Spy Hunter went to the Depot!

ManiN

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So I picked up a SH in early April this year and have tinkered out the issues since. It had no lights, no marquee light, no Peter Gunn music, and the power supply was effed. I caused some grief by putting a vid chip in backwards and that took some time to identify it was fried as I flipped it without noting which one I flipped before I put it all back together and saw sprite issues. Also the sound had some horrible hiss interference that I ended up filtering out. After all that, I was then able to focus on the art and cleanup. I purchased side art from TOG. The rest was just paint and cleaning. The red on the steering wheel is a Valspar classic red. You'll recognize it right when you see it in the rack. Worked well, but not as durable as I would wish. Dings easy. Maybe it didn't like my primer?

Before:
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So First I cleaned up the steering wheel which consisted of blasting the handles, repainting the hub and reassembly (sucks).
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I ditched the pins and replaced with grub screws on either side to stabilize the hub and also prevent future damage from pins working loose as that did happen when I got it. The plastic collar was thrashed as a result.
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The coin door was in awesome shape surprisingly. Usually I have to do a full tear down and repaint. So I moved to stripping the art off and prepping the cab
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Next I used a technique where I hang the art initially by a 'start point' I'll call it where it's a corner or defining edge that controls the rest of the art location. On SH, I decided this was the peak corner on the top. I clamped that and rotated till it was level then made sure laterally it was good. After that, I clamp down about 10-12 inches with a clamp on either side and let the top flop back
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This allows me to peal off a top section of back paper and stick it to then guide the rest of the application like a 'hinge' as TOG refers to in his demos. Then I carefully apply from middle then side to side sweeps being careful to only do a few inches at a time otherwise wrinkles will occur. That's it.
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Great idea with the grub screws. The collars are often trashed. I assume you had to tap the holes for the grubs?
 
Looks fantastic! Its come along way from when you first got it!
I can remember playing this game tons way back and spending hours watching my best friend play it, as he kicked some major ass on it. LOL
Thanks for posting the pictures of your restoration. Hoping the ones Im doing turn out as nice. :)
 
great job!
SH can be tricky. SO you started and hinged at the top and worked down?
Thanks man! Yeah, I clamped in the peak corner, then on the sides and adjusted the whole thing till it had a good boarder of black around it. Watched the dimple in the front real close too where the front comes in a bit for the kick panel. The gray lines at the bottom area helped to make sure it was lined up right too. I personally wouldn't change the art anymore after the black was increased. It all seems to work out well in lining it up right. The black is just more insurance now haha. And yeah, after it was hinged by sticking a top section, and having clamps to keep the art positioned, I just worked my way down with it a few inches at a time sweeping side to side.
 
I should add that I put vinyl in the pedal hole. I almost painted it, then recalled the wear point on it from player's feet and realized the vinyl would hold up better than paint.
 
oh WOW I just relized you picked this up at the shop yesterday!!!
I didnt relize what your screen name was-LOL
great job speedy!

I know others that have purchased the art months ago and still havnt put it on :D

and that black vinyl on the front looks real nice.
 
Ha! Yeah, it's about an hour per side I figure. Gotta be patient in getting it lined up. After that it's pretty easy going. I would say as far as prep goes, the factory side under the old vinyl is fine as is. I had to sand some where scratches were, but other than that, it's prime for the vinyl. Tack cloth is your friend...
 
that black vinyl on the front looks real nice.

Actually that's my second attempt. I had some surplus form another project and attempted to install it with no masking tape on it and it had a wrinkle by the coin door. It's just too hard to lay without the tape. It wants to bend and wrinkle and the surface is so uneven it's a total bitch. The piece that was with the side art had none either, so I waited and used the stuff I pealed off of the side and pasted it to the black, then I applied it and it turned out much better. The masking gives it the support to keep level over the voids. It was way harder laying that than the sides I think.
 
Good work! Getting vinyl to lay around coin door holes is tricky. I got nervous when I saw that you did the side art before the front...I thought you were going to paint the front! Best looking Spy Hunter I've every seen!
 
Nice Nice Spy Hunter...sometimes extra time spent on the cleaning, painting, and art make a world of difference. Beautiful resto man...
 
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