Pinball Restoration Work Portfolio

Bally Black Jack Backstory

December 4, 2022 No Comments

Our latest restoration project has us restoring a very rare, only-120-made, 2-player electromechanical (EM) pinball machine from Bally called Black Jack. This is the 2-player version produced in 1977, not to be confused with the one produced a year later, the 4-player solid state Black Jack from 1978 with a production run of 5,000 units. The history of how this game found us: In late 2021, the owner of this game from a western suburb

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Dr. Dave’s Pinball Restorations YouTube Channel

Dr. Dave's Pinball Restorations

Restoring Pinball Machines to Look and Play Like New Condition

Dr. Dave's Pinball Restorations
Over 40 hours of restoration work was performed on this Bally Classic from 1976! The owner of this game desired to retain the cabinet and playfield patina as much as possible so we just deep cleaned the playfield and wiped down the cabinet as there were much bigger things to do to on this game refurbishment as it was loaded with dust internally and some mouse droppings covering the internal compnnents and switches relays. Took out playfield and bottom mech board and backbox to air blast clean outside Serviced bottom board steppe runits and head stepper units. Took apart top of playfield, finished pop bumper rebuild, serviced playfield stepper, started 4 flipper rebuild. pop bumper parts incl new pop bumper caps. 4 flipper rebuilds with new coils, new double eas switch. cleaned all insterts, new bulbs and tested bulbs and sockets (feature lights), new cabinet fuse holders and new playfield fuse holder 4 new flipper bats and plunger links and coil stops. Trouble shooted drop target maladys and weird game behaviour. Magic erasured playfield and buffed with novus 2 Rebuilt drop target bank with new drops and shoulder rivets, rebuilt chime unit with 3 new tuned chimes and chime grommets. New plunger for middle chime, repaired feature light sockets. Top side new white posts and premium white silicone rubber. Cleaned plastics and installed rubber kit. Cleand all score reels and apron and shooter gauge and installed. Adjusted 16 score reel switch sets to factory spec. Adjusted 4 EOS switches on score reels to get the over the top lights to now work. Cleaned match unit as well as buff metal playfield glass rear holder and coin door metal parts and front cabinet metal parts and install and PM shooter rod and coin door and its lights and bezel etc., Install coin door metal shooter rod and glass metal bezel. 2 new white LEDS for coin door LEDS for score reels and led flashers for elton john machine backglass. Troubleshoot playfield feature light issue and double ball serve kick issues fixed via game over relay switch clean and outhole switch adjsutment as well as cleaned each of the 300 points individual score motor switches 3 switches total give the 300 points. Filed each of them and adjusted for closer tolerance for stronger bonus stepper advance coil action. Clear coat top arch wear line and shooter lane for better play response. New orange shooter spring and barrel spring. New top side tempered glass and Back glass lock. Worked on lubing teeth and adjusting spring back pressure for plastic tooth wheel on bonus stepper. Very worn loose wheel but works. Would have replaced but some of these older parts are no longer available. Reach out to us to have your pinball machine restored or to buy one of our restored pinball machines: www.pinballdoctor.com e-mail: dave@pinballdoctor
Bally Capt. Fantastic Playing like new Again!
Orleans, MA: Over 30 hours of restoration work went into this wonderful 1980 System 1 from Gottlieb! It came out really nice and a pleasure to play if not just admire as it is a working piece of artwork. =) The work performed: Installed new BG Restorations mirrored back glass to replace the badly worn and paint flaked off one. Took top of playfield apart and magic erasured. Replaced 2 new coils on playfield yellow drop coil and right pop coil. Cleaned all light sockets and inserts, buffed playfield, buffed wire actuators and reinstalled. Cleaned gi sockets and installed a mixture of LED and incandescant bulbs. Touched up playfield, cleaned top vari-target assembly top side as well as underside, cleaned all clear posts and replaced 10 of them with new, cleaned plastics and oven flattened them. Added light socket to top right kicker saucer, cleaned apron, filed flipper contacts both cab and eos as well as pop bumper contacts. Replaced all 4 original worn out and probematic circuit boards with Pascal all in one board and new updated sound board. Installed premium silicone rubber kit, 2 new balls, buffed all metal including playfield metal and rear channel apron and backglass metal. Parts installed: Pascal Pi-x4 all in one circuit board and sound card, Silicone Rubber kit, warm LEDS for GI and some feature lights, BG Resto mirrored backglass, Flipper rebuild kits, legs and hardware, 2 balls and shooter and plate, Playfield protector, 8 new drop target set, 2 coils, new sheet of tempered glass. See more of our work on our website as well as games for sale: www.pinballdoctor.com Inquire about restoring your game here: dave@pinballdoctor.com
BUCK ROGERS Gottlieb System 1 Pinball Machine. Restored to Look and Play Like NEW Condition!
Connecticut: Over18 hours of refurb and optimization work went into this 1988 TAXI by Williams
TAXI Williams 1988 Refurbed with Mods
SPIDERMAN Restored and Modded and now ** FOR SALE ** Email us here to inquire about purchasing this game: drdavespinball@gmail.com Over 40 hours of restoration and modification / upgrade work now completed for this wonderful title by Stern Pinball. Work done: Deep cleaned playfield and ramps, new clear premium silicone rubber, rings, colored silicone flipper rubber and posts. Rebuilt flipper and pop bumper asemblies. Upgrades installed: Game completely outfitted with Comet Warm white and color LEDS. LED OCD board for smooth appearance Flipper Fidelity Speaker System Color DMD w/ black out glare guard Shaker motor Real Stern knocker Mirror blades Warm LED trough lighting Red LED pop bumper lighting Black Speaker grills New sheet of HD optically clear tempered playfield glass 4 new titan premium pinballs More games for sale on our website: www.pinballdoctor.com
Stern SPIDERMAN * FOR SALE * Restored and Upgraded
MARTHA'S VINEYARD: Presenting Stern GODZILLA Premium brought to ENHANCED fruition by Dr. Dave's Pinball Restorations. Pinball Day Spa'd and modded out via: Deep cleaning the playfield, replacing all black rubber with Perfect Play clear silicone rings and colored post sleeves and colored flipper rubber, rebuilt the flippers, new Titan premium shine balls. Mods installed: Pinball Life shaker motor Ramp street stickers Godzilla green scales flipper tops Stern inside cabinet wall art Speaker upgrade from 4" cheap stock speakers to kicker 5.25" dual cone speakers Flaming speaker light kit Ball hang up fix for rotating spinner assembly Mezel mods light up Noodle Building Mezel mods Kaiju scoop upgrade Fire LEDs under kicker assemblies Upgraded to latest rev as of 9/25/24 Next up for upgrades for this title in the future are Stumblor pinball Mods ATOMIC GODZILLA & KAIJU Scoop Japanese writing LED mod. If you'd like your new STERN pinball machine upgraded with a MODAPALOOZA like this or even more extensively, reach out to us here: drdavespinball@gmail.com or our website: www.pinballdoctor.com Or our newest edition: islandpinballrepair.com We also do in your home pinball Day Spa services for all types of pinball machines 1977 and newer. We also sell restored pinball machines. Check out our for sale page here: https://www.pinballdoctor.com/#podcast-anchor
Stern GODZILLA Premium MODAPALOOZA and refresh
Over 50 hours worth of work went into bringing this tired Dolly Parton to the stunner she is NOW! Playfield swapped a new CPR clearcoated playfield in to replace the well worn one. New CPR backglass, new legs and hardware, new Weebly MPU and sound board as well as a new power supply PCB, rebuilt the solenoid driver board as well as the lamp driver board. Rebuilt worn out interconnect board connectors. Pinball life Perfect Play silicone rubber, new Titan high glass pinball, anti-refelctive playfield glass, refurbished and painted the side rails, new flipper buttons, rebuilt the flipper assemblies, pop bumper asemblies and the kicker assemblies. Cleaned all switches and regapped for optimal performance. New spinner sticker. Custom backbox lighting to light up Dolly the way she should have been from the factory. Her attributes were never prouder. =) 2SMD warm comet LED for the backbox lighting and select LED lighting for the playfield lighting. Check out our website to see what games are currently for sale and what is available to pre-order in the restoration queue: www.pinballdoctor.com #pinballdoctor.com Email: dave AT pinballdoctor.com Check out our podcast for the episode where we discuss this game and it's restoraion process: The Classic Pinball Podcast
Bally Dolly Parton Pinball RESTORATION COMPLETED! (Dr. Dave's Pinball Restorations)
Gottlieb The GAMES Restoration Completed! (Dr. Dave's Pinball Restorations)
NORTHBOROUGH, MA: Over 30 hours of restoration work went into this Home Use Only 2006 Stern World Poker Tour for our client in a suburb west of Boston, MA. We essentailly made this WPT into a WPT LE ! We did all our usual touches with this restoration including premium perfect play silicone rubber all around, warm led lighting for the general illumination circuit as well as color correct LED lighting for the inserts. Rebuilt all 4 flippers as well as both kicker assemblies and 4 new Titan mirror glazed balls. And modified the the factory pop bumper rubber placement to better accommodate the pop bumper rod and ring movement. Then, we went even further with this game by turning it into a WPT LE with the following upgrades: WPT upgrades: Full Color LED DMD display LED OCD board (smooths out jumpy LED flicker to calm incandescent bulb look) Mirror blade playfield cabinet side blades (upgrades the black walls to mirror) HD OPTICALLY CLEAR playfield glass (Optically clear glass, looks like no glass is installed on the game) Flipper fidelity custom Enhanced Animated LED Backbox Lighting system instead of the factory standard fluorescent tube light. Flipper Fidelity speaker system for high fidelity sound. Speaker grill color selectable led lighting system. New clear lexan mini playfield. Custom stack of Vegas style poker chips shooter rod Warm LED lighting frosted lighting for general illumination and color frosted for feature lamps Red Brite caps pop bumper LED lighting and flipper area LED trough lighting. Real Stern KNOCKER for that real THWACK! When you win a game!
Stern World Poker Tour HUO LE Restoration Completed! (Dr. Dave's Pinball Restorations)
While restoring this HUO WPT for our client looking for a really nice one for us to modify out to be a WPT LE, we came upon a factory error in rubber placement. We modified the positioning to better accommodate the pop bumper rod and ring action
Stern World Poker Tour tech tip (Dr. Dave's Pinball Restorations)
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