Running the Gauntlet

Vongoosewink

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Hey Gang,

I'm new here, I just got into the hobby last week when I picked up my first game -- a Gauntlet 2 machine! I played a lot of Gauntlet back in the 80's, it was one of my favorite games. This one came from Craigslist, a fellow had it in his garage just outside of Indianapolis, and boy was it DIRTY! The first thing I did was scrub this thing down. The plan is to get this thing back to it's original 1986 era glory! Here is a picture after the first cleaning:



The game is in pretty solid shape, it appears to be a Gauntlet 1 machine that was converted into Gauntlet 2 (I heard that was pretty common). You can even see the edge of the Gauntlet 1 control panel art peeking out behind the edge of the Gauntlet 2 art!



The game works, but has lots of little problems, which hopefully will be fixable by a newbie like myself. The biggest problem is that it does not talk -- there are sound effects and music, just no 'Wizard needs food, badly,' banter. I did some research on this forum, and it seems this is a common problem, with the voice sim-chip going out, so I've ordered one from arcadecomponents.com, and now I'm waiting not-so-patiently for it to arrive.

A few of the other things that I need to fix: rusty joystick handles and rusty bolts on the control panel and bezel, the control panel art really needs replaced, as it is badly discolored in places from the rusted bolts, new side art (it has none), new t-molding around the control panel table edge, new locks, and I need to get the coin lights working. It also has 2 goofy modern joysticks installed instead of the classic 'red ball' sticks, I want to get rid of these and replace them with something closer to the original. Lots of little things, but hopefully all manageable for a newbie!

I'll post updates on my progress here, wish me luck, everyone!





 
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Congrats! I picked one up just over a month ago, too. Like yours, it's a Gauntlet 2, and my overlay also has the original peeking out just a bit along the sides. It was a long wait, but I got it for a great price. It was my holy of holies, and to acquire it was huge for me!

Best of luck with your resto. I'll be watching to see how it goes. In regards to the side art, there is a thread here you might like to chime in on.
 
Good luck in restoring it..
Looks like someone installed Happs joystick.

Are those the tall skinny ones in the center? I really don't like them, aside from looking wrong, they make distracting clicking noises every time a move registers. I need to find an equivalent of the originals with the ball topps -- anyone have any ideas?
 
Lock Picking 101

Today I decided to start with something simple -- the locks. This game came with keys only to the coin mechanisms, not to the cash boxes, so I decided to try to get these open -- then I can replace the locks with new ones (with keys, of course).

After a quick look, I discover that the left lock has been partially drilled, as someone broke a key off in it! (Probably trying to force the lock, goofy). The right lock was nice and clean looking, so I sat down with some thin brass wire, a pair of needle-nose pliers, and tried my lock-picking skills. Three minutes later, it is open! I'm not an expert at this, but I have to say, picking this little lock was easy! Inside there is no coin bucket, but I find a perfect 'schematics' book in the bottom from 1986, looks like it was printed yesterday!

Encouraged, I decide to try the left (partially drilled and blocked with a key-stub) lock. I fool around with it for 5 minutes, and then it occurs to me to use my brain... I gotta get the key out. Here's how I did it, it was really easy: take a thin piece of brass wire (not copper, it needs to be stiff) and put a tiny "L" at the very end. push the wire into the keyhole, twist the foot of the "L" toward the key, and pull out. Presto! It slid right out.

After a few minutes of trying to pick this lock, I finally give up, and just loosen the bolt on the back though the other door. We're in! This side has a coin bucket, sadly empty of treasures. But hey, I was able to get the locks open without having to resort to drilling, so it is a small step toward victory!

Anybody out there know a good place to get inexpensive Happ cam locks? Now I need to replace these 2! Pointers would be welcome!

Tomorrow, I'm going to try to take apart my rusted control panel, to get to that discolored art underneath!
 
Summoning the Demon!

So today we decided to try and tackle this nasty control panel. I did my best to clean it up, but it was just no use... the bolts that hold the joysticks in had rusted, leaving puddles of rusty residue around all of them, and there were numerous splotches of discoloration here and there as well. Even worse, the overlay was put over the original Gauntlet CP, and you could see through it, you could clearly see the image of the Demon in the center, peering through the overlay, as if daring me to reveal him!

I talked about this with my wife -- get a new Gauntlet 2 overlay, or try and peel off the old one and see if the original Gauntlet CP was usable? We both like the original, as it was colorful, and had individual illustrations of all the characters, and the cool Demon, of course! Atari really cut corners on the Gauntlet 2 cab design, as the CP art is just clips from the sides of the cab, and lots and lots of text. So we decided to try to peel it off, and release the Demon underneath! Worse case scenario, we would have to strip the whole CP and apply a new Gauntlet 2 overlay, which we'd have to do anyway -- so no big deal!

I took an exacto-knife, and carefully slid it between the 2 layers of the overlays -- careful to not actually cut anything -- and gently peeled up an edge of the top layer. It was working! Once I had enough to hold on to, I put away the knife and just pulled slowly. We had a blowdryer on hand, and heating up the area seemed to make the peeling easier. I don't know what the original overlay was put on with, but it never tore, peeled up, or anything -- and even better, it was in perfect condition with nice, bright colors! The first half took about an hour, and by this time, it was clear this was going to work, and the face of the malicious demon was at last revealed!



Another hour later and we were nearly done. In this picture, you can really tell the difference between the colors on the top overlay and the bottom -- the original is much nicer!



Once it was all off, there was a lot of adhesive still stuck to the top. We used a combination of Goo-Be-Gone and Windex, and lots of paper towels, and eventually got it all off. It was hard work, but worth it! Check out what was underneath:



I really love the original CP art. I know it is not 'correct' but we're going to keep this for our Gauntlet 2 machine... can you blame us?
 
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Looks good. The original is in really nice shape.

Personally though, I would leave the plexi off. It isn't original and for home use, I don't think you really need the extra added protection.
 
Looks good. The original is in really nice shape.

Personally though, I would leave the plexi off. It isn't original and for home use, I don't think you really need the extra added protection.

Arrgh! That is a really good idea, and I wish I had read your post before I did this:



I put the plexi back on. It never occurred to me that you could use it without. I guess I'll leave it for now, until I figure out what to do about those 2 goofy joysticks -- I don't want to have to take it apart any more than I have to, it took me 2 hours today to put it back together! Before, I went to my local "Fastenal" (bolt & screw shop) and replaced all my rusted carriage bolts with brand new stainless steel ones. These look awesome now! Unfortunately, the plexi seems to have been burned by some ding-dong with a cigarette, down on the bottom left corner, I wonder if it could be polished out?

I also removed and cleaned up the bezel, and threw out the rusty screws from that as well. I used Armor-All "original' car dach restorer on the bezel plastic, and now it is shiny and fresh looking. Guys, this stuff is great for refurbishing oxidized plastic! I used new screws to hold it on, and since I couldn't find black ones, I just covered the heads with black plastic screw plugs. Now they look just like the bezel plastic, almost like they were intended for it. This machine is starting to look presentable, now if only I could solve my sound problem!
 
Good choice, the original Gauntlet CP is so much nicer than Gauntlet 2. I'd personally have the cabinet outwardly a Gauntlet, but have a Gauntlet 2 board in it.

At least with the plexi on, you won't be worried about that super nice original control panel getting damaged when the mates come around.

- J
 
Push my luck?

Good choice, the original Gauntlet CP is so much nicer than Gauntlet 2. I'd personally have the cabinet outwardly a Gauntlet, but have a Gauntlet 2 board in it.

At least with the plexi on, you won't be worried about that super nice original control panel getting damaged when the mates come around.

- J

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing: outward Gauntlet, inside Gauntlet 2. I'm now wondering if I can successfully peel the art off the marquee and coin panel? Do I dare push my luck? Gentlemen, what say you?
 
Today I tried peeling the coin door overlay off -- it came off easily, and there is a nearly-perfect Gauntlet 1 underneath -- but now I'll have to spend a few hours scraping glue. I'll post pictures when complete!

On the tech side, anybody out there know where I can get a working Gauntlet 1 or 2 board at a fair price? Still having the 'no speech' issue, thinking of just replacing the board.

UPDATED -- Got a new board with working speech from Nuterpacman! We have sound!
 

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Awesome! Like you've I'm new to the hobby but I've been following your restoration for some time. Have you done any more work to in recently? I followed a fellow overseas that put on new vinyl and used the "Canadian Guy" to get repro tall art. Did you have to spend much time on the cabinet as I have work to do on that on mine.
 
Separated at Birth!

I'm still looking for tall repro art for the sides, hopefully something will become available one day.

In my quest to get this game back to its complete original glory, I went looking for some of the original joysticks. I ordered a group of 4 from ebay, but they were trashed -- the sticks look like someone took a weed-wacker to them. Only one was salvageable, but the wire harness looks ok (to casual inspection).

Then a couple weeks ago, I spotted a Crime Fighters game on Craigslist. I nearly passed by without even looking at the listing, but I'm glad I did -- it was an original Gauntlet that had been converted to Crime Fighters. The owner even had the 'conversion instructions' booklet they made to specifically convert Gauntlet to CF. And the game was really clean, nearly perfect except for a scrape down one of the side-art stickers. He wanted $400 for the game, and I managed to talk him down to just over half that, mainly to get the perfect joysticks. Check out the pics of the 2 games side by side!

My wife and I have played Crime Fighters a bit, and I have to say we're becoming a bit attached to the game -- even the super-cheezy side art and goofy models on the marquee, with the hero decked out in a 1980's acid-washed denim jean jacket -- reminds me of my days in High School. Crime Fighters is not a great game, it suffers from a lack of special moves, and all the characters are the same, but it does have a catchy soundtrack and some decent humor here and there. And it is hard, which is good for a beat-em-up (since I now effectively have unlimited quarters). The only thing I can find wrong with the cab is that the coin lights don't seem to work.

It is going to take a bit of effort to swap the joysticks to the gauntlet game, since Crime Fighters is Jamma and has a whole different wiring harness for the sticks. Luckily I saved the wiring harness off the crappy sticks from ebay, so I can use that. It should be worth the effort in the end. In the mean time, we've been scraping glue off the front of the first Gauntlet, and using the Gauntlet/CF cabinet to run some other awesome 4-player beat-em-ups I've found (Growl and Vendetta, both great).

Behold the pictures of Gauntlet and his goofy twin:
 

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