My First Restore - Track and Field

parkway

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Donor 2016
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Yorktown Heights, New York
Finally found a TF (thanks, Greg). However, the one I found was a tad beat up; had seen better days, but the price was right and I got to take a nice roadtrip as well (which meant some time away from work!) and meet a fellow KLOV'er. What better game than this to do my first (attempted) restoration on. This is how I got it. In my zeal to start, I should have taken more/better "before" pictures, but you get the idea. This is what Greg sent to me so I could take a look at it before I picked it up:

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And one more:

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The main thing was, the cab was solid, but was beat pretty badly chipped on the bottom due to no leg levelers; only some small blocks of wood served to try and protect the bottom of the cab. Didn't help much as can be seen at the front corners. This would be my first dealings with Bondo as well it looked like. So, I got her home, had the wife help me move it into the basement, and got to work on my off-hours when I could. Couple of late nights in the basement.
 
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The first thing I did was vacuum and wipe her down; as you can probably imagine it was VERY dirty. No cigarette smoke/tar or smell, but just years of being touched and, well, I guess just collecting dust (Greg himself had bought it as-is as a restore project, but never got around to it). It actually wasn't too horrible on the inside; usual dust and crap. The outside was the real challenge. A couple of hours and a lot of Simple Green later, and I laid it down on its back to tackle my first job: leg levelers! Included in my parts order to Bob Roberts was his leg leveling kit. What a pain in the ass crawling inside the cab to get those carraige bolts tightened down. After I had the levelers in place, I attempted my first bondo job. These are BEFORE I did my second round of bondo. Considering the left corner was missing all the way down to the front of the cabinet, I think I did an ok job on my first "coat" so to speak. I'm thinking of putting some corner protectors on as well to give it a little added strength (and to hide my amateur bondo job). The finished corners (which I haven't taken pics of yet) came out pretty square and nice, but not perfect. The bottom edge of the cab will be another, separate bondo task:

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One thing I couldn't wait to do was redo the CP. So, I didn't. I had previously removed all the metal brackets and stripped, sanded, primed, and painted them. The CP was no exception; Citistrip made short work of it all. Again, too overzealous to take pics of the "before" stripped CP (although you can see the pics of how beat up the original was). Here it is, freshly primed, painted, and with a new QuarterArcade CPO installed. I found that installing a couple of buttons to act as an "anchor/placeholder" while the backing was still on the CPO worked out very well. I then C A R E F U L L Y peeled the backing off little by little folding it under as I went, removed the buttons, and folded the rest down slowly ensuring no air bubbles. Went around the curve very nicely. Trimmed off a little excess at the top and bottom, and the end result is beautiful (couple of buttons just laid in the holes for me to admire the aesthetics):

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So far, so good. Right now, the stripped cab stands in the middle of my basement. I'll take a couple of pics of it when I get a chance to try to document the "before" and "after" a little better. Any questions/comments/advice are also appreciated. Like I said, this is the first time I'm doing this (and loving it, btw).
 
Some more pics of its current state:

The newly painted metal brackets (minus the hinge which was oddly shiny and new looking):

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The skeleton of the cab itself:

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Interesting (and convienent) addition; a volume pot wired into the speaker line accessible via the coin door. Especially good for me so I can turn down the sound when my son is asleep. This was already there; I didn't install it:

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I also bought a replacement switcher (the old one is still in there). Giving me some weird readings, so I figured I'd replace it while I had everything open. Yes, the wiring has been hacked a bit at some point, but not the worst I've seen (though I haven't seen much):

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I also removed and cleaned the PCB cage. I could never understand why they mounted these things flush with the cab side. Trying to remove the PCB with it like that is an exercise in frustration. Pulling it straight out causes it to hit the wiring and, even worse, the blocking which the back door rests on. I had some spare wood laying around, so I just blocked it out a little. This way, board switches (to Hypersports), battery replacement, and/or board repair will be much easier:

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I also filled in the lock bar holes and sanded them flat. The FBI sticker was falling off/crusty/dirty, so it had to go as well:

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I color matched the blue at Home Depot (yeah, yeah....I know....) Looks pretty darn close, but we'll see. Front still needs a little work before paint:

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I will be keeping my eye on this one as my Track and Field is in about the same condition. The front corners are all mangled as well. I have a new overlay and sideart, I just need to strip it down and get to work.

I see that yours is also the "new" style cabinet like mine with the over/under coin door which is basically the later run in the Hypersports cabinet. What is your serial number? So far I have the highest one reported here on KLOV (http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=183764) with 12231.

If your cardboard bezel is shot, you might want to get in on this: http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=181741

Do you happen to have paint flaking off all over inside the cabinet? It is like there is paint overspray all over the melamine on the inside and it didn't adhere very well. Mine is a mess.

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I was actually going to add to the serial number thread as well; mine seems to be the new highest now at 14907.

I put myself down for two carbboard bezels as I am probably just going to grab a second T/F cab and turn it into a Hypersports instead of trying to do the two boards in one thing. I think Prok was having a hard time finding someone to do the laser cutting/scoring for a reasonable price and that's holding up production (but personally, I wouldn't mind paying extra for the bezels since eveyone says they're of great quality).

Yeah, I have a lot of overspray on the inside, but it looks like whatever was going to flake off has already fallen off before I got it; what's still on there seems to be holding on pretty well so far.

I just got done with a hellish work week, so hopefully I can make some more progress over the coming week and take some more pictures as well.



I will be keeping my eye on this one as my Track and Field is in about the same condition. The front corners are all mangled as well. I have a new overlay and sideart, I just need to strip it down and get to work.

I see that yours is also the "new" style cabinet like mine with the over/under coin door which is basically the later run in the Hypersports cabinet. What is your serial number? So far I have the highest one reported here on KLOV (http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=183764) with 12231.

If your cardboard bezel is shot, you might want to get in on this: http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=181741

Do you happen to have paint flaking off all over inside the cabinet? It is like there is paint overspray all over the melamine on the inside and it didn't adhere very well. Mine is a mess.

5890688733_4009464c49_z.jpg
 
Looking good. I'll be keeping an eye on this restore, I have a T&F needing some love too.

When you Bondo'd the corners, do you add any extra support (I usually sink a few screws in the wood as an anchor - probably overkill)
 
Looking good. I'll be keeping an eye on this restore, I have a T&F needing some love too.

When you Bondo'd the corners, do you add any extra support (I usually sink a few screws in the wood as an anchor - probably overkill)

I did add some wood screws to the left corner; that's where I had to really build up the bondo and I figured it would need a little extra support. It was broken off flush with the front of the cab, so it needed a pretty big chunk replaced.
 
Just a quick update while I have a couple of minutes.

Did my first coat of paint; pretty damn close match. Definitely needs at least one more coat, but it's looking a hell of a lot better.

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Also got my new piece of smoked plexi. Despite the damage to the paper, the plexi is fine. I have taken one side of the paper off since this picture in order to check that it wasn't damaged.

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The picture I took of my serial number just for the heck of it.

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I fixed up the bottom of the cab as best I could, but it's still far from perfect. However, even though I'm doing as much work as I am, I'm not looking for perfect; just looking to make it presentable again and I think it's coming along good. My next project (aside from finishing the blue paint) is to start removing the adhesive left over from the old sideart. Got myself some Rapid Remover that someone here recommended; tested a little of it and it works amazing! More to come soon....
 
Painting is done; looks pretty good IMO for Home Depot color matching:

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I populated the control panel as well one night when I was feeling a little under the weather and had a little time to myself. Looks great; bought new leaf buttons and switches from Bob Roberts. I was able to salvage some of the newer ones that were in there when I bought it (they were replaced at some point in its life), but those were relegated to the player 1-4 buttons; the new ones went to the run and jump buttons of course. The original one-piece leaf swtiches were shot to shit so they had to go.


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The sideart came off without too much difficulty. Rapid Remover (which KLOV'er Kawydud(sp?) recommended) made short work of any left over adhesive. Still a tiny bit on the top of the left side in the picture that I removed. Patched up the side that had some gouges and sanded it smooth.

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Finished the T-molding this morning and put some corner protectors on. I didn't do such a great job fixing the bottom of the cab and it sure made the molding install a pain in the ass. Oh well; lesson learned for the next cab I fix up.

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I apologize for the glare in the pictures; my basement has some (obviously) pretty bright florescent lights. When it's comeplete I'll take some shots without the glare and maybe even use a real camera (instead of my iPhone). Thanks for watching and the kind words.
 
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