vitaflo,
Thanks for the kind words! No, I don't have a complete picture of it before I started. Honestly, I was too embarrassed because it looked so bad I didn't want everyone to think I was an idiot for buying it. (I didn't plan to do a full "restoration" on it at the time I bought it) Since I ended up doing so much work on it, now I wish I had taken more pictures beforehand.
It was ready for the dumpster. Here are some of the things I can think of that were wrong with it when I got it:
* seat base was weak, sides were detaching from the rest of the base. Also was poorly repainted, the stripes were half missing. Large portion of wood missing from rear, covered/hidden with a piece of wide baseboard molding.
* most of the threaded inserts on the plastic seat parts were stripped, so the seat was glued to the metal hinges, and the top part of the seat was glued to the bottom part and stapled!, etc. (replaced with toggle bolts)
* rear marquee destroyed (still need a replacement)
* main cabinet poorly repainted, had soda pop damage in one corner which caused one of the legs to bend the plywood upward 1" from the weight of the cabinet. (straightened, reinforced from the inside with a 2x4, glue, and large screws)
* large bash on the side of the main cabinet plywood
* one steering wheel was severely bent
* very poor wood replacement on the black front of the cabinet
* one castor on main cab was held on by one bolt and collapsed when we moved it
* about half the bolts were missing, everything on the machine was loose
* one of the shifters didn't work
etc...
I love seeing restoration projects too, I have several bookmarked. They help motivate me to fix up other games and also give me a lot of restoration ideas and tricks too. For those of us who can't afford to buy a mint condition classic (and even a lot of those have not been restored properly), this is the only way.
Wade