I only have EYES for KICKMAN... (COMPLETE 7-25-2020)

Arcade Collecting > Restorations & repair

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alfonzotan:
Some minor but satisfying progress on Kickman to report... the coin door and button lights have been replaced and are working:

... and I replaced the fuse block and fuses on the transformer assembly:

I'm just about done with the electronics, here are a couple of shots of the interior before putting the back panel on:

Next on the list for Kickman is pulling, stripping and cleaning the control panel (which I think I am going to send to TOG for re-screening) and coin door. The coin door has a lot of gunk and rust, and needs to be rewired.

But I may switch over to Eyes and see about getting it working first...

opt2not:
Good stuff so far. Glad to hear you're going with TOG for the control panel. Spyridon's CP turned out really nice with his resto, hope to see that kind of outcome with yours!

Keep up the good work!

alfonzotan:
Just landed a freebie Ms. Pac/Galaga cabaret. Bad monitor but otherwise in working order. More to follow...

alfonzotan:
So, uh, eight years later... I still haven't finished restoring these two cabs. I did next to no additional work between my last post in this ancient thread and March of 2020. But thanks to down time during the Great Quarantine, I'm finally making progress again.

Kickman got left on overnight about five years ago, the flyback on the G07 failed, and it's been dead ever since. Eyes has had a bad monitor (I call it "graphics confetti") since I picked it up in the mid-90's, but both games played blind. The good news: both monitors are (finally) repaired as of yesterday, which should bring both units back to full operation.

They both need some cosmetic work. The Kickman control panel has rust spots, as do both coin doors and some of the front panel hardware on Eyes. I plan to strip the metal parts and get them freshly powder-covered next. Sadly, This Old Game is not offering re-screening of the Kickman panels any more, but they offered in an email to sell me a copy of the stencils so I can get that done locally. The Eyes control panel has old cigarette burns and is generally beat-up; I plan to strip it, replace the buttons and maybe the Wico stick (don't know what condition it is in, as I haven't played the game yet) with reproductions, and recover it with appropriate art.

The T-molding is coming apart on both cabs, I'll probably be replacing that as well. And happily, among the (staggering and embarrassing) pile of parts I bought over the years for these games but never used, I found a nearly-forgotten 96-in-1 board for Eyes, which I'll be installing a bit later; I want to have it stock for a while first.

alfonzotan:
So how about some pictures? Without the Photobucket spam!

Here's the Eyes monitor, a W-G 4675. Took these before pulling the monitor for initial repairs, because one should ALWAYS take pictures before removing anything you plan to put back:

Here's the underside of the Eyes control panel. In surprisingly good shape. I was prepared to replace everything, but all it really needed was some contact cleaner on the leaf switches. I probably will replace the Fire buttons due to being discolored on the top side, but other than that I may not do anything else here.

Both monitors (plus a Sanyo 14" from my Missile Command that was getting long in the tooth) went out to David Countryman for repairs. Dave fixed all three, I loaded them back up in my car... and then an idiot in front of me slammed on his brakes as I was on my way home. The G07 slid forward and the yoke hit a solid object, bending the yoke pins and breaking the yoke board. Fortunately the picture tube itself wasn't cracked, and Dave had a new yoke board he's installing today. Still, :hissy:

The W-G went in without a hitch, and Eyes was fired up for the first time since at least 1995:

This one also went back to day for some more work. Based on the "hourglass" distortion (this picture doesn't do it justice, it's worse than what you see here) it looks like the infamous C614 cap still needs to be replaced, so it also went back to the shop. (I should note that Dave gave me the option to either do or not do a full recap the first time and I opted to cheap out; this was the result, so no shade on him that this one needed more work.)

--- End quote ---

Besides stripping and re-covering the two metal pieces above and below the control panel (see below) I don't think I'll be doing much more to Eyes other than replacing the t-molding and maybe putting some gliders on the bottom to preserve the particle board, which has gotten beaten up on the bottom corners just from contact with the ground and being moved around over 40 years. The CP does have a few cigarette burns, but I think it's more likely than not that I'll just leave it be, other than replacing the rusted up joystick plate with a repro.

The Kickman control panel is very worn and has a lot of rust spots, so I'm going to go full out and restore it. First up, stripping the old covering (the two small pieces here are the aforementioned Eyes control panel bars):

Citristrip is doing its thing at the moment. I'll also have to scrape/sand/do something about the rust after the coatings are off:

Unfortunately This Old Game no longer offers a re-screening of Kickman CPs, but they were nice enough to sell me a copy of their stencil, and I've located a local shop that can do the recovering when the parts are ready. So more to follow.

Some nimrod gouged out a hole around the Kickman back panel lock at some point in the past, so I repaired that with good old fashioned wood putty over the weekend. Turned out pretty well.

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