Super Off Road restoration

[ZORK2]

The laminate was a major pain to remove from the inside of the CP.

[ZORK2]

Here is filling the CP. With all the old glue and screws removed and all the holes filled and sanded, it actually fit together really nice!

[ZORK2]

Here is something I found curious. Once it was all back together, I was suprised to see a GAP between the CP and the main part of the cab. Stealthie said there is a piece of metal trim? Can anyone post a pic and give me the over all diemtions? The gap can clearly be seen here.

[ZORK2]

Here is the gas pedal control panel, as you can see it was VERY TIRED! I was suprised once I opened it up that things were in decent shape. Only one of the poteniometer was broken. The wiring leads were broken off, and some one had wired the gas pedal braket to the pedal. The little "pin" was broken off. Other than that, the whole thing just needed a lot of TLC.

[Spyridon]

You have a lot of work to do on this one, but it looks like a fun project.  Good luck.

Just as an FYI, you can embed your pictures directly into the thread.  I think the posts look and read better that way

example:


You can either setup a free photobucket (that's the one I use) account and upload the photos there first, then post the link directly into your thread.  Or, if you look at the top of the project annoucements section of this forum, there is a thread for posting pictures.  You can upload them there and then link to them in this thread.

[ZORK2]

Hmmm, I will have to mess with that, I agree it def looks better. I signed up for photobucket.  Got a few pic uploaded to my account, how do grab the pics from photobucket to this thread?
Welp, until I get that figured out, I'll do it the the only way I know. A little pressed for time today so I can't mess with it.
Got the pedal shroudings off, put them in the vise, took the wire wheel to them and cleaned them up. It did a really nice job. Here is a nice Before and after shot. Also took off the plate that connects the Foot Control panel to the cabinate. Got ithat cleaned up.

[ZORK2]

A shot of my paint booth! 
Simple but effective!

[ZORK2]

I ended up finding a corrugated rubber mat on ebay, it was around 40$ but it was about as close to the original as I could find. Unfortunatley The smallest one I could find that I could cut the correct size out of was 3x4". I figured I would use the remaining leftover piece as a mat to stand on in fron of my work bench. I cut it using the old one as a pattern, it turned out REALLY nice! Better than I thought it would. It was the same thickness and really heavy duty. The only difference is the ribs are a little closer together than the original, but it still looked really nice. And I love my new mat in front of my workbench!

[ZORK2]

After the paint dryed, I bought some grip tape to put on the pedals, and the shrouding. Probably not an original, put I like the way it looks and will probably hold up better than just the pain alone.

[ZORK2]

A couple shots of the pedals and shroudings after the tape was applied.

[ZORK2]

Another tough thing to find was the aluminum trim piece that surrounded the panel. I looked at Home Depot, Lows, True Value none had anything even close. A guy a HD recommended I check the little local mom and pop hardware store. Checked it out, the didn't have it but could order it. So I placed an order. It was 3/4" with a 3/16th lip on it. It came in a couple days later. It was really close to the original, only difference was it had pre-drilled holes in it for screws. The original had no holes and was stapled. I took my time putting it on, it bent nicely around the corners, screwing it in as I went. Here is the finished product.  The trim piece really made the thing look nice! Almost done with it....

[stealthie]

Damn it's coming along real nice.  I like the grip tape idea is pretty cool.  I'll get that pic of the bracket for you today.

[Spyridon]

how do grab the pics from photobucket to this thread?

Use the IMG code listed under the image in Photobucket.  Copy it from there and paste it directly into your thread.

[ZORK2]

Things have been going slow with this one. I'm trying to piece together all the parts I need. Made a pretty good score today though, an entire steering wheel, the shrouding, and all the guts on ebay for 10$!
So I get 3 of the parts I need.
1 wheel, one of the bearings for the wheel, and hopfully a intact encoder cup!! Plus I'll have an extra optic board in case one of mine ever goes bad.
OH and ANOTHER good score, a NON-working PCB board for $1 on ebay! I figure I should be able to piece together ONE good board from the 2. If not, heck I'm only out a buck!!
Stealthie is hopefully going to hook me up with one of his extra poteniometers, and the broken piece on the part that connects it to the foot pedal.
Tarman is still working on getting the Side art and CPO scanned in, and cleaned up digitally.
Monday and Tues I'm going to try and get the last of the pedals cleaned up, and painted so I can get that back together once I get a new potentionmeter.
Also I going to start the "body work" on the cabinate.  Then I can go to Twistedquarter and get new black Vinyl, new T molding, buttons, and some of the other detail stuff.
I think my biggest hang up is going to find a reasonable monitor. I've been keeping my eyes peeled, but nothing yet in my price range. Heck from everything I've seen it is going to be cheaper to buy another junker game somewhere, rob the monitor, tube and all out of it, and sell off the parts/ jamma ect, to recoup part of my money?
Not sure what I'm going to do just yet......
Anyone have a cheap 25" K7000 monitor they  want to part with!?!?

[SirPeale]

You already have the tube and the frame.  All you need is the chassis.  Ask on KLOV if anyone has a 25" K7000 chassis for sale.  Or, worst case, you get an 8-liners chassis.

Of course, you don't know if your tube is good, you should probably test that beforehand.  Anyone near this guy have a K7000 that can pay a visit for "testing purposes?"

[MortalManiak]

I just got a Super Off Road PCB off of a little-known online auction site and will be following this resto closely. 

Great attention to detail.

I wish i could offer some help but I'll be out of the states for a few more months and I hope you have the good fortune to finish before then. 

I may not do a resto... well, i don't have anything to restore really.    I just want the gameplay with 3 steering wheels and all the pedals to feel right.    Definitely jealous of the cabinet find, good jorb!  I used to love eating pizza and playing this game.  I can't wait to see *both* projects done 

[ZORK2]

Congrats! This is a fun game, I remember buying it on Nintendo when it came out cause I liked the arcade version so much, it just wasn't quite the same! 
Well my used 10$ steering wheel assembly showed up on Wednesday! 
I must admit I was a bit perplexed by it! From the pics of it on Ebay, I thought it was going to be an identical copy of my "Blue" assembly? From the second I took it out of the box I knew it wasn't! Take a close look, the "new" one is the one on the left.

[ZORK2]

The first thing I noticed was the "Instert coin in right slot" lettering was in a different spot! Then instantly I noticed that the metal shrouding piece was the shape(trapizoid) of the center one on my game! So I was thinking "Well maybe on this game the "blue wheel" was the the center unit?" So I compair it to the center one(which is the yellow wheel btw) on my game and I was thinking "Yeah that is what they did" Well that didn't quite make sence because why would the lettering say "Insert coin in right slot" Hmmm, well the entire thing was in much better condition than my center wheel. So my next thought was to leave this one in tact and keep it as my center wheel, and canibalize my yellow wheel for the parts I need! After all, I'll be replacing the overlays. That is when I found the weirdest thing of ALL! It was BIGGER than my yellow shrouding!! Check out these next pics!!

[ZORK2]

Quite a bit bigger!
As you can see the second pic is after I stole the wheel off of it. But really it doesn't match any shrouding on my game!

[ZORK2]

So the only thing I can figure is that this one is from a 2 player version of the game? I looked up several pic of the 2 player version of this game it looks like a different CP ALL TOGETHER! So I'm not sure what gives with this thing? I'm sure all the parts are the same and it'll work, just has me really curious!! Maybe this is from the later "Trak Pak" version or something? Anyone know the answer?!?!

So anyway I got the 3 parts I needed, the wheel, the encoder cup, and the upper bearing!
Here is the break down.
My Blue wheel needed the encoder cup.
My Yellow wheel needed the actual steering wheel.
My Red wheel need the upper bearing!!!

[ZORK2]

Here is my blue wheel, missing a few teeth on the encoder cup, and the one I was about ready to steal! 

[ZORK2]

And of course my red wheel with the new upper bearing firmly in place!

[ZORK2]

WALA! An ENTIRE intact control panel for 10$!! How can you beat THAT!! 
 It's starting to come together! VERY SLOWLY!
I think I am going to keep the rest of that other wheel assembly. Just in case the gears get stripped on one, or if one of my optic boards are bad? Cheap spare parts!

[MortalManiak]

WOW!!   

Your resourcefulness is awesome!!!

I hope I can find the same for my Super Off Road creation, especially the expensive wheels!

[ZORK2]

THANKS! Desperate times call for desperate measures! 
This morning I got the idea to take apart an entire wheel assembly to see if I could polish up the metal that was in really bad shape around the wheel. Once I got the entire thing apart, I got a bit scared that I might not get it back together!!?!!??!? 

[ZORK2]

Rather than focus on the RE assembly, I focused on the task at hand, getting that metal polished up! The Mothers Power ball wouldn't touch the crap build up on the aluminu. I ended up taking the sand with 400 grit to the entire thing first! Then the mothers power ball, then by hand! maybe 2 hours total on this one??

[ZORK2]

Well I DID get it back together! And I PROOVED with out a shadow of a doubt.....
GIVEN ENOUGH TIME YOU REALLY CAN POLISH A TURD!!!!!!!!! LOL! 

[ZORK2]

Well my only problem is now, I think this one turned out TOO good!! Heck, its nicer than the wheel on my CAR! 
Does anyone know what it looked like from the factory? I'm sure it wasn't polished. Probably just a brushed metal look I'm guessing? If I could only go back to 1988 when I was 13...........
Any thoughts on weather or not this looks good, or I should give it a more rustic look?

[Paul Olson]

I think it looks great, but I don't remember what they looked like new.

Great job so far! I will be watching this thread really closely now - I am getting one of these tomorrow.  It is working, but could definitely use a little cosmetic work.

What paint did you use on the pedals? Those turned out nice.

[SirPeale]

Looks great!  I'd leave it.

[MortalManiak]

Absolutely Leave it! 

I'm sure it may have been just a brushed metal look, but when I saw the pic it looked "right".  If i were making the original that is how I would've done it; nice and polished up. 

Not trying to hijack, but did you just make a better wheel than HAPP's $265 http://www.happcontrols.com/driving/50283700.htm for like $10? 

***EDIT***

I forgot to add that the guy I bought my dedicated Mortal Kombat from is selling his 2-player Super Off Road Track Pack online and it doesn't have the red, yellow, or blue trapezoids behind the wheels.  It is a newer-style cab, but I wonder if your blue trapezoid came from a 1-player version, although the "right slot" suggests otherwise.  It's hard to find pics of anything but the 3 player.  Your resto seems to be falling into place like a great streak of tetris.  Anything you are finding hard to find?


***EDIT***

I just found a guy at Armageddongames.net "War Lord" that has a Super Off Road and sent him a PM to see what his wheels look like 

[ZORK2]

Well I guess the concensis is that I keep it polished! I thought it looked good too, but after spending a couple hours doing it, my opinion might have been  a little biased.
Yep 10$, I wasn't sure what I was going to do about getting all those parts I needed? I don't know if they are BETTER than the 265$ wheels, but definatley more original. Remeber  I have no CLUE as to weather they work or not? One of the sets of photo reisistors looks different than the other 3. I'm assuming someone replaced them at one point? So I am keeping my fingers crossed that they work?? They should, not too much can go wrong with them I wouldn't think?
Yeah the art work and CPO is immposible to find, thank goodness Tarman is doing a resto on mine, hopefully we can get it over to mammarquees.com when its done so anyone else wanting to restore on one of these won't have to  like I did!
There are two parts I think I am never going to find. One I can fabricate, the other I'm still not sure what I'm going to do.  The one I'm going to make when the time is right is a piece of metal trim that goes between the CP and the main part of the cab. Mine is missing. Stealthie had hooked me up with some measurments and pics of the one on his. The Other is the bezel. When I put mine in, there is still a 1/2" gap between the bezel and the tube front. I am pretty sure the tube is mounted where it should be, which leads me to believe that I have the wrong bezel?? From what I can tell from pics I have seen, the bezels on other ones seem wider? Can anyone confirm that? Il'll snap a pic of mine showing the gap. I may have to remount the tube? Or try to find an original bezel?
OTher than those two items and a piece out of one pedal assembly, I'm still looking for a resonable 25" WG 7XXX to put in there. I Have seen a couple but I trying to do this on a budget, and $200 won't quite work for me. I'm hoping for around 1/2 that??? OR LESS!

[ZORK2]

Oh and the pedals I painted with 3 coats of primer, then a few coats of rustoleum Gloss black laquer. I'm sure they won't hold up like electroplating them would, BUT, that is why I put that skate board tape on the tops. They should be very durible with that stuff on there?
Well I better get crackin on polishing those other 2 wheels........
More later.....

[ZORK2]

Here real quick a couple shots of the gap beween the bezel and the tube. Anyone know what gives with this? Tube mounted incorrectly, or wrong bezel? The tube looks like it is in the right place to me.......
Where on earth would I find a bezel that would work?

[ZORK2]

1 more down! Before and after! I ended up replacing the lock down piece too, the one that came on the yellow wheel was bent.

[ZORK2]

ONE LEFT!!

[Paul Olson]

Those look nice. Are you going to try to redo the red, blue, and yellow panels? If so, what are you going to try? The pictures I have of mine (hopefully will be here soon) look like they are a bit faded and have a few blemishes.

[ZORK2]

Tarman is scratch building brand new ones!!
Hopefully they will be sent off to Mamemarquee.com or a similar site for all to have access to!

[Paul Olson]

ZORK2 - would you mind measuring the monitor glass on yours? Mine is missing and I want to start calling around for quotes. I should be playing in a couple of hours! 

[ZORK2]

Ahhh rub it in why don't you! 
On mine it was plexi, which when I replace it, I'm going to use real glass, it'll look a lot better that way I think. Let me know how much they quote you.  I'll be curious to know. Does your game have plexi over the CPO?? I'm thinking of putting Lexan over this one as well, just like I did on my Simpsons game when I restored it...
It is 27 1/2 W x 18 5/8 tall