From the ground up dedicated Mr. Do!

[TheShanMan]

My wife’s favorite game is Mr. Do, so almost a year ago I started a mission to get a Mr. Do for her. Eventually a klov'er told me he knew of a more or less NOS empty Universal cabinet (never made it to the end of the factory assembly line, but was destined to become a Devil Zone). Got it for a great price, which included a Universal coin door (not NOS but nevertheless pretty nice).

Then another klov'er who had a junk dedicated mr. do (cab in bad shape, had been painted black) offered me anything I wanted out of it for the cost of shipping! What a guy! He went to a ton of trouble disassembling everything for me. I took almost everything except the bezel (was a conversion plastic bezel) and control panel (was a little bit hacked) and of course the coin door since I had that.

Finally a third klov'er offered me his artwork (glass bezel which has a little bit of flaking, nice cp with weird joystick, very nice back art, and decent but faded marquee) for the cost of shipping. Another guy I'm indebted to!

Here is what I started with:





It took a lot more work than I anticipated since I wanted to do it right in order to do the cabinet proper justice. Special thanks to Darrell, a local collector, for allowing me to incessantly ask questions about his Mr. Do and request pictures and measurements! I also owe thanks to a 4th klov'er for selling me a board and harness cheap. For a while I was having trouble getting the game to boot and I got impatient so he helped me out and it was very helpful for tracking down my problem. I think my original board does still have a problem but nevertheless I have a spare now.

I do have a few minor tasks left. There’s a small gouge next to the coin door I’ll need to touch up once I figure out how to do a decent job of color matching. I have an original Mr. Do joystick coming to replace the goofy one that’s on there now. I need to do a little monitor adjustment (somehow the purity is off even though I recently did a full convergence job on it).





More coming in next post...

[yotsuya]

Your photos aren't showing up for me. 

[TheShanMan]

They were hotlinked from my klov post. I uploaded them here instead.





I have a K7000 in there (custom mounting brackets) and I wish it didn’t have a remote board. Just seems out of place to me (and I’d need to lengthen the harness to make it reach properly) so I’m thinking of installing regular pots on the chassis and doing away with the remote board.





Every dedicated mr. do marquee in existence has faded pink in the center (the marquee bulb doesn’t light the marquee evenly because it’s narrow). Rikitiki was kind enough to notify me of an ebay auction for an NOS conversion sticker and while the stripes are different I’m happy with the bright pink! Comparison of original to conversion...



And now the money shot (I like how the orange lines in the bezel glow in the black light)...

[RetroACTIVE]

Nice Jeff! Soooo clean!

[TheShanMan]

Images fixed for anyone who couldn't see them before.

[yotsuya]

Thanks! I love Mr. Do, so I really wanted to see this one!

[RayB]

    

[yotsuya]

Interesting. How many other games use that lightup background? I know Xevious does.

[Spyridon]

Wow, that cab is clean.  Nice score on that.  Good job putting all the pieces back together.

[emphatic]

I don't think I've seen a Universal cabinet before. They look awesome! Great work on your part too. 

[VanillaGorilla]

Must not hate...MUST not get jealous.... I HATE YOU AND IM SO ---smurfing--- JEALOUS!!!!!!!!

Seriously, that is one hell of a restoration.

[TheShanMan]

I can't claim to have done anything extraordinary though. It was entirely made possible by people willing to help me out on my mission. Mint cab fell in my lap as did all the guts and artwork. Hunting all the stuff down took nearly no effort. It all boiled down to cleaning the nasty guts I got, and figuring out how to assemble it all correctly and neatly. It took a good deal of time, but not a whole lot of skill or experience. Most of the restorations in this forum reveal a lot more skill and experience than what I have.

Thanks for the compliments though! I'm proud to own such a nice machine. Even though I'm going to have to let the game grow on me (again, I did this for my wife), I absolutely LOVE the cabinet.

[RayB]

Interesting. How many other games use that lightup background? I know Xevious does.

I doubt it. Xevious was released in North America by Atari