Heathen
Member
I finally found a Bandai-Namco Rockin' Bowl-O-Rama at auction last year. It had been a dream of mine for awhile. I should have researched more and seen all the hardware problems and hard to find parts issues. For some reason, these are harder to find on the east coast (US) so I won an auction and shipped it from CA to SC. Yeah a cross country trip. Keep that in mind.
Upon delivery, it was locked up tight. I plugged it in to see what would happen out of excitement - nothing. Time to drill the locks out. The cabinet was filthy, scratched up, missing exterior parts, and nothing worked. Great.
Upon drilling out the last lock, the back plate fell down...and the keys with it. It was empty. Completely empty. I had high hopes, but that's how it normally goes with these, you have to piece them together from others.
The pictures don't do the cleanup justice. That was an ordeal on its own.
After a somewhat complete and pricey rebuild:
-Locks and light bulbs of course
-Cleaned power supply and new cord
-New extremely hard to find ashtrays
-All new CPU with extra memory/IO board/Video/Fans, etc.
-New trackball (the old one was too far gone to polish)
-Hot Rod shop powder coating of the trackball plate to match the base. Unknown bastard will never carve their initials into it again.
Other stuff was done, but this post is long enough. I left some chewing gum underneath as I believe this is a good omen
Many lessons learned, but it is a hit with the family and guests. The soundtrack is awesome. Nothing beats Little Richard, Fats Domino, and a good Elvis impersonator while you are playing
Upon delivery, it was locked up tight. I plugged it in to see what would happen out of excitement - nothing. Time to drill the locks out. The cabinet was filthy, scratched up, missing exterior parts, and nothing worked. Great.
Upon drilling out the last lock, the back plate fell down...and the keys with it. It was empty. Completely empty. I had high hopes, but that's how it normally goes with these, you have to piece them together from others.
The pictures don't do the cleanup justice. That was an ordeal on its own.
After a somewhat complete and pricey rebuild:
-Locks and light bulbs of course
-Cleaned power supply and new cord
-New extremely hard to find ashtrays
-All new CPU with extra memory/IO board/Video/Fans, etc.
-New trackball (the old one was too far gone to polish)
-Hot Rod shop powder coating of the trackball plate to match the base. Unknown bastard will never carve their initials into it again.
Other stuff was done, but this post is long enough. I left some chewing gum underneath as I believe this is a good omen
Many lessons learned, but it is a hit with the family and guests. The soundtrack is awesome. Nothing beats Little Richard, Fats Domino, and a good Elvis impersonator while you are playing

