At last: A victory that's NOT Pyrrhic!

This is a pinball weekend. Wanting to accomplish something other than Doctor Who this weekend, I turned my baleful eye and expanded brain on Eight Ball Deluxe. Last night, while my wife was watching Looney Toons: Back in Action (which was surprisingly good, especially in light of the incredibly average and not very Looney Toony Space Jam [but to be fair and on topic, there is a Space Jam pinball game]), I used my newly discovered knowledge with flippers to replace the coil on the chattering left flipper. This time, though, I soldered it and everything. It was a small consolation that my soldering job was better than the one that was in there, but since those solders sucked that's not much to crow about.

Today I was after the non-working switches... the left bumper and both slingshots. I read the pinball repair guide for 80's Bally games, and since there wasn't an entire row or column of switches out, I figured it had to be either a broken wire or disconnected diode. I looked around under the playfield near the left bumper -- you really learn to appreciate newer fold-up playfields after wedging yourself into those older games -- but didn't see anything. Then I had the bright idea to look at the other bumpers... and there was a broken wire on the switch for the center bumper! A quick experiment with the switch test indicated that connecting the wire solved my switch problems. So out came the soldering iron and I attached the wire.

Now Eight Ball Deluxe is fully functional (except for lamps)!!! That's the first game that I have completely brought from mostly non-working to completely working! I played a few games and suffered NO disappointments!

But that can't last, of course. One of my daughter's friends was over, and I mentioned that DW was marginally working, so her and my daughter played it. Boy, what a disaster. The mini-playfield seems to have recessed in the night, so pretty much any hit to the gray buttons causes the ball to stick. Also, my unqualified success with the outhole kicker has now been qualified. It is sticking again, so I'll probably have to lubricate it in some way.

Here's a picture of the cleaned up outhole kicker... I wish I had a "before" picture... it would be unabashed pinball restoration porn. The mounting plate, the ball hitting thing, and the post it rotates on were filthy and disgusting. Even though it doesn't work, I'm still really happy with the cleanliness.

And here's some fun. Here's a picture of Rosie, our remaining cat, sitting on Doctor Who. Actually, I had a bit of a scare with her today... I was setting DW on free play -- with a slight detour when I changed the languages to French and German to see what the mini-playfield warning sounds like (the French voice is female, or extremely effeminate! Cool!) -- and she jumped in the open coin door. I didn't want her to zap herself on any exposed wires -- my game is not exactly up to code -- so I turned it off asap.