Sunset Riders Restoration

ItsAnAgent

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The year is 2006. I have just bought my second arcade game off of the ever so faithful Ebay. A dedicated Sunset Riders cabinet and working game for $600 bucks. $600 bucks isn't bad for a perfectly working game with some "normal wear". After all the game was 15 years old, and Konami wasn't the best at making their games...protectable.

Here she is, after arriving in the mail.

(2006 Photo)

As you can see, not too bad. Even has a plexiglass protective sheet on the control panel. Missing some Wico washers on the joysticks, and the green seems to have a bit of a cigarette burn on it, but it's still functioning. Same with the plexiglass.

(2006 Photo)

The side art is even in relatively decent shape. Normal scratches, and only missing a piece on one on the right side. Even has a metal guard at the bottom to "Protect the wood from chipping". (Not pictured)

(2006 Photos)


(2006 Photo)

And here she is next to my other pride and joy. They look so happy together! Now I bet you're asking, but good sir, this arcade is in relatively good shape and it was a steal. Why would you ever want to restore it?



Flash forward to 2009.


One of my good friends is walking in my game room and somehow manages to catch the corner of the control panel on his hip, instantly ripping the entire control panel off of the frame. As furious as I was, this shouldn't have happened. The control panels are bolted down to prevent such tragedies. I decided to investigate. Upon unscrewing what was left of the bracket the control panel was connected to, I discovered that someone had glued the control panel to the frame, because the bolts had already ripped through the holes sometime earlier. As poor of a job as this was, I began to wonder where this thing really came from. The description had said a bar, which I had totally believed as the inside of it smelled like cigars and was almost unbearable. I started to prod around inside of the machine, taking a much closer look then I had back in 2006. (I was fifteen then and a bit more absent minded on the details) I could see that the inside had been to hell and back, but I have never gotten a great view as the game came without keys for the lock on the back. Time to get cracking.

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Because I'm already well into the restoration, I'm going to be posting this in parts so I can provide some pictures from along the journey. Stay tuned for more.
 
Neat, a fellow Konami collector! Keep us updated.

Oh yes indeed. I'm heading off to college next year, (I know I'm starting to collect pretty young here) but in the far future I'd love to get a hold of TMNT and X-Men some day.
 
Dont forget GI Joe!!! Finding a dedicated one might be hard though. Hey I have the pcb all i need is another 4play 25" cab :)

Its funny I just found out about sunset just last week. It looks like a fun game, I am going to look for a pcb.
 
After some lengthy unscrewing of the bolt in the lock. (Done from going through the marquee opening to the back) We took the back off for the first time and this is what we saw.

Sorry that the picture isn't more wide, but we were a bit distracted at the time. Obviously at some point in time the game was in at least a foot of standing water as illustrated by the water marks on the walls and the rusted isolation transformer. I was suddenly realizing why this thing was $600.

Another shot of the bloodbath. Moving it from the wall also allowed me to look more at the structure of the cabinet, something I was instantly concerned about since water pretty much turns particle board into mush. My fears were confirmed.

The frame was clearly separating from the bottom, and appeared to be held together by the aforementioned metal frame. But on closer inspection...

Oh wait...no...they cut off part of the cabinet and replaced it with different wood? Oh, so that's why it bulges like this;
 
Looks like we're going to have to get new side art. But never fear, the awesome dudes over at quarterarcade.com just happened to have some NOS Sunset Riders artwork! I immediately took advantage of that situation. With clean artwork in my stock, I set to work.

I felt so bad doing this, like I was defacing my own flesh and blood. It was a lot harder then I thought it'd be, and since the new artwork is not cut, I figured we could use the old artwork to measure out the new stuff better.

Oh my god what is that.

What kind of wood is this? And what in the world did they use to get it to stick?

It really looks like they pulled a plank off their deck and just slapped it on. Seriously, they didn't even cut above the water damage. I now understood why that metal guard was on the cabinet.
 
Re:

This is will an interesting thread indeed! Don't you just love surprises?
 
Time to get down to work. Because the thing weighs a good 200lbs and is the bulkiest thing around, we're going to have to work right in the game room. Laid our tarp down and got crackin'.

Pried the plank off after removing the frame, wasn't as easy as one would think. Good god the people didn't even bother to cut it above the water damage line.

Took the front "guard" off too. Guess that was a lie as well. Good god looks like termite damage.

Time to cut. Obviously we need to remove any warped wood we can, so we bolted on another board to get a completely straight cut. We took the T-Molding off and got our saw out.

Man that was a mess.

Oh look at that. The floor rotted out or something and it looks like they slapped another wood base on the bottom. Not that we can do anything about that, but this thing is full of surprises.
 
Re:

Yeah, those cabs are huge, good luck on the restore, can't wait to see it when it's done.
 
Finished up the major outside work and here is the result.

Went with plywood instead of particle board, because god forbid it happen again, it won't fall apart. Ultimately it came out very well and some Bondo will fix the little jump between the materials.

Inside shot showing the re-enforced wood under the motherboard.

We decided that on the other side, (which was also very torn up and falling apart)that removing it would risk too much structural integrity. So instead to prevent the other side from falling apart when moving the cabinet, we put our own metal guards on the bottom, though they're a lot smaller and not hiding any other unknown surprises.

We had so much wood that we decided to replace the warped backside as well. We also didn't have the key to the lock so we installed a new one (not pictured) and make the door smaller with a bigger bottom support to make it more stable.

Went out and purchased a new light as well. The old one would eat lights, maybe due to something in the transformer, so after about four attempts to fix it we decided it was too expensive to keep guessing. The new light will be cooler on the marquee with the new shield as well, so no problems there.

Control panel is up next.
 
Time to get to work on the control panel.

We noticed right from the start that some corrosion was occurring around the microswitch buttons. The buttons being so cheap, we decided to do a complete swap across the board for new microswitch buttons that haven't come yet. We would've loved to replace them with leafswitch (My superior choice) but they're too hard to find in NOS.

Next came the joysticks which were also microswitch. Also decided to replace all these for the heck of it, but also because the only way to get new sticks is mainly with new bases. Also keeping these microswitch for the aforementioned reason.

Ending result. Lots of little pieces everywhere, a real pain it'll be to put back together. Also pictured is one of three NOS joysticks we ordered. We're still looking for a yellow one if anyone has any directions of to find one.

The naked board with the plexiglass attached. We'll be removing that as well as replacing it as it's all scratched with initials and cigarette burns. Plus the corners are broken off.

Bottom side of the board. Apparently at some time a drink or something spilled down P4's control shaft, everything seems to work fine but it's interesting it didn't damage the artwork or anything.
 
Tonight I dropped a Sunset Riders into my TMNT cab where I have some games in service.
We'll see how well it does compared to other games. I'm looking for a GI Joe for that Cab also.
The harness plugged right in straight... was great.

Although you enjoy having these massive Konami 4P cabs... the boards are interchangeable.
 
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After a long hiatus, we're back in business. Apparently applying to college comes first, but we're making a lot of headway now.


Bondo'd the broken corner on the control panel and painted it to match the CPO.


Other corner


Man this is beautiful. Turned out great and the plexiglass fits perfectly. Can't wait to get it reassembled and put on the cabinet.


Back door all bondo'd and sanded. Lookin' good.


Took the lock cage bolts out of the front of the cabinet. Getting ready to sand it down and repaint.
 
Re:

What happened to the broken corner on the control panel? Was the new CPO on there when it broke, or the old?
 
The new, well the current one which is in perfect shape aside from that, was. It was before I bought it so I honestly how no idea how BOTH corners were broken off.
 

Bit of a setback when we discovered that our Bondo didn't have enough of the drying agent in it. Soooo after much work to correct that mistake, here is our second attempt at the front.


Repatched up the door.


Unnecessary yes, bit I think it looks better then the gaping holes that used to be there.


The paint just flakes off, then there is this rotting hole to take care of. Yay.


Back door is primed and ready to go!
 
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