This should be interesting...
I've never done a complete cabinet tear down restore before. I just moved into my new house with really nice space for my games AND a work space, so I figured my Tron deserved the special treatment.
I picked this up about a year ago now, which seems crazy in itself in regards to how fast this past year has flown by.
Anyway, like I said, I knew buying this game that it was in need of a restore and SHOULD get a restore. When I bought it for $400, the SSIO board wasn't working and the the game had a couple other issues. Attract mode would sort of cycle, but I ended up sending the boardset off to cdjump who fixed a litany of issues, so props to that guy for being super solid.
I also got a little overwhelmed with my games. I kind of went crazy scoring deals and psyched myself out with the number of projects/fixes and lack of space, on top of being busy with a 1 year old and another baby on the way. But now I have some time and space to do this, so here goes.
Major issues upon bringing Tron home: The PCB as stated, no side art, no inner art, no sound, dinged up edges/chunks missing from t-molding routing, and the joystick was cracked and apparently super glued. I also had zero lights coming on the cabinet which was an immediate let down.
Bad picture, but that was the first one I took of it when I got it and must have had my finger near the flash. It looks like someone tried to use wood filler for the dings but it was cracking out of the spots itself.
Home in the new house and beginning the tear down. I was actually surprised at how easy it was, as I really had in my mind that this was going to be a nightmare. I say this now before I reassemble it, but it didn't seem bad. It was also at this point that I realized that I was completely missing both the marquee light fixture.
Thought it was weird that only one speaker was hooked up in there, I find just a lot of weird random things that someone did to this game at some point. On a side note I asked the guy I bought the game from the story behind it, and it sounded like he had it for some time but didn't mess with anything himself.
Might be the reason I had a sound problem. I ended up ordering some 8 ohm 6x9's from Stephen at Arcade Shop for replacements. The 4 ohm 6x9's seem nearly impossible to find, so I'll just try to crank the volume on the new ones if it's super quiet.
Almost all of the parts out of the cabinet, had a few pieces on the other side of the garage. I tried really hard to label everything as I pulled it and place it in bags or mark it so I didn't lose anything. I also decided to order some new plastics and inner art at this point from Darrin at Phoenix Arcade. I didn't realize how faded the plastic was until looking at more pictures online. I also jumped on the MCR switcher conversion and a new switching power supply from Arcade Shop just to avoid any major issues with the original power supply. I might try to rebuild the original (which was a little iffy when measured) but no immediate plans on that right now. I also ordered a replacement joystick handle from Groovy Gamer Gear. I bought some fixtures from CharlesD4341 so I'm going to use all of those as drop in replacements.
Figured out what serial number I had, finally.
Almost completely torn down. After I removed the coin box and the t-molding, I dumped liquid wood hardener on pretty much the entire t-molding channel around the cabinet. There were a few spots that were really starting to crumble, namely the bottom corners (shocker).
Laying down bondo in all the spots that really need it. I saw another guy on here use the razor blade technique to cut excess as it was drying which I'll always do from now on. I used the stuff on another cabinet once and I felt like I was sanding the stuff down forever, so I hopefully won't have much sanding to do other than rounding out the bottom corners. The bondo was drying pretty fast in the heat, so I should be ready to sand within a few minutes from this post.
I've never done a complete cabinet tear down restore before. I just moved into my new house with really nice space for my games AND a work space, so I figured my Tron deserved the special treatment.
I picked this up about a year ago now, which seems crazy in itself in regards to how fast this past year has flown by.
Anyway, like I said, I knew buying this game that it was in need of a restore and SHOULD get a restore. When I bought it for $400, the SSIO board wasn't working and the the game had a couple other issues. Attract mode would sort of cycle, but I ended up sending the boardset off to cdjump who fixed a litany of issues, so props to that guy for being super solid.
I also got a little overwhelmed with my games. I kind of went crazy scoring deals and psyched myself out with the number of projects/fixes and lack of space, on top of being busy with a 1 year old and another baby on the way. But now I have some time and space to do this, so here goes.
Major issues upon bringing Tron home: The PCB as stated, no side art, no inner art, no sound, dinged up edges/chunks missing from t-molding routing, and the joystick was cracked and apparently super glued. I also had zero lights coming on the cabinet which was an immediate let down.
Bad picture, but that was the first one I took of it when I got it and must have had my finger near the flash. It looks like someone tried to use wood filler for the dings but it was cracking out of the spots itself.
Home in the new house and beginning the tear down. I was actually surprised at how easy it was, as I really had in my mind that this was going to be a nightmare. I say this now before I reassemble it, but it didn't seem bad. It was also at this point that I realized that I was completely missing both the marquee light fixture.
Thought it was weird that only one speaker was hooked up in there, I find just a lot of weird random things that someone did to this game at some point. On a side note I asked the guy I bought the game from the story behind it, and it sounded like he had it for some time but didn't mess with anything himself.
Might be the reason I had a sound problem. I ended up ordering some 8 ohm 6x9's from Stephen at Arcade Shop for replacements. The 4 ohm 6x9's seem nearly impossible to find, so I'll just try to crank the volume on the new ones if it's super quiet.
Almost all of the parts out of the cabinet, had a few pieces on the other side of the garage. I tried really hard to label everything as I pulled it and place it in bags or mark it so I didn't lose anything. I also decided to order some new plastics and inner art at this point from Darrin at Phoenix Arcade. I didn't realize how faded the plastic was until looking at more pictures online. I also jumped on the MCR switcher conversion and a new switching power supply from Arcade Shop just to avoid any major issues with the original power supply. I might try to rebuild the original (which was a little iffy when measured) but no immediate plans on that right now. I also ordered a replacement joystick handle from Groovy Gamer Gear. I bought some fixtures from CharlesD4341 so I'm going to use all of those as drop in replacements.
Figured out what serial number I had, finally.
Almost completely torn down. After I removed the coin box and the t-molding, I dumped liquid wood hardener on pretty much the entire t-molding channel around the cabinet. There were a few spots that were really starting to crumble, namely the bottom corners (shocker).
Laying down bondo in all the spots that really need it. I saw another guy on here use the razor blade technique to cut excess as it was drying which I'll always do from now on. I used the stuff on another cabinet once and I felt like I was sanding the stuff down forever, so I hopefully won't have much sanding to do other than rounding out the bottom corners. The bondo was drying pretty fast in the heat, so I should be ready to sand within a few minutes from this post.




