Travel Time: My first pinball, and it was FREE!

pmichelsen

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Well today was full of random events, all of which seemed to take longer than they were supposed to, but they all happened for a reason. After being delayed by almost everything today my lady and I were on our way to grab some lunch. In keeping with the delays, we were in some hellish traffic, but I saw the far left hand lane was picking up so I moved over and we were finally making some headway.

As I was driving I noticed a house on the right hand side and in front of this house there was a pinball machine. The garage was open so I checked to see if it was possibly a garage sale. It was not, but my lady said we should turn around and go check it out anyways. Well I cut across three lanes of traffic and maneuvered back to the house, fortunately there was a spot right in front (for those of you familiar with SF, this was on 19th avenue). We got out and went up to the machine, and to my surprise there it sat with a sign "free" on it. I couldn't believe it, but now, how were we going to get it home.

We stood there talking about options, we we decided that my lady would drive to my shop and get my tools so that we could take the legs off and get it into the truck. Right when she was getting ready to leave the door opened and the owner walked out. He said he has had it for 20+ years, it works, though the left flipper sometimes doesn't work, and he just wanted it gone. Said he thought about trying to sell it but didn't want to hassle with that. I told him I would get it out of there and asked him he had a wrench so that I could take the legs off. His response was I moved it just like this 20 years ago and it was fine, and he said he would help me load it. I figured, my shop is only one or two miles away, I will strap it down and drive slow.

Well I made it home and got a friend to help me unload it. I haven't had a chance to go through it but it looks decent, the back glass is flaking slightly but the play-field has very little wear. All in all I am happy and can't wait until I get some time to actually check it out. It even came with all the manuals and the product registration cards. And of course pics or it didn't happen...

As it sat in front of the house:
TravelTime3.jpg


Safe and sound at my shop:
TravelTime2.jpg
 
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Now that is one awesome score!!! Kinda reminds me of the old 69 challenger in mint condition sitting in the barn for 41 years and someone got lucky and stumbled upon it. It looks to be in good shape, I would say it was made around early 70's model. Like finding a gold mine just driving along lol....keep us up to date on how the old girl plays....
 
Frakin sweet!
A guy at my work snatched a water damaged pacman cab a couple weeks ago! No pics though, so as they say, it didn't happen ehehehh
 
VERY nice find, especially at that price. That backglass looks fantastic.

Probably just going to need a good cleaning, some rubbers, and a few adjustments..... MAYBE some flipper work by your description. You're lucky as hell not to have hurt it hauling it around like that though.

Neat machine from what I can find about it. It's a timed game, meaning that you get unlimited balls but it runs on a clock. Clock runs out, game over, but hitting certain stuff extends the clock.

-Hans
 
You're lucky as hell not to have hurt it hauling it around like that though.

You aren't kidding, I was not very stoked about it at all, but didn't have much of a choice. Luckily, as I said, it was probably just a little over a mile but my eyes were glued to the rear view mirror the whole drive.

I think I am going to pick up a case of beer and leave it on the guys doorstep one night with a thank you note.
 
I don't normally reply to finds threads, but congrats on this one. Been looking for a Travel Time locally for quite a while without success. It's a unique and challenging game - and yours looks fantastic. Enjoy!
 
nice score. TT is popular with beginners at playland not at the beach because it doesn't matter if you drain.

Once you master nudging into the center rollover you will start making some huge scores.
 
Started to clean her up today and it looks to be in great condition. I don't want to attempt to play it until I have gone over it with a fine toothed comb and have a new ball in. I manually hit all of the targets and bumpers and everything appears to work great, scoring is right on, etc. The only thing that doesn't work at all is the chimes, one chime is broken in three pieces and all three solenoids shit the bed. Looks to be a fun project though, here is a shot of the play field, and you can see the flaking back glass...

P6140015.jpg
 
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