Tale of the Ancient Gamer!! (Tron Resoration)

[yukonblaze]

Well I have acquired my Albatross.  A coworker said he had a Tron that didn't work and wanted to know if I wanted it.  Being the friend I am, I said 'YES'.  After many weeks of waiting for this generosity to unfold it finally arrived.  Much to my surprise it is a total wreck.  Apparently a pipe burst in his house and TRON could avoid a savage computer virus but water was his death.  Well the questions I pose are the following:

*Is cutting away the damaged sections and replacing going to be sturdy?
*What type of extra bracing needs to be added?
*Is it even worth the restore or wait for a different cab?
  *(have 3 children so time in garage doing anything is considered GOLD)
*At what point do I just cut my losses and run?
*What is an acceptable amount for a working TRON vs completely restored?
*Does cutting on a cab and restoring affect how others few as far as original cabs go?
*Does anybody have their own Albatross story they can share, so when wife says 'Remember when you spent x-amount on that cab, I can deflect it with a worse tale.

  Sorry for all the questions but thought it better to get them all out there at once.  Any help would be appreciated and my wife would appreciate the negative criticism.  By the way I also dont even know what electronics work, if any.

[leapinlew]

Yeah - you can make it stable as long as it's just the bottom that needs replaced. If it were me, I'd probably replace the bad pieces with whole new pieces using some MDF or plywood.

Did you see Nostrebor's excellent write up on water damage repair?
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=49927.0

[ChadTower]

IMO that's a partout machine waiting on a better cab.  I'm usually one of the last to part a machine out but the cab there is more trash than survivor.

[yukonblaze]

As it sits right now, any woodwork would be with wood I already have, so its just time in the garage.  Would it be best to pull all the electronics and build it on a bench to see what works and what doesnt.

[ChadTower]

You're going to have to pull it all to rebuild that cabinet anyway.

[yukonblaze]

I know but though it better to build it once than on a bench and then reassemble again.  It is just wishful thinking. 

[SirPeale]

Chad's right.  With that damage you'll not only need another cabinet, but you need to test the electronics to see how much needs fixing.

You *can* fix that cab, but I'm not sure it's worth it.  Might want to use it as a template and build another.

[Chris]

Is the art mostly intact?  If not, I'd keep an eye out for empty TRON cabinets.  TRON cabinets are easy to find; it's the controls that are hard to come by.

[yukonblaze]

Well I guess short in the short time, that restoring this cab is out.  I will make a template from this cab and then will send it to dump or give it away.   I guess I will begin to assemble electronics in an old ms pac man for now till I build or get another Tron.

[pefdude]

Wow, looks like the water made it pretty far up too. So the transformer assy was completely submerged, (other then most likely being rusty should be ok). The boardset was i'd say at least halfway submerged and depending on how long it was in water, i doubt they are going to be any good.

Either way, save what you can, trash the cab only and look around for a converted tron (alot were made into Two Tigers flying game made specifically for Tron cabs). They go cheap at auction cause the game sucked.

Paul