Sega Driving cabinet restoration/conversion -- DAAAATTOOONAAAAAAAaaaaa!

[opt2not]

So the stars aligned with this one.

Picked up a semi-empty Jambo Safari recently with no monitor, and no Naomi board. But everything else is there.


The guy selling it wanted $110, how could I say no? I’ve been wanting a Sega Racer for a long while now so this was the opportunity. I have a spare 29” monitor that I can slide into this, a Nanao MS9-29a which is dual-res (15/24khz), a Naomi system outputs 15/31khz... more on this later.
I already own a Netdimm Naomi that I can load up Jambo Safari or Crazy Taxi, since the configuration of this cab is compatible.  That's going to be the initial first step. Get it running with those games.

With help from my friend and his truck, we loaded it up in the back after taking some of the bigger parts off.  This cab breaks down pretty nicely.




My plan for this cabinet is to convert it to Daytona.  Daytona and Outrun 2 are both games I wanted to have in my collection for a long time, but somehow the universe has this way of making things happen at once. In parallel I was talking to a guy looking to sell a twin Daytona for months, with no bites.


It's complete, but doesn't turn on, he says.

The story goes: the seller bought these from a closing arcade in Whittier, CA, back in the early 2000’s. He put it in his bar, and had it there for a few years. Fully working. He ended up selling the bar, and afterwards he brought the cabs to his home garage, and for some reason they stopped working. He thinks something jostled in the move. I’m betting it was something trivial, like a fuse or a connection coming loose.

His goal was to fix them up, but the guy knows nothing about this stuff and was in way over his head. It sat in his garage for years.

He listed it about 5 months ago at $500. No takers. People want working units, not projects. Well most people that are not me. Then he listed it for $400...then $200. He was going to list it for free before I came along.
Now, I cannot fit a twin cab set-up along with my Jambo Safari in my home. I'm already getting pretty full with the cabs I have now. But I want the parts from this machine.
So I messaged him asking if he'd be willing to part out one of them. He gets back to me saying "if you take all the parts, I'll give you a smoking deal".  We decided on $200, his asking price for the complete cabs, for all the parts I can gut out of this.
He was super happy to have me take as much as I could. I told him I’ll strip it to the point where you can separate the wood and trash the cabs easily. So sad, I know, but these parts are in better hands now. What can ya do, that cabinet would have stayed in his garage neglected forever.  At least it's soul will continue on.

So I get to his place early in the morning, and get to work.  It took me 3 hours to strip the cabs:


I got everything, all boards + wiring + control panel + monitors + speakers, mounting brackets...I left the pedal assemblies since the bolts were rusted and I didn't have enough time to try more drastic measures. I plan on going back tomorrow to get those out. I'm going to try a bunch for things, but if all fails I'll try just drilling it out with a metal bit.

 
While I was gutting this i was thinking, "i hope he doesn't go on ebay and find out how much he could make on individual parts!".

I have the Jambo Safari Control Panel, which is in better condition than the Daytona's.  No scratches on the dash, just some sticker residue:


Here are the Daytona's:

I might be able to polish out these scratches, but I'm not confident it'll look good enough. Might be best to just mix and match the dash from the Jambo, and use the parts of the Daytona. They're all very similar.

Wheels:
Jambo


Daytona 1 (missing center cap)


Daytona 2


I'm leaning towards using the Jambo Steering wheel since it has the cool center Racing Gear sticker, as well as the Sega extrusion at the bottom.

I was able to grab both of the monitors, they're Nanao MS8-26SU’s. Same monitor that’s in my Sega Aero City.
Unfortunately both have Daytona Burn-in. So I’ll probably keep the chassis as backups to my Aero.






Besides, this Jambo monitor box takes a 29” Monitor and I can use my spare Nanao MS9 for it.

Since Naomi is 31khz or 15khz, I can either run the game in low res, or use my Ultracade UVC to downres to 24khz.  When I switch to Daytona, the Model 2 board that it's on only outputs 24khz so that will be clean.


Anyway, to sum this all up, I ultimately want to convert this into a Daytona running on the larger sized Sega sitdown cabinets that were made for Jambo Safari, Crazy Taxi, and Daytona 2.


with the colours and artwork of this:



This will be new territory for me since I have only restored and converted standup woodies and Japanese candy cabs. So my standard restoration process will be modified a bit.

But first order of business, assess the damage and work needed for the restoration.  Stay tuned!

[Howard_Casto]

I just noticed that the VR buttons are roached on every panel.   That's a bummer as they can get pricey.   Cosmetically the rest looks fixable.   

[Mike A]

Pickup trucks are cute. So little.


Nice score. I will be watching what you do with this. I know it will be awesome.

[yotsuya]

Great pickups! I love my Crazy Taxi. I also have a Jambo Safari cart somewhere.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Mike A]

Let me know before you get rid of any parts. Some of that stuff is compatible with my Indy 500s.

[opt2not]

You wouldn’t happen to have any some spare VR buttons, would ya Mike? Both these Daytona panels are missing the VR buttons for the camera switching.

[jennifer]

 

[BadMouth]

Also pricey, buy I have used VLT (video lottery terminal) buttons in a custom faceplate.  No idea if they would work in the original faceplate.
https://na.suzohapp.com/products/pushbuttons/77-2000-60

[Mike A]

I have an extra set for Indy 500. The start button is broken, but the 2 View buttons are good. Indy only has 2 instead of 4. Blue and red.

Do you want me to throw them in the mail?

[Howard_Casto]

I checked happ last night for you and the closest replacement is $20 a button.... so yeah, pricey either way.   

[Mike A]

That is the cheapest I have seen.

Arcadefixit.com has them for like 10 bucks more.

I got a whole button assembly on eBay pretty cheap, but then the guy jacked the prices on all of that stuff, and then everyone else piled on.

I saw that same assembly for like 70 bucks now.

[opt2not]

I have an extra set for Indy 500. The start button is broken, but the 2 View buttons are good. Indy only has 2 instead of 4. Blue and red.

Do you want me to throw them in the mail?

If you can part with them, sure! That gets me at least half way there. My Start buttons are good, so the 2 VR buttons you have would be fine.
Thanks Mike, as always you’re a huge help.

I checked happ last night for you and the closest replacement is $20 a button.... so yeah, pricey either way.   

Got a link? I was looking last night and had trouble finding it on their site. Though I was using the mobile site, which seemed harder to navigate.

Also pricey, buy I have used VLT (video lottery terminal) buttons in a custom faceplate.  No idea if they would work in the original faceplate.
https://na.suzohapp.com/products/pushbuttons/77-2000-60

Thanks. I’ll keep this as a backup plan, in case I can’t source more buttons. this might require some fiddling to get it installed, but I will look into it.

==========================

Today I’m going to head over and grab the pedal assemblies and the topper Sign.
It’s good to have backups, plus if my homie Mike A needs some parts, I got him covered.

[Howard_Casto]

I'll track it down in the morning.   Have to get up early unfortunately.

[opt2not]

I went back and pulled out the Pedal assemblies, and picked up the seat kickers/woofers and the topper sign.



The sign has a crack in the middle of it, which is not ideal, and the marquee art is really faded. This is not fixable, as it's a really noticeable spidery crack right in the center.

I'd most likely just keep this is a man-cave ornament and decide what to do with it later.

The pedals look similar to the Jambo, but they're a half-inch shorter than the one currently installed into the Jambo base.

Daytona:


Jambo:


One of the Daytona pedal assemblies is complete, while the other is missing some parts and doesn't function.
But they do need some work:


No matter, I can't use these assemblies in this Jambo base. They're too short to be mounted into the hole that the current set is in.
MikeA could probably use these in his Indy 500's.

[jennifer]

 

[Howard_Casto]

So I'm having trouble finding the buttons I just found for you the other day.   It seems to be gone but there are different ones now.  Search for VLT pushbuttons..... while not direct replacements they are around the same dimensions.... you'll want to compare their dimensions with the broken ones to see if they are a close enough match.   I figure you'd have to remove the lighting pcb on the originals and rig your own up though.   Tehir are also some posi-lok buttons that look more like the originals but I think the dimensions are too far off.   It's some options anyway.   

[opt2not]

I got lucky and found a shop in the mid-west selling spare sega parts, they had the 4 VR button panel for camera view for $20!
I snatched it up real quick.

The blue button has some damage, but I will replace that one with the one Mike A will send me, so it should be an easy and cheap replacement for what I got in the current panels.


I hope these labels are just underlays in the plunger. Or maybe they're stickers. either way, I hope I can remove them easily.
The row of buttons also looks a bit un-even. Perhaps they were just bent a bit, but if worse comes to worst, I can just use the plungers out of these and put them in my existing panels since the housing is still there.

--------------------------------

I'm starting to formulate a plan here.  I think the best way of structuring this project is to put each major part into it's own self-contained task.  I.e.  I'll separate each major part and work on each individually.  Pedals would be one. Control Panel another.  Cabinet Wood work, Plastics work. Etc...

Tackling each category at a time can help me keep this organized and I can bite off small bits of progress each day so I'm not overwhelmed.  There are so many more facets to restoring a driving cabinet than there is a regular cab!  A lot more parts to deal with that have their own set of issues.

[Mike A]

I handed those buttons to my shipping guy this morning. They will go out by UPS today.

[opt2not]

I handed those buttons to my shipping guy this morning. They will go out by UPS today.

Thank you brother! I really appreciate your generosity and contributions to the community. You’re one of the best members here!

[Mike A]

One of the best?

Who do I need to kneecap?

[Malenko]

One of the best?

Who do I need to kneecap?

Me.

[Mike A]

Dammit.

[BadMouth]

I have a spare shifter in not so great condition if you want it.
It's the metal handle one.  From the pics it looks like you might have one metal, one rubber.

[opt2not]

I have a spare shifter in not so great condition if you want it.
It's the metal handle one.  From the pics it looks like you might have one metal, one rubber.

Thanks, I'll get back to you if I need it for parts. But I'm thinking it would be nice to have 1 shifter panel of each type. H-gate, Up/Down, and Hi/Low.

I don't think I mentioned it, but there is a french developer on the Gamoover forums that has been developing special interface boards to make Sega driving cabs more universal. He has developed these interface PCB's that can allow you to use multiple types of racing games in one cabinet, without the need to rewire. They are signal conversion boards that have already been proven with multiple games, as well as condensing settings for PC emulation as well. I know BadMouth and Howard would probably be interested in hearing more about this. Here's the thread: https://www.gamoover.net/Forums/index.php?topic=42310.0
It's in French, but google or chrome translator can get you by.  I've already ordered boards to support running model 2, model 3, Naomi, and Cruisin’ games.
I hope to be able to support Chihiro in the future, as this project keeps developing and firmware updates are released.


==========================================


Starting this restoration.

First thing I'm going to tackle is one of the control panels.


I plan on disassembling and assessing the tasks I need to do to get this looking mint again. I'm going to take everything apart, do some clean-up and probably fix up the VR button panel for view switching... all LIVE on-stream! 
Today at 6pm PST I'm going to be broadcasting from my crummy garage, talking about the restoration process I'm going to do, and getting to work on this panel.  Come by if you're interested, if not, no worries I'll be updating this thread anyways.
https://www.twitch.tv/gillaxian

Big thanks to Mike A, he was able to send me a couple spare VR buttons for my panel, and I picked up that spare from the vendor in the mid-west I mentioned earlier.


These buttons seems to come apart simply, so I can definitely replace the buttons and clean-up the VR panel in the CP.

Also, the labels in those other buttons are removable, they're just underlaid in the plunger:


I'm going to have to find replacement bulbs for these buttons.  I hope there are LED variants I can use, to save on the life-span as well as the heat factor of these lights.


Looking forward to doing this on-stream. It's a different stream than my normal gameplay ones. It should be interesting, and if it goes smoothly, I plan on doing these resto-streams more often.   

[Howard_Casto]

If you can't find them in the usual places try automotive stores.... everything will be 12v so it's just a matter of finding the right size.

[opt2not]

If you can't find them in the usual places try automotive stores.... everything will be 12v so it's just a matter of finding the right size.

Good tip. I'll do that if I get into a jam. 

==================================

So tonight's stream was fun! It also forced me to organize the garage/workshop so i could set-up the cameras.  I plan on doing it more often, probably every week I'll jump on for 1.5 hours and do a bit of work live. But during the week I plan on keeping up a steady pace.


Anyone wanting to watch the recording, it's available here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/963234001

So I was able to disassemble most of the control panel and assess the work involved. I didn't breakdown the Shifter or the Force Feedback section, I think those are going to be concentrated efforts alone.




The metal dash plate just has a little bit of rust at the top. Not too bad, and can be cleaned up easily.


The panel underbracket is fine, just a little rust here and there, but in good nick.
There are small 8 ohm speakers (tweeters) that installed within the panel. I'm certain this is where the majority of the radio chatter comes out of while playing the game.  These speakers are in bad shape, and there are several holes and cracks in the speaker's themselves.  These will need to be replaced.




The shifter is in rough shape.  The top cover is scratched up, the silver numbers and logo are faded, and a burn mark is present.


The mech is missing the connector, it seems to have been snipped off. The rubbers are disintegrating and need to be replaced. I've already found a site that deals in these replacement parts, I'll order a set.




The Steering and Force Feedback parts need a lot of cleaning. but they all look good, except the drive belts are looking dry and starting to crack.

Cleaning this up and regreasing should be fine. I'll have to test the pot to see if it's still good.

After the stream, I was able to take apart the VR panel.  Man, this thing is rrrrrrrough!

I was able to at least remove the busted buttons, some of the securing rings were really stuck to the metal, so I had to take needle nose vice-grips to them, in the process damaging a couple. No matter I have spares now.

The bulb sockets are done. They were stuffed with crud, and what looks like a jewelry bead in one of them. I don't think they are salvageable, but i can desolder these from the board and use the replacements I picked up.


The PCB is in good shape.


In the next few days I'll work on getting everything cleaned, and the VR panel restored.
I'll post my plans for the plastics next time.

[Howard_Casto]

The abuse those buttons have boggles my mind.   I mean it's nigh impossible to crack those clear button caps but then to leave them exposed and let the customers stick their grubby hands in exposed sockets.... I just can't wrap my head around it. 

[opt2not]

Let's get this thread up-to-date.

I mentioned this before, there are so many parts in this cab that I have to divide it all up in mini-projects. I decided to start with the Control Panel, which was in rough shape.

First up, the VR Panel:
So this panel was trashed!  Buttons caps missing, gum stuck in the sockets, gross and dirty. 

I was able to desolder the switches, and take it all apart. This was a straight-forward fix. Just clean, replace the switches and button housings, clean the metal and put everything back together.  Voila:




It cleaned up really nice.

Next was to tackle the plastic CP itself.  As I showed you above, the plastics were really beat-up. Tons of scratches, people etching their initials into the top, cracks present... just rough.

After removing all the decals and metal plate, giving it a wash down, I ended up taking multiple grits of sandpaper to the plastic. Smoothed out all the scratches, made sure the surface was rough enough for new paint to adhere to.



All scratches smooooooothed:


Cracks were filled in with epoxy and sanded:


After that I threw it up on a makeshift pedestal for painting.  Hit it with fill-primer first:


Then a few coats of semi-gloss black, with wet sanding in-between the surface came out really nice. Scratches gone!:


Put it all back together to see how it all looks.  I can't decide if i want to go with my (cleaned up) metal plate, or the dashboard looking one:

(the picture with the metal plate has the smoothest wet sand pass on the paint job, and clear coat applied)

Next is the gear shift cover.  Same deal as the dash CP, vandalized scratches. I sanded down the surface so the scratches are smoothed out. Since they weren't too deep i didn't feel the need for fill-in primer, so I hit it with a few coats of metallic black, similar to the original finish.


Then I taped off the numbers and sega logo to apply the metallic shiny silver:



The outcome? Spectacular!




Closely matches the bottle cover:

[opt2not]

That's about it for the CP plastics. Next let's tackle the gear shifter.
Disassembled the entire shifter, removed the grime and rust:


I got NOS bumpers for the bottom guides:


The screws for fastening the top plates were stripped to hell, so I had to drill the originals out.  But I ended up buying replacements, unfortunately they didn't have the short ones I needed, so I figured to buy longer ones and just trim 'em:



After all the clean-up was done, I reassembled it all together and re-greased it:


The shifter feels like butter now! The grooves for each position are nice and smooth.

That's about it for now, next up will be the steering and force feedback mechanics. I gotta pull the parts out and give it all a cleaning, as well as confirm the FFB motor is working well.

Stay tuned.

[opt2not]

I lied. there's still more.

I wanted to get the monitor sorted out because it was a point of worry. I have multiple spares in my stash, and the monitor that i was originally going to use was only a dual-res Nanao MS9. A spare for my New Astro City.  If I used that one I would have to use a downscaler to get some of the 31khz boards to work nicely with it (like Outrun 2 SP). That would have been a hassle.
But, I did have a spare tri-sync tube without a chassis that I got in a package deal with a couple other monitors.

(the front one here):


This tube was taken out of a PGA Tour Golf Team Challenge cabinet, which uses a WG 9200. The seller told me it was working before he pulled it but he didn't give me the chassis with it, so I figured I'd keep an eye out for a spare.


After months of searching, a WG 9400 chassis appeared on ebay for cheap. "untested" yadda-yadda... aka not working. So I threw a minimum bid of $25 on it, and won!  After shipping it turned out to be just over $40 to my door.
Of course as soon as I got it I wanted to see if it worked.  NOPE.  nothing on screen, chassis kept clicking in a reset loop. So I started looking up repair logs and found there aren't many out there. I know nothing about tri-sync monitors. never repaired one before, and figured instead of going down that rabbit hole right now I'll just pay a pro to fix it. So I got it repaired by PNL , which is well known in SoCal for arcade monitor repairs. 
They fixed it!  But, they didn't do a full recap, or calibrated it for me...which would have costed more.

So, on the bench for new caps!


66 caps! Including the 2 big B+ filter caps.


Here's some comparisons of the before and after new caps and calibration.

Before - colours were off, red was weak, geometry distorted:




After - I was able to get the Red back a bit, and the geometry was a hellava lot better:




For game tests I connected a Sega Lindbergh and ran Outrun 2 SP through 31khz VGA:


Before: 


After:


Definitely an improvement! 

With the monitor sorted out, I relax a bit on the hardware front. But I still got lots of wiring to sort out, here are two piles, Daytona 1 and Daytona 2 full wiring:

 

I don't think I mentioned it, but there is a french developer on the Gamoover forums that has been developing special interface boards to make Sega driving cabs more universal. He has developed these interface PCB's that can allow you to use multiple types of racing games in one cabinet, without the need to rewire. They are signal conversion boards that have already been proven with multiple games, as well as condensing settings for PC emulation as well. I know BadMouth and Howard would probably be interested in hearing more about this. Here's the thread: https://www.gamoover.net/Forums/index.php?topic=42310.0
It's in French, but google or chrome translator can get you by.  I've already ordered boards to support running model 2, model 3, Naomi, and Cruisin’ games.
I hope to be able to support Chihiro in the future, as this project keeps developing and firmware updates are released.

PS:
Here's a look of  those universal interface boards I got from France:


These boards are going to make hooking up games to the one set of wiring and controls a piece of cake!

[BadMouth]

Wow.  The quality of work on that shifter cover is unreal. 

I've been out of the loop for quite a while now.  Aganyte has made a lot possible over the years.  I did not know he was offering interfaces with OEM connectors.

[Mike A]

So those boards can handle the different types of FFB these games have?

That is interesting.

There are a lot of words in that thread I will contact you to ask some more questions.

[JimmyU]

Good work so far Opt!

[fablog]

Great work Opt2not!!!

Envoyé de mon LEX722 en utilisant Tapatalk

[opt2not]

Thanks guys 

I’ve decided to go with the metal plate for the steering section. With that, came a bit more polishing.

I didn’t have a ton of time this weekend for this, but I ended up cleaning and painting the little speaker grills in the CP.

Here are some shots of it coming together. You can see the CP’s smooth painted surface a bit better.

[emphatic]

Result! 

[Mike A]

The metal looks really good.

[opt2not]

The metal looks really good.

Thanks bro. 

I used WD-40 Corrosion Inhibitor and course grit sandpaper to brush up the metal and remove rust. Scraped in one direction. Then I cleaned it off and polished with car wax.  That should protect it for a while.

[Howard_Casto]

Looks great man.  Good thing you are in Cali cause fall has arrived everywhere else.    I kept waiting to work on mine until it cooled down.... well now it's in the 50s.    Stupid non seasonal weather induced by climate change.   I'll at least get the pedals mounted the way I want so I can play with it in the winter.   

[javeryh]

Wow this is coming out great.  I need to check this board more often - seems like a lot of interesting stuff is happening here and not so much in Project Announcements...

That control panel/dash looks brand freaking new.  I will always wish I had room for something like this in my house.