Yesterday's pick up

playpin35

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Donor 2011
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Picked up pin #25 yesterday. Interesting part is this is my first EM pin a bally "Old Chicago".
Backglass looks great, playfield not bad except for some ball tracking in the top arch area, however the cabinet graphics are badly faded, yellowed and will need to be restenciled. It does not always advance from player to player consistently and the playfield needs shopped, but it still is fun to play. I'll try to get a pic or 2 uploaded this weekend to prove that it really did happen.
 
Welcome to the EM club! you say this is your first time owning one, you ever worked on one? The player advance issue sounds like a dirty stepper unit. You can read up on them here:
http://pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=EM_Repair#Stepper_Units

and learn about tearing one down here:
http://pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=EM_Repair#Stepper_Unit_Issues

The teardown guide is specific to Gottlieb, but the concepts are basically the same, mark where the "resting position" is, look for the kotter pin, etc.
 
My first EM pin, but I have a United EM bowler that I've had to troubleshoot before. I'm kind of holding off on this one until I get all of the parts and some stencils made.
 
If you have experience working with an EM bowler, your in the right direction by a long shot! Same types of units, just a bunch more in a pinball. I can understand wanting to get the game in a better condition before digging in.
 
Old Chicago was one of my first EM pins. I wish I still had that one. Technically it could have been my second pin as I got a Doctor Who, and then bought 3 pins in a package at the same time with the Old Chicago as one of the pins. (Hot Line and Space Mission were the other two)

Pretty much all of them I've seen have bad fading on the cabinet. Not sure why, but I haven't really seen a good one.
 
Do yourself a favor before you get into painting it, grab yourself a magic eraser and go at it a little bit, I have an pin that looked close to that, and magic eraser cleaned up what looked like fading.
 
I started with EM's and then migrated to SS. I still own 1 EM, Gottlieb's Royal Guard (1968). I found it at a garage sale and paid $50 for it. The game was completely DOA. It is 100% functioning now. I too re-stenciled the cabinet. The hardest fix was a broken plastic insert on the playfield. I bought some from pbresource.com and got a purple one out of the bag. I hand sanded the edges to make it fit. EM's need played to keep them running properly! One additional thought, on EVERY EM I owned, I added a small switch on the score real to enable the machine in a "Free play" mode. You basically close the circuit with the switch, in the score reel, that tells the machine it still has game credits. It's better than bending the switches, like many do to trick the machine into a free play mode.
 
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