Skateball

I have spent the last two days working with the disassembly of the top of the playfield, until I came to a point where I had to start taking off things from the underside. I then took the playfield out of the cabinet and continued the work at the workbench. It’s so much easier to work when it is upside down.

This game was incredibly dirty at the underside of the playfield and I just couldn't leave it as it was. To get it to work properly and also make sure the dirt doesn't find it way up to the playfield again it has to be cleaned off. I started with the three drop target assemblies and I think this is the dirtiest drop targets I ever have seen.

 

All three assemblies was completely dissasembled and all parts glass bead blasted to get the dirt off. Cleaning springs and other small things might be a bit tricky, but by threading them on a wire it's possible to handle them with the bulky gloves in the bead blaster.

 

 

These are the parts for the five target bank, cleaned and ready to be reassembled again but before doing that I cleaned out the inserts and cleaned the lamps associated with the drop targets. It's much easier to acces those while the drop target assemblies are out of the playfield.

 

I have cleaned the inserts and lamps of the top half of the playfield and this far I haven't found any broken lamps, but five lamp sockets had bad connection between the solder lug and the lamp so i had to move the wire from the lug to the center pin. It's a common problem for this type of light sockets.

 

Two drop target assemblies done and one to go.

 

Once the drop target assemblies was done I started with the upper left flipper assembly. There are two small holes drilled through the playfield and the under side of the holes are covered by the flipper assembly and I was a bit curious of what to find once the assembly was removed, but all i found was a short bit of wire stuck in to one of the holes. I realy do not understand why the holes have been drilled.

 

The flipper assembly is in good shape and the only things I will replace once all parts are cleaned is the coil sleeve and the return spring. But I will not reassembly the unit yet, I would like to have the flipper out of the playfield while cleaning the upside.

 

 

 

All four flippers are missing proper end of stroke switch insulation. 

A double layer of shrink tubing is a good replacement for the original insulation.