This is gonna sound really funny, but does anyone have.....

TheDrewster

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This is gonna sound really funny, but does anyone have.....

The Wacky Gator redemption game for sale? :D

I finally remembered the name of this game and this is one of the games most of my tokens went in to when I was younger. I think it would be a really unique game to have! I want one! I know redemption games arent exactly liked around here, but its my gameroom! :) haha.

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Haha well I dont have it yet, I want one though. The garage has been cleaned and I now have room for more games, which is why I wish you still had your Ridge Racer, I would have bought it. But its all good :) I know Wild Island has a Wacky Gator, but I somehow doubt theyd sell it to me. They are the only place that has one.

If someone has one to sell or knows where I can get one, let me know!
 
Ok... Ill confess. I think I would love to have one of these as well. I definetely remember playing the living shit out of this game.
 
Do any auction companies come near you? I usualy see one or two of these regularly at auction.
 
Do any auction companies come near you? I usualy see one or two of these regularly at auction.

Not that I am aware of. I know there are auctions that happen in CA, but I can never find any schedules or dates and I usually end up hearing about them after all is said and done.
 
Got one

I have one and have restored it recently. It took a while but I left much of the body un-restored because I couldn't find the artwork for it and it's got lots of dings on the lower sides of they body.

I did break down all of the gators down to the bolt and updated all of the rubber to new urethane rollers where needed. I got all new heads and shells. I even wire wheeled all of the chassis frames where I could.

I got lucky and got a generally working one for $250 (off of craigslist) and put about $200 in random parts with a lot of free parts in there. I know the guy that sells the replacement parts to betson/happ.
 
Wacky Gator general info

I had to do a bunch of research for it when I restored mine.

They were designed by Namco and built distributed by Data East in the US. You can find pics of the japanese one online. They are pretty similar.

It's a great machine and has some interesting tech. The gators use optical sensors to see when it makes it to the end of the track and when the heads come down. It's pretty simple stuff. It's just the bearings, tires and rollers that generally go out. This is outside of any cracked heads and stuff which typically are the case.

I have a bunch of used heads and bodies that are in good general shape. I was going to go around to re-creating the EYE decals in illustrator cause the ones they print now are horribly re-created and poorly printed. I have samples of the original eyes to copy.

Let me know if people are working on a restoration. I've seen some run down machines on ebay. I often see loads of used parts and gators on ebay. It's like $50 for a used gator and Betsons/Happ sell new parts. I know the distributor that sends them to Betson and Happ.

Here's a two machine deal for little more than what I paid. It's the freight that will kill you.
http://cgi.ebay.com/2-Wacky-Gator-C...in_0?hash=item29ffd5f963&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

You can get most of the parts. Just no one sells side art that I know of.
 

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