Very General Pinball question

atticastate

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I'm looking at a mid 60s pinball machine. If the playing service doesn't need to be restored, does anybody have a general price range to restore the rest of it. highest case scenario
 
That really depends on the make and how much restoration you're doing for the art. Mechanical parts are plentiful and if it's in decent shape then you're not looking at spending to much. However, if you're trying to restore art then you're in a money pit. Most of the older EMs don't have reproduced art (backglass, plastics, etc.) and you'll probably have to pay out the nose to secure good condition pieces (if you can even find them).

Again, all depends on the game.
 
That was a perfect answer. The mechanics were more what I was looking for. I'm a graphic artist for a living so the cosmetic are the easy part for me. Thanks!
 
Just be careful, there are some parts out there that are very hard to find. Things like the close solonoid for a zipper flipper. If it's in your machine and broken, it's probably repairable, but if it's missing totally, you may be out of luck.
 
I think the biggest problem is that with EM pins like this, it's hard to find someone who can work on them (unless you're in Michigan). Most collectors of this era game, work on them themselves. They really aren't hard to work on if you know the basics, but coming in cold could be confusing. If you can find a local repairman, contact them and tell them what the machine is doing (or not doing). They should be able to give you an idea about repair cost.
 
Being a computer guy, I find it easier to diagnose/fix solid state machines. Part of that is that I just haven't taken the time to learn the EM stuff yet.

Ideally you'd learn to work on them yourself, and with EM generally the more you play it the less trouble you'll have, so make sure you play it often.

This Old Pinball DVDs may give you some general EM troubleshooting for specific issues, so you may want to look them up too.
 
On EMs, if you have something mechanically out of whack, it's time that's going to be the hot commodity... trying to track down where the problem is. If your machine is obscure and you can't find parts or schematics or pictures of things on the inside, that can compound the problem. The general rule of thumb with an EM is, if it's not complete mechanically, then it's a parts machine.
 
On EMs, if you have something mechanically out of whack, it's time that's going to be the hot commodity... trying to track down where the problem is. If your machine is obscure and you can't find parts or schematics or pictures of things on the inside, that can compound the problem. The general rule of thumb with an EM is, if it's not complete mechanically, then it's a parts machine.

And if you're just getting into them, if it doesn't have the schematic and you can't find it in a ten minute google search, you're probably going to want to pass.
 
Diagnosing an EM can be a huge time-suck. It's easy to knock something out of whack and send you on a long run-around to figure out what happened. Learning EMs is not terribly hard, but go in with a working machine. I can't imagine trying to diagnose a machine without first having an idea how all of the relays and mechs play together.
 
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