All I Do These Days is Museum Repairs

Well, not all. I have gotten my basement closer to being a usable arcade... Eight Ball Deluxe and Terminator are set up, though EBD leans like a mofo and the leg with the greatest influence is hard to get to. Really, so is Paragon, but on a lark I turned it on last night and it was acting kookier than usual. It acts like it's in attract mode, but when you press the button it makes the start-of-game sound & deducts a credit, but then doesn't do anything else and continues in attract mode. In league news, I've been in the unprecedented (for me) position of #1 in A Division for four straight weeks, and with one week to go I am mathematically assured of getting into the playoffs. I've got a 6 point lead over the #2 & 3 players so it's feasible that I could be #1 in playoffs even with a mediocre score for week 10. I think that gives me valued game picks in the playoffs, which is always fun... as well as something I haven't gotten for some time, since when I've actually made the playoffs I've usually been in last place going in.

So, at the museum on Tuesday I got a few more things done. I spent most of the time bending the diverter linkage on Indiana Jones into a workable facsimile of what it should be, and that fixed it. When I tested it I made a few shots to the Path of Adventure, which cleared the switch errors; now Indiana Jones is credit-dot free. ^_^ I also changed tactics with the sticking left flipper and changed the coil stop -- albeit from what turned out to be a somewhat rusty mechanism that had mushroomed, so I had to clean and file it down somewhat -- which did the trick. My new theory is that the coil stop had become lightly magnetized over time, and that was causing the plunger to stick to it. Spent some time giving it a bit of a makeover... I replaced the shredded plastic posts around the INDY lanes with better ones that I cannibalized from T2 leftovers. And I replaced a couple of GI bulbs and tried to get as many of the lamps replaced as possible. Unfortunately, there are a couple of sockets on two of the boards that aren't making good connections, so I'll probably bring those boards home on Tuesday and re-solder them (this worked pretty well with the STTNG big lamp board, and I'm hoping for similar results).

Speaking of Star Trek, I've gotten kind of tired of the slingshots popping out of the rubber. One of the things I've noticed about the museum's games is that a lot of them have slingshot rubbers that are about 1/2" too large, so I'm constantly tucking the kicker back into the rubber until I get tired of it and replace the rubber. Unfortunately, the meager parts store in the back had only one 4" rubber, and that was clearly intended to be a reference piece. However, they sell rubber in the gift shop -- at prices that are a little steep imo -- so my daughter found the 4" bag and gave me two.

And finally, the Avatar Link gate wasn't staying up because a little donut attachment that holds the gate up had fallen off, which I figured out from comparing the assembly diagram from the downloaded manual to reality. I found the sheered off screw that probably was supposed to be holding it on, but not the part itself. I'd been in contact with the Stern Tech Support guy and he said that he would send me out the piece because it was still under warranty. However, I played the game on Thursday while waiting for my daughter and the gate was staying up again... I'm guessing that the real repair guy had been in and fixed it somehow. Anyway, I'll look at it for sure next Tuesday.

So next week is going to be too too fun: Week 10 of league on Monday, pull and fix the IJ lamp boards on Tuesday, relax on Wednesday (phew), return the (hopefully) fixed boards on Thursday, then toodle up to Pittsburgh on Friday for the weekend at PAPA. And that's a Full Week of Pinball for you.