More progress. The marquee and bezel retainers were in pretty sorry shape, so I used my new wire brush skills to strip them down and repaint them the same way I did the coin door, but used regular semi gloss black instead of the hammered stuff. Its nice to have another skill under my belt.
The bezel holder was in bad shape too, but I couldn't figure out how to get it off of the bezel. So, instead of using the wire brush I just wrapped the bezel up and stripped the metal with 220 grit sandpaper which worked just as good (if not a little better) as the wire brush.
I decided to keep the original bezel since it really wasn't in horrible shape except for the crack, which isn't too noticable. I did get the Novus 3-2-1 kit to try and shine up the bezel and marquee. I was amazed at how it worked on the bezel. The millions of tiny scratches disappeared, and the few deeper scratches dulled a good deal. If I wanted to do a few more applications they would probably go away. The glass looked brand new when I was done. For some reason I couldn't get similar results on the marquee. The same treatment didn't seem to do anything.
Then it was time to get all this stuff back on the cabinet. A slight miscalculation made the bezel mount a little difficult. When I got the cab, one of the wood strips that holds the bezel in place was falling off. I reattached it with glue and it would seem my measurement was just a bit off. There was barely enough room between the wood strip and the bracket between the bezel and marquee. It took some straining but I was able to get the bezel between them. Also as a result of my reattaching the wood strip, the bezel won't sit perfectly in the groove above the control panel. It slides in on the left side but not all the way on the right (which is the side I reattached the wood strip on). However, it fits enough, and when locked into place by the above bracket, its not going anywhere. And no one will ever notice.
Since the marquee light wasn't lighting I got some replacement bulbs and starters from Topbulb for the factory original marquee light fixture. I first got
these bulbs (ignore the voltage rating on the listing, its a mistake, they are actually the 100V bulbs that work with the Nintendo fixtures) and
these starters. The bulbs worked great, but the starters were duds. Put them in, turn the game on, and nothing. I then tried ordering the same part from Bulbtronics
here since the part in the picture looked more like the original one that was in my cabinet. Got 2 of them in the mail and they looked just like the ones I got from TopBulb. Tried them out, and these ones lit, but after about 10 minutes the bulb started turning off and on over and over. Weird. So I put the original lighter back in and it seems to be working fine, despite that I'm out about 20 bucks in bad starters. Not sure why I'm having such trouble with them.
The good news? At some point in testing the bulbs, my graphics glitches went away!!
I probably still need to pull the board and clean the contacts on the chips... but then again... if it aint broke...
So. I'm almost done. Just gotta wire up the coin door and do some work on the control panel.
Once I get the panel taken apart it will need some bondo work and I have to recut the t-molding slot since it got filled in and painted over. And I need a new instruction card as the one in the panel looks pretty crappy. Anybody know a good source? The ones at MikesArcade look more yellow than the off white one that's already in my panel.