My new toy... 1940 Four-Five-Six

anubisdeath6

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Well...despite not gaining any information from ipdb, here, or google, I went ahead and drove 90 miles and bought a 1940 pinball machine. This is my first woodrail, and by far the oldest machine I've ever bought. So...I don't even know where to begin working on it. The cabinet is an 8.5/10, playfield is about a 8/10 and the backglass is 10/10. Physically, it's in AMAZING condition for being 70 years old.

It powers up and plays but it's missing the ball return mechanism, so when you insert a nickle and the balls drop, they just fall to the bottom of the cabinet...I need to find a ball return. If I take off the glass, I can manually load the balls. And then more problems. The game plays, but a few of the relays are bad and don't register when you hit the bumpers.

Anyway, just wanted to show off the toy, if anyone has ANY information about it, or any advice as to where to start, or general advice about woodrails, let me know!! I'll photograph everything as I go and keep it up to date on my blog.

P.S. Anyone know where I can find a ball return mechanism for an old machine such as this?
 

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It looks to me like everything is there, maybe it is just misaligned.


When you restart the game the balls should drop onto that ramp and roll to under the shooter rod. At this point you push the lower rod in and one ball is forced into the shooter lane. Then you can shoot the ball.

Oh, and The Pinball Resource has been the best source for parts, paperwork, and info that I have found for old EM pins.
 
I'm going to go check on that right this second, now that you mentioned it, the more I look at the photos, the more I see what you're talking about. I just need to find out why the balls drop to the inside of the cab right now.
 
Ok I checked it out...there's definatly something missing. The chute takes the balls into the slot on the side like it's supposed to, but the whole mechanism to shoot up up the chute via the secondary plunger is missing as I originally thought. Anyone have a picture of what is supposed to be there?

Here's a better perspective at what I'm seeing...
 

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Awesome, yeah I saw that list before I bought the machine. It's not going to be easy finding parts haha. Thanks for the picture, at least I have an idea of what to look for. These old woodrails and flipperless games are completely new to me, I'm used to 70's pins.
 
Hey wow a nudgy. cool.

Your missing ball lift arm might require some creativity. It isn't a terribly complicated part though.

PBR probably isn't going to be much help beyond light bulbs and rubber rings. Fortunately, it doesn't look like the game needs much beyond rubber anyway.

There's a prewarpinball Yahoo group - might be someone there with a spare ball lift.

If the playfield paint is as thin as on a Genco game - skip the Novus2 polish step and just wipe down with Novus1 to take any grime off. then wax.

No pix on IPDB? How about posting some. hmm... Not much other info there - guess you have some research to do.

Old flipperless woodrails were a new concept here a few years back. IPDB didn't even have a listing for World Series 1943, and most of the info about Victory Games was wrong.

Here's an article about playing relic pinball: http://www.pinballcollectorsresource.com/russ_files/genco7up.html
 
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