T8M's 2023 restoration thread

[Totally80sMan]

So lookie here what I just found behind the EA marquee..



The original CC marquee, however, the EA looks like an official conversion decal, oh man, wish I could keep them both? I'll have to gently peel it or use a little heat and hopefully it doesn't take off the backing of the marquee? Any suggestions?

 

[Totally80sMan]

Well let's just say after 40 years, there was no saving that decal as it was hard and almost no glue left and it couldn't come off in one piece. I used a hairdryer instead of a heat gun and slowly peeled it back with with my finger and fingernail, the transfer held up well and the good news is that after done I was treated with an almost perfect CC marquee underneath! I believe the decal protected it through the years because the colors are very vibrant. I cleaned it up with a microfiber cloth, some goo gone to get the remaining tape off, multi purpose windex and then lastly Novus to shine it up. I'll be trying to restoring both games, EA & CC around the same time so I'll find another EA marquee and really happy about this one in the meantime..

 

[Totally80sMan]

Finished the Crazy Climber control panel. It ended up being a bigger project than anticipated but I was hell bent on having the original sticks functional for the game.. it's what I remember most about it, the white ball tops & 'clickity click' sound which is usually not preferred but in this case original. They really don't make joysticks like this any longer, all metal, millions of parts. I stripped them all down, tumbled everything with walnut media, used goo gone to get all the gunk out of it and clean them all up piece by piece, used synthetic lube when finished. From years of 'climbing' the joysticks get dug into and the metal protrudes above level, this results in the joystick getting stuck or clipping instead of pure smooth action all the way through. What I had to do was take the metal down with a dremel and grinder to make it flush around the restrictor holes so the washers could glide smooth, you can see the damage and before and after in the pix.. that helped but then the next issue was that the washers were now a tad too small and were still getting stuck in the slightly larger restrictor, so I found fender washers that were slightly larger for the top and then made the hole in the middle of the washers larger to accommodate the shaft by drilling through it over a piece of wood and the smoothening it out with a dremel and sanding until smooth. After all this was done, I meticulously adjusted all the switches so the joysticks would make contact the right way and also return back to center. The harness had several broken wires and missing a couple entirely, so I rebuilt those by color according to position and color with the schematic & fed them through the plastic sleeve and also used the same AMP male connector pins which are slightly different than standard molex pins so it would be uniform again. Overall I'm very pleased with them now. The panel may not be cosmetically sound as it's scratched up but it's super clean now & functionally, it's perfect. I'll probably either leave it cosmetically as is, or match the paint and touch it up later. I can imagine many CC joysticks were replaced and that there's not too many CC's out there with original sticks that work close to new without getting stuck or snagged that actually return back to center unless all the same work was done so it's cool that the game will get to played again like it was originally intended.




Before and After:

 

[Totally80sMan]

Gosh, 14 months since I last updated this so please excuse the necrobump.

Life moves pretty fast and although I've still been active, I haven't been able to get to these projects and have had to prioritize work, family and everything else in between.

Gotta start somewhere and the funny thing is I have even more projects to add here now so have no choice but to push, at least try & attempt to make some progress!

Here's an update with the Crystal Castles prototype, after lots of back and forth, happy to say the art is DONE and just completed the control panel.

I ended up swapping in an original CC trackball instead of the red juggling ball, I think the original Atari one's look a tad more red than orange vs. a new Happ, especially when lit.

 

[bobbyb13]

Nice work!
I really liked that other ball though I agree the one you used definitely fits the scheme better.
What's next then?

 

[Totally80sMan]

Nice work!
I really liked that other ball though I agree the one you used definitely fits the scheme better.
What's next then?

Thanks. Yeah, I think the ruby red juggling ball looks cool too, nice thing is because the trackball housing is rebuilt now and smooth, it's just 6 screws to try different one's.

Next up is the marquee, just finished it.

 

[Totally80sMan]

Finished the marquee and very happy with the result.

The standard Crystal Castles marquee is made of wood with a removable rectangular piece of glass if ever wanting to change out the art whereas this is a one piece molded thick plexi and not replaceable.

 

[Totally80sMan]

Finished the Crystal Castles prototype and just cross-posting as completed for the restore.

There's a thread about the journey here in case anyone missed it, it's a fun read:

Possible Atari proto cab on FB

Ignore the fact that this was converted to (poorly) to Centipede. Before someone says "it's a Crystal Castles" check out the way the cab is cut. Has a shape like Millipede and Crystal Castles. Also has the art from the proto CC on the speaker grill. Thoughts? Brian

forums.arcade-museum.com

 

[Totally80sMan]

Alright, let's take a turn and work on something different. My wife said wow, What is it? I simply said in my best Lee Majors voice impression.. "It's a Car" but she didn't get it, so I said it's OK and to be honest I'm not sure if anyone even remembers the movie "The Last Chase"? but I told her we're gonna watch my bootleg copy soon and and yes, "It's a Car".

Anyways, it's been a grail of mine for so many years since I played the game the year after it was released at an arcade around 1987.. probably because I was only able to play it 3 times as it was a whopping $1.50 a play a single game! Most games were .25 cents, some were .50 cents and this was well, just crazy to have to put 6 quarters in it! but it sure was something special and still is.

It weighs in at 770lbs. I don't think I'm going to do a full blown restore on this like some others I've seen through the years but rather now that I've dug it up from under the concrete of the garage I'm at the very least going to clean, lube it up real good, install some new parts for it that I've collected and most importantly try my best to get it functioning 100%.

I have to get the motion aspect of it going again as that currently doesn't work and after that have an ultimate goal of just being able to drive it here in radio free CA before the motor law kicks in and there's no more gas!

 

[Totally80sMan]

The first obvious sight was that it's missing the motion drive pcb. I did manage to source an original motor pcb and a reproduction so no problem going forward in this area.



The next not so obvious thing is that I tested voltage to the drive motor and there was none. Further inspection revealed it's missing one of the bridge rectifiers (there's supposed to be 2 according to the schematics), so that tells me in one way or another that there's definitely no AC conversion going on and no proper DC volts going to the motor.

There's no telling yet if there's an issue with the motor, I can apply some voltage outside of the game and see if it's stuck but want to check if the brake caliper works, and it's got an interesting voltage requirement at 80v DC. I purchased new bearings for it and opted to take it to a motor repair shop just to rule this part out first. Figuring that if I don't start off with a good motor? then it could potentially damage some things, also, motor shops have more specialty tools that I would be using just once if purchased like calipers + they're setup for manual heating if a rebuild is necessary, so worth it to take the time.

I may start a repair thread as well for it's power supply because there isn't much documented in relation to an Outrun Deluxe power board.

 

[Totally80sMan]

Today I took out the gas pedal/brake assembly. It was held on by 3 screws instead of the original 6 screws used to mount it that bolt into the t-nuts. I discovered one of the t-nuts had a screw that broke off inside of it and because of that I think the operator just screwed it back into the wood panel with 3 screws and washers to hold it on.
The bumpers had no locknuts on the end of them but somehow managed to stay in all this time? I sourced the correct size screws/bolts for everything (it's all metric) and replaced, cleaned it up real good and lubricated with synthetic lube on the gears, grease on the springs and 3 in 1 just about everywhere else.
It operates perfectly now, reinstalled it.

 

[Totally80sMan]

Not bad, not bad at all.. let's do this

 

[Totally80sMan]

OH yeah.. this is happening.

 

[Totally80sMan]

Very messy job & took most of the day but I went ahead and rebuilt the whole steering wheel/control panel and it's so smooth now.

It was very difficult to get the steering shaft out. 40 year old dry gunk that had to be lubricated, tapped a bit with a rubber hammer, repeated until it finally came free.

It became obvious that no one had ever rebuilt it before as every single gear except the smallest one was cracked in several places and..

..original red Loctite, damn that stuff is overkill. I used blue instead when assembling everything back together in the same areas they used the red.

While I was doing all this, I went ahead and and cleaned up the plexiglass with Good Gone, then Multi-Purpose Windex, then Novus. I use separate, small microfiber cloths.

I replaced the old dash bulbs with new 555's, soldered a couple connections that were fraying, snugged up the wires with a couple zip ties.

Special thanks to @Mylstar as these Bronze Gears are something special and should last a very long time.

 

[ArcadeTechGW]

How does the steering wheel feel with the brass gears?

Does it still spin well?

 

[Totally80sMan]

How does the steering wheel feel with the brass gears?

Does it still spin well?

Yes, they spin just fine and it feels very stable. I can't really tell the difference from the regular set I used to rebuild my upright? but it appears that it benefits from the strength to open and close the paddles.

I'll still need to dial it in correctly with the game on in settings once complete for a true test during gameplay.

 

[Totally80sMan]

Balls deep in Outrun at the moment.

Got the motor back and good news, it didn't need a rebuild. New bearings, brushes, spins and caliper works.

In the process of cleaning it up now, lots of work.

Best part? The cabinet treasure. Instant movie ticket, vintage candy wrapper, coin & token collection

 

[Totally80sMan]

The tale of 2 shifters and and a few unexpected mods:

Years ago I said if I ever obtained one of these that I would install the shifter on the right. Most of the time when you see an Outrun deluxe, the shifter is on the left. Maybe because it was made in Japan and afterall they do drive on the left but sometimes games have shifters on the left for no reason at all. This time, nevertheless, I'm hell bent on the shifter indeed being on the right.

I knew there was an opening there and now that I have everything off just figured I could shift it over. Wrong. You can see the brackets on the left that the shifter bolts into but unfortunately they are just not there on the right and the left is welded in. Also, the operator must have just replaced the shifter entirely, and on top of that, the switch wasn't even making contact with it so it was stuck in high when I originally turned it on with no way to engage it.

With a spare upright Outrun shifter in hand, the other difference with the deluxe is that it usually has a shift bracket bolted on the left side and right side of the shifter which then allows you to drop it in and screw it down but since I don't have that and also missing the brackets on the platform, I began to fabricate some metal mods to make it fit the same.

Had some corner brackets and used a dremel with a metal cutting wheel off the side of a vice to get it approximately the same size as the other and used a combination of #6 screws and locknuts combined with some JB Weld all on the back of it and extra on the side joint to create a similar platform for the shifter. Made sure it was level, bolted it in tight, cut off the screws with the dremel wheel so they won't stick out when installing back the fiberglass and now will just wait at least 24 hours for it to cure and work on the shifter in the meantime.

I'll most likely mod the same corner brackets or a plate onto the Outrun shifter to get it to lay in over it the same as original, still have the flexibility to align it and have room on there to drill new holes if necessary to bolt it in.

 

[Totally80sMan]

Actual video footage off my phone from Rush's very last concert, very last day of their R40 Live Tour at the Forum here 9 years ago almost to the date. Nobody quite knew it would be their last.

First Red Barchetta and then the place goes nut around the 7 min mark when they segway into The Spirit of the Radio.

RIP Neil Peart. Neil was a self proclaimed semi-avid book reader. He would often ask fans "What book are you reading?". This short read "A Nice Morning Drive" by Richard S. Foster written in 1973 for Road & Track magazine was one of his favorites and Inspired the lyrics for Red Barchetta.

It's also rumored that the 1981 movie "The Last Chase" with Lee Majors, Chris Makepeace & Burgess Meredith was loosely based on the same short story. The final showdown scene especially appears to be lifted straight from the text & song.

"A Nice Morning Drive" by Richard S. Foster

A rare article from the Rush Transcript Archive, chronicling the history of Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart of Rush.

www.2112.net

 

[Totally80sMan]

Shifter update:

It's finished. This took longer than expected but I really wanted this done just right. Since I didn't have the original brackets, I tried several ideas before settling on this.

First i had to rebuild the shifter and be sure it was 100% functional but then much of it was like doing artwork with a Dremel pen/diamond cutters & grinders, a bit of trial & error. It's tricky because it's hard steel so the material is dense and it's not easy to manipulate. It all had to be the right height, fit, line up correctly, slide correctly and be able to be installed with the fiberglass and wood on the frame and I wanted to be able to be remove it if ever need be to service without taking the panel off.

I was able to get the brackets on it with JB weld, let it cure, and then also drilled and tapped 2 screws on each side after it was dry so it could be sturdy enough and take a beating. I ended up raising the brackets on the frame up to exact height desired with longer screws and lock nuts so now it sits in their perfectly with friction and all you have to do is lock it down with 4 small lock nuts that have the external teeth attached to them.

Lastly, I detailed the metal piece below the new artwork so that the shifter doesn't bang into the metal on the top of bottom while shifting but glides smoothly all the way through and protects the art so what happened to the last one, won't happen again now as it doesn't come in contact with anything or the plates in the shifting process.

Very happy with the way it turned out as it was always my dream to have the shifter on the right side!





Before and After.