Yay! Picking up two new pins tonight

[Jeff AMN]

I'm leaving work early in about 10-15 minutes and I'm picking up a couple of pins. I'll post pics when I have them. Here's hoping they're in good shape and nothing is wrong from a working standpoint.

New pinball machine day is like Christmas. I get all giddy and goofy like a little kid.

[Pinball Wizard]

What are the pins? Can't wait to see the shape of them and lots of pics. New pinball machines is exactly like Christmas just without all the wrapping paper and swearing over half a strand of lights not working(well unless the GI is out on the game ...).

[Jeff AMN]

Sorry, lighting strike on the transformer box killed the electricity last night. I was about 20 feet away from the box in my car, nearly gave me a heart attack.

Pics later today...

[JeepMonkey]

You can at least tell us what they are before posting pics.

[Jeff AMN]

I only unpacked one of the two machines, but here are some pics of game #1. I've actually said elsewhere on the forum already what games I was getting, but here ends the mystery for those that didn't know yet. Here are pictures of the Lord of the Rings I nabbed. The second one is a Simpsons Pinball Party. I've never owned any Stern machines before, but these two and Spider-Man are the three I feel are most worth owning of everything they've produced. After the pics, I'll explain what issues and fixes I've already spotted and what mods or upgrades I'm planning on.

Here are the pics (lighting is poor in my garage, so I did the best I could)









It doesn't really show in the pics, but the machine is pretty dirty. The plastics are all in good condition, aside from a cracked Arwen plastic (very typical), but the seller provided me with a repro Arwen plastic that's about twice as thick as the original. The bottom right flasher dome has melted due to the flasher being stuck on, so I'll need to troubleshoot that. The majority of lights were fine, but there were a few that need replacing. It functions 100%, but the switch on the Shire VUK is a little dodgy, but that's most likely just an adjustment issue. Balrog rarely registers hits reliably.

So, here's the work list for the next few days:

- Tear the thing down to the bare playfield, clean and wax playfield, clean playfield parts, clean the outside cabinet up
- Replace the Arwen plastic, install Pinbits plastics protectors
- Replace insert lights with LEDs, replace burnt out GI lights, fix stuck on flasher, replace melted flasher dome
- Rebuild the flippers, install the PBL special flipper coils for the game
- Install Cliffy hole protectors
- Adjust all switches, replace the Balrog switch plate and adjust its sensitivity
- Replace all rubbers
- Install Balrog LED kit
- Move it downstairs to the arcade room and move on to the next project!

[pinballwizard79]

Pft, whatever.....I'm gonna get a zizzle.

[shardian]

So considering the LOTR had some heavy traffic, did you get a good deal on it? I finally got to play Spiderman yesterday. I'm still wanting to play LOTR and hope to find a local one some time.

[ChadTower]

I actually would buy a Zizzle if I came across one at the price it goes for now.  The kids would love it.

There was an LOTR, a really nice looking one, in the "gym" where we stayed while I was away a couple weeks ago.  Sadly the flippers were so weak you couldn't make ANY ramp shot.  Most of them would come back down and SDTM. 

[ChadTower]

I have seen a couple Zizzles pop up on CL but the sellers wanted like $150 each for them.  I wouldn't pay more than $50.

[Pinball Wizard]

I'm not a big fan of LOTR. It has a decent gameplay but the theme just isn't for me. I think TSPP is pretty decent but it has to be a well maintained machine. I played several of these machines that look pretty new but play like crap. The Simpsons theme was pretty well implemented in TSPP but this is the point when Stern decided to put cheaper parts into their machines and now they require more maintenance to make them run right.

@PinballJim: LOTR had flipper problems from the start? I thought that the machine was just worn that I played. How could Stern not fix a problem like that. It isn't like they couldn't have noticed.

[Jeff AMN]

So considering the LOTR had some heavy traffic, did you get a good deal on it? I finally got to play Spiderman yesterday. I'm still wanting to play LOTR and hope to find a local one some time.

Yeah, I feel like I got a great deal on it. For the condition it's in (just dirty, nothing that won't clean up), I'd say the seller could have easily got an extra $500-$750 out of it. I barely broke $2,000 on it after shipping. I did get a little bit of a price break on it though because I also bought his TSPP at the same time.

Oh, and I'd love to get a Zizzle. My nephews would really enjoy that when they visit and it would be a cool piece to have hanging out in the corner of the game room.

[ChadTower]

I barely broke $2,000 on it after shipping.

If I were looking for a pin I'd pay that for an LOTR.  Good score.

[shardian]

$2000 shipped is a great deal. Sure it may need some work, but that just means you'll be confident it works right after the fact.

[pinballwizard79]

---fudgesicle--- my life

[ChadTower]

I almost bought a really nice Caveman a couple years back.  I wanted to like it.  I really did.  Cool piece of novelty with the game integration.  Sadly, the game played like a bad Odyssey2 game and the pin wasn't any good either.  Even at $250 for a nice one I still couldn't do it.