This old tron :)

cadillacman

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 25, 2007
Messages
15,504
Reaction score
542
Location
Roscoe, Illinois
ok its 3am here and i cant sleep.. I figure its high time i made a post about my ongoing tron resto...

It all started out with a $200 pile of tron.. and i mean pile...
sides all loose, bottom gone, rotted, rough, just plain "unsalvagable" The coindoor has been through world war three and the power supply was corroded beyond belief.

l_45e9d258c5c94607931aabfdfc81941d.jpg

l_c66cf46a68c642e384f9dc77fe3a97d2.jpg


Yes your eyes arent decieving you the 2nd pic is a view from the 'bottom' lol...

So i have this poor thing laying in my truck. I almost smashed it but something made me stop.. for one its a low # tron. I also figured i might as well give fixing it a whirl.. If i fail i could always still smash it i figured...

The first thing i did was remove the remains of the bottom and removed the electronics so they were in there loose and out of the way. I then reglued all the seams, and i mean all of them as they were all loose.

I measured 10" up from the bottom(using the frt panel as a guide bieng it was still intact). I used a square to give me a straight line, and marked off what i needed to cut on the sides. Much to my suprise the sides were missing about 4 inches twoards the rear of the cab!! Man this thing was rotten!

I then cut two 10 inch tall patch panels for the sides. I bowwored a biscuit cutter from falcon(thanks pat) and made some buscuit slots.
l_a751ae65cc3f428797b8a7a56d6f87a3.jpg

l_779c772c0b5a46d4856dc891f93d4efb.jpg


For those of you(like me) who are woodworking impaired, biscuits are used to join two pieces of wood on edge. You use glue and the biscuits, tap the pieces togther and let the glue dry. You then have a strong repair/connection.

Mr falcon also let me try out his new t moulding slot cutter bit for his router. I need to get one, that was effing sweet to use!
 
Last edited:
l_334ecd5a262f4a7d9beae0edf5b19ee2.jpg

l_554e100d91374c00b406c8688f0dcab9.jpg

Notice how i saved and reglued the little wedges back in place for strength.

Now to attach those new sides to the frt i used a bead of glue and also some countersunk screws for added strength.
l_459b87a31aa1424d8f197eec4582d675.jpg


Now my confidence was up. "i might just be able to save this" i thought.

I continued on by making a new solid wood base.
l_61509e7a428a4daebcb88c4bf51f594c.jpg
 
Last edited:
Next up was getting it up to proper height. I made some leg leveler brackets myself out of steel, nuts and welded em togther because im cheap heh..
l_e099c6a3c9eb413e84e21d0741432d3a.jpg


I then again begged to you guys for some pics and measurements of the rear wood pieces as mine were long gone.
Got those cut, glued and screwed in..
l_ddd2a27c74484e72a8bd18dcd407831d.jpg


Now theres where it sat for a long time. We moved etc so things were crazy for a long time.

Recently i decided it was high time to get it running!

As stated previously the ps was in bad shape. It was severly coroded and looked unsavable. At work we have a bead blaster. What the heck i figured.. so i blasted the corroded areas.. Here is what came out..
l_e524dcd865c14a3ca0c0d3563cc2949d.jpg

l_9dab7aaab88848afaab9dbd8fcfe4653.jpg


Well hell with the exception of one fried resistor this didnt cleanup too bad. I replaced that resistor, tinned all the exposed traces, and installed bob roberts deluxe rebuild kit. That brought the ps back to life. I also took this time to install new big blues, and i also replaced all the interconnect cables on the pcb. That brought the pcbs back to life!!!
 
Last edited:
Now that it works, it was high time to make it look pretty.

THe coindoor on this thing was dented, rusty, and full off lockbar holes. I stripped it of its parts, straightened it out, welded up the holes, then sandblasted the whole thing.
I applied some rust oleum applaince epoxy. It was too smooth.,. The next day i decided to coat again(not supposed to) and the whole thing wrinkled up.. "KRAP" i thought. Oh well. I laid a couple more coats on top of the wrinkle, and the results speak for themselves. ITs the nicest accidental wrinklepaint job ive ever seen lol..
l_5bb815a564a64746b48eb3ad45fa7861.jpg

The logoplate was carefully removed, touchedup, clearcoated, and the rivets were cleanedup and reinstalled with a little glue.

I spoent alot of time bondoing and sanding down all the inperfections of this cabinet. Believe me it has plenty. I used some black priner and primed/sanded/primed/sanded etc untill i was happy with it.

At our work theres a paint booth. "Nows the time to break in my $9 hvlp gun form pearl harbor" i figured....

I dug around the old paintshop and found 1/4 gallon of gloss black acrylic enamel paint and the reducer that goes with it.. SCORE!!!!!

Mixed up the paint, strailed it, put it in the gun.. I practiced on some cardboard untill i had the fanspray i was after.

Put her to the cab and gave it hell. I did one light coat and then two medium to heavy coats.. Much to my suprice the gun worked well, and i had nice control of the paintflow.. It went on nicely and no runs no fisheyes etc..

Heres the result of the paintjob:

l_55d8ca4dd6554c249d3f9032ce6d21f0.jpg

l_52d407d75a264c09a987359fd64ecd66.jpg

l_75405ee8de0b40538d3d75a8e8bacabe.jpg


PRETTY GOOD!! the dots are form a dirty camera and the smudge parks on the cab ade just finger marks..

Not too bad for a $9 gun, old paint, and a newbie trying all this for the first time. I think it helps that this paint was automotive grade stuff.

I already started applying new art from phoenixarcade and i will post more pics tommorow.
 
Looks good! Do you have everything else you need for the restore? Marquee, cp, etc.?
 
thanks!!

i got new sideart, new inner art, and a new marquee form phoenix...

i could use some non faded co area plastics if you have any( or does anyubodty know where to get paint to repaint the curcuit lines on the plastics?)
 
Try the highlighter trick for your lower plastic piece.

If you haven't, pick up the GGG repro handle... it's very well made, a great price, and glows like crazy under that blacklight. :]
 
Looking good!

I'm sure you know that PA sells the plastics. Amazing color "pop" with them too!
I saw the highlighter touchup. Never tried it for me, but the pics turned out good. Something I may try for the DOT plastics....until they are done too. :)
 
looking good.. I need to calm down then go after some small bubbles in the sideart but so far so good.. oh and i broke the new bulb for the cp blacklite.. poo!!

attachment.php

attachment.php

attachment.php
 

Attachments

  • PHOT0076.jpg
    PHOT0076.jpg
    94.9 KB · Views: 2,019
  • PHOT0074.jpg
    PHOT0074.jpg
    92.6 KB · Views: 1,555
  • PHOT0075.jpg
    PHOT0075.jpg
    96.6 KB · Views: 1,695
Last edited:
Hard to believe that was the same pile of junk, err I mean cabinet that I helped load onto your truck. Great job man. Makes me want to start on my projects, except I am lazy, a procrastinator, and not too good with tools. :p
 
I think you did a great job Mike! Not sure how bad your plastics are, but you can have my old plastics if that would help. I even have a decent shroud. Good chance I'll be up in your area in a couple weeks if you can hang on...PM me.
 
By the way, one thing I noticed with my plastics was that a black blacklight instead of a white (as called for in the manual) for the under control panel piece helps out with older plastics and fluorescing.
 
It looks great, but I guess ill be the first to point out that the side art it too low :( Other than that, looking good!

To be honest "because I don't own one yet" I didn't even notice. Obviously he didn't measure the placement before removal - been there and done that myself. I can see why he did it - trying to line the artwork up with the shape of the cab and the lines that run through the wheels are directly in line with the widest part of the cabinet. But the original artwork lines ~ the orange liner on the marquee. Ahhh who cares! How many of us have Donkey Kongs with improperly placed side art lol.

It looks good regardless congrats!
 
Last edited:
it looks better there.. if it put it higher the sides were not uniform... so thats why it is where it is... ill blame my amateur skills and b grade art lol centered to the angles just made sense to me.. I personally think they should stretch the art so the top is higher but the placement is like mine is placed.

and the inner art was supposed to be die cut to size and was not hence the extra.. i could take off the excess by the marquee but screw it i like it the way it is... i wish it was taller, i would have liked to run that striped part all the way up to the top...

I have some odds and ends to do(make back doors or find some) and i have one audio connector thats krappy that i need to replace.
 
Last edited:
way to go

Nice job buddy!!
This is the $50 tron I picked up with my $50 pac man on craigs list here in chicago .
I did the same to the pac man that he did to the tron . I already had a great shape tron
and so decided to part with it .

Its a very low nuber like 113 ? or somthing
This was at a drive in movie theater at the end of its life
Glad you gave it the love it need and deserved
 
Back
Top Bottom