite really stands out like a sore thumb now, but oh well. I can live with it.

I have a bit of advice for you guys who are thinking about doing restos: Check your metal lane guides carefully. On this game, the left side saucer metal lane guide had taken a beating. It had mushroomed a bit on the end from hard shots from the right flipper, which caused the ball to go down the middle after kickout unless you nudged the hell out of the game. I used my angle grinder and a paddle wheel sanding disc to knock the mushroom off and polish it nicely. Now the ball feeds directly to the left flipper as it should.

My advice is of course to pay close attention to any metal lane guides that have damage and TAKE CARE OF IT! It is a minor step that many overlook that should be a very high priority.

 

[WadeLanham]

Looks very nice... Wish I'd get a chance to play it before it goes... damn...

We need some full finished cabinet shots too! I realize now that I didn't get any final pics of my WH2O exterior before I sold it.

Wade

 

[shardian]

Here are the finished pics.

 

[metahugh]

Super Shiny!! Good job!

 

[Schusler]

Here are the finished pics.

While I'm not a fan of the pin itself....I must say Shar that is one hell of a job of beautiness---well done sir!!!!