Pole Position resto / conversion to PP II

[ChadTower]

I picked up this Pole Position a while back from one of my sons' teachers.  Apparently he had told her about our hobby and she had a couple of games she wanted out of her rec room.  This one came to be beaten but nearly working.  Properly repairing a few bad prior wiring hacks that had been intended to get around a typical Atari ARII / 5v failure brought it mostly back to life. 

The monitor was full of past shoddy repairs, and while I was able to get it working again, it was too burned and had too damn many miles on it to be worth keeping around.  The pics show the WG drop in LCD I picked up for it.  I did try to get it working with a ->VGA converter but it just wouldn't sync.  Tried two different converters with both CRT and LCD.  Sync was off the same way in every scenario so I dropped the coin on the CGA LCD.

[ChadTower]

(I have no idea why the pics are displaying sideways sometimes and not sideways other times.  I'll try to figure that out.  The original pics are not sideways on my hard drive.)

The cabinet has some structural issues with failing fiberboard mostly in the back.  The top back piece was trash and crumbled out.  The bottom was structurally sound enough to move the game but that's about it.  It needs to go too.

The artwork was "touched up" in the past with a full repaint over the vinyl.  It must have taken that person quite a bit of effort as you can see where they didn't remove the masking for each color between coats and there is a layer change.  All of that has to go.  I plan to just strip the stuff down to the wood and paint it white.  New artwork might have to wait for a future time when I have more spare cash.

[ChadTower]

Step one is to remove that bottom panel as intact as possible and use it as a template to build a new one.  Also to ensure that the crumbly edges are hardened up to stop any more damage from occurring.  Top pic is after applying hardener and is fully cured.  Bottom pic is newly applied.  This stuff works really well.

[ChadTower]

Now that the crumbly edges are protected we can start replacing the damaged cabinet rails and put in a new top piece.  The roof is at roughly a 35 degree angle.  I got the angle match about as close as I could with my circular saw but my saw is only marked at 15/30/45.  Took maybe 8 practice cuts to get the saw dialed in as close as I did so between that and the kerf this is about as close as I could get it.  I might fill that gap with bondo just to add more structural strength since it doesn't have full surface area to bond with at the top.

[ChadTower]

The bottom back wall has rails on it for holding an ARII board, the power cord strain relief, and the power switch.  This all needed to be accounted for.  I don't think I'm going to do anymore square dowel slot cutting with a circular saw.  That took quite a while of jig making to hold the pieces while I made the cuts.  I need a tablesaw for sure in the future.







Aaaand the money shot of dry fitted parts taken through the coin door opening.

[ChadTower]

Next up will be emptying the cabinet out so I can tip it over and address the floor.  It doesn't hold levelers very well anymore.  One is broken clean off and that's why the cabinet is crooked in the pics.  I have to wait for the glue on all of that to fully cure before I tip it, though.

The PCB cage was sort of rusty so I stripped that, hit it with two coats of metal primer, and then four coats of Rustoleum Gloss Black.  Gloss because I already had the can sitting around.

[yotsuya]

What's the picture like on those WG LCD dropins?

[ChadTower]

What's the picture like on those WG LCD dropins?

Haven't played with it tons but it looks pretty good on this game.  Note that this game has little black to it.  I would have tracked down a k7000 if this were a Defender or something.  The nice part is that it slipped right in with only a slight adjustment for the power connector.  The frame is a perfect match for swapping with a 4600 bolt holes and all.

Just found this pic I took when I first got it.  Obviously the wiring is in no position right now to get a better one.

[ChadTower]

The bottom looks better than I thought it would.  It is structurally sound despite the fact that one of the leg levelers had snapped off.  I had put wheels on it a while back to just move it around storage better and that wheel broke off too.   


Here are some pics of the crumbly bottom corners and the first application of wood hardener.  Bondo will likely follow on the corners once all four bottom are stabilized.  The pics make it look somewhat better than it really is.

[ChadTower]

Bottom edge wood hardener set and stripping in progress.  I think I'm getting lower output than usual from the heat gun because it's on a long extension cord.  Not much I can do about that.  The cord is like 24" long.

[ChadTower]

Almost done stripping this side.  Then it's onto bondo for damaged edges. 

I might not be able to get this cabinet up the bulkhead stairs by myself.  I'm not as strong as I used to be.  That would alter my plans for just painting it white.  If I were to grab the $165 sideart from ThisOldGame would that save the me effort of stripping the glue?  You can't see it in the pics but my furnace is only a few feet away and adhesive stripper fumes are a bad match there.

When other folks strip vinyl do they also strip the glue or do they just apply over the old glue?  This is the first time I've done a sideart reapplication.

[ChadTower]

Left side strip complete.  Glue looks very smoooooooth.  I'm tempted to give that a bit of a sanding just to be sure and then apply sideart right over that.

You can see where the prior owner had scored during touchup of the stripes and the word ATARI.  The vinyl peeled right up around that scoring like it was intentional. 






One good thing about this is that I was sitting on the cabinet the whole time I was stripping it.  Not even a hint of wobble in it.  Structural repairs are sound. 

[jennifer]

    Oh.... That looks like a fun project, I don't know how that elmers stuff is working for you, but Fibreglass resin works really good on that kind of thing. Not for a build up, but to force into the dry rot with your finger. (Kitty hair, and putty for missing chunks)

[ChadTower]

It seems to have penetrated and hardened up really well.  Not into a 100% solid but almost like an acrylic.  There's a little flex to it and the heat gun did soften it up for a few minutes.  Definitely good enough to do the job on crumbly fiberboard so I can put Bondo or something else on top of it.

[ChadTower]

Did some poking around the forum and found this thread that presented an alternative to Bondo.  Since I have to do this inside I decided to give it a shot.  I think I had too much water in the mix as it was a little saggier than I would have liked.  I'll note that for the rest of the project.

Forms in place and filler placed.




Forms pulled off but far from cured.  I'm going to have to do a little cleanup and a second fill on the large corner repair.  It is shrinking below level as it cures.




Other side.  For the really small edge repair masking tape made a good form.  I'll have to remember that.

[jennifer]

    Reducer will take off that adhesive. Soak a spot with a rag and scrape  with a new putty knife, Working it away from your new putty in one direction. Goo gone works well too beings how its an acetone base, but would probably cost more due to the large acreage involved, both are relatively safe, However due to the chemical nature you will need to turn off your furnace (and pilot light) first .... Paint stripper works very well too, Unless you can get adequate ventilation down there I think Jennifer would refrain from such a caustic approach.

[ChadTower]

I'm not sure I actually need to do that, though.  This is a very smooth surface.  Smoother than the wood originally was.  If I put on new art, barring an adhesion problem, it should be just fine.  I think.

[ChadTower]

Not a lot of hours this weekend to put into the game but did manage to get the filler sanded level to see if this method is viable.




This was the biggest repair on this side.  It will need a bit more to fill out the area (it shrank when it cured) and to square off the corner.  I'm going to call this a success, though, because this stuff is HARD and it's not coming off.  I went through multiple pieces of 60 grit trying to flush sand this stuff and it's not like there was an inch thick excess.




The light in my basement makes it hard to take clear closeup shots.  The minor edge repair is SOLID and looks nice.  The sequence of wood hardener and then this glue/putty filler is a winner in my book.




The back corner.  This is supposed to be rounded off.  It's not completely perfect but given the location I'm calling it good enough.  You can see that I still have to do the underside when I flip the cabinet over.  Presumably that means I have to do this part of the bottom edge now.  I will have an easier time filling the underside of this now that there's a bottom edge to hold up the next run of filler.

[ChadTower]

Second filler shot.  Needs a little bit more cleanup but I'll definitely take this.  This stuff is easier to use than Bondo once you get the hang of it but it takes way longer to cure.  It's not chemical, it's water, so you pretty much just have to wait on it.  I can fill all those little bits left with some glue and be done with this spot.