Author Topic: Barracora pinball restoration - Now with Picture Goodness! (Read 25590 times)

PetitMorte · « **on:** February 24, 2006, 01:45:04 pm »

Howdy folks!

This week I became the proud new owner of a Williams Barracora pinball machine!

Having gotten the thing home, and examined it under good light, I can say that this thing needs love, and lots of it. But it's still an absolutely beautiful machine. The art was done by Doug Watson, and just about all of it is intact.

The machine needs to be cleaned, have a few places on the cabinet repaired, to have a few playfield pieces replaced, and some fairly serious playfield wear touched up.

I'd say that this playfield hasn't had any wax on it ever, but in some places, you can see that some sort of clear stuff was put on it and allowed to run before it hardened. You can also tell that whoever did that didn't bother to take any of the playfield pieces off before they did that. I'm hoping that either the cleaning, or the waxing will smooth that stuff out.

It's got mylars around the bumpers, and next to the slingshots, but they've gotten discolored and look pretty bad.

The inside need cleaned out, and some of the structural metal bits inside are starting to sprout white dust. (How do you get butterfly wings inside the machine???)

The backglass is almost completely perfect, but there's a couple of places where the paint is delaminating. I've already got the Krylon triple-thick crystal coat to deal with that though.

As far as the electronics go, the machine is missing the power board, so I can't power it up, but thanks to the folks at rec.games.pinball, a replacement is on it's way right now.

This pin is definitely going to be a big, involved project, but I think I'd rather have that then get a pin that works perfectly and already looks beautiful.

I'll take and post pics as soon as my wife gets back from her vacation, and finds out that while she was gone I bought a pinball machine.

Huge thanks to Chad for advising me up to this point, and pointing out great pin sites like Marvin3m's.

ChadTower · « **Reply #1 on:** February 24, 2006, 01:59:39 pm »

You're welcome for the help. Glad to do it.

A Sys7 is a good first pin. Traditional playfield (no ramps or toys or mini playfields), fully mature solid state, and advanced enough game modes to be a keeper. I suspect this will lead you to more pins. My advice at this point is to get the thing shopped and fully working and then leave it that way for a few months. Don't do a ton of restoration on it initially, just make sure it is clean and well maintained and no further damage can come to it. That will give you time to see if pinball is really your thing, and if it is, time to get more machines. Once you have a playable pin in your house you are not going to want to go without one for the sake of optional restoration work.

Definitely seal that backglass soon. Try to clean it first if you dare but if it's not that bad just seal the dirt in rather than do any further damage trying to clean it.

ChadTower · « **Reply #2 on:** February 24, 2006, 03:00:18 pm »

What is with the reverse writing on the top corner of the BG?

EDIT: Oh. The pics aren't yours. NM.

F1r3f1ght3r · « **Reply #3 on:** February 24, 2006, 03:16:37 pm »

Quote from: ChadTower on February 24, 2006, 03:00:18 pm

What is with the reverse writing on the top corner of the BG?

EDIT: Oh. The pics aren't yours. NM.

Beer sign

ChadTower · « **Reply #4 on:** February 24, 2006, 03:17:33 pm »

Oh yeah, that's half of the Miller logo too... didn't know Miller HAD a special reserve.

PetitMorte · « **Reply #5 on:** February 24, 2006, 04:56:16 pm »

yeah, I wish my playfield looked that good.

...

well, it does kinda look that good... but it's got spots where the paint has been worn off.

So what I'll start on this weekend is:

- Taking all sorts of pics of everything

#1 Dealing with the backglass and the peeling paint

? building a rotisserie for the playfield ?

If I can, then I'll probably start removing the playfield elements too.

(I can't find Novus anywhere locally, so I'll drop in an order for that asap.)

F1r3f1ght3r · « **Reply #6 on:** February 24, 2006, 05:35:47 pm »

Quote from: PetitMorte on February 24, 2006, 04:56:16 pm

(I can't find Novus anywhere locally, so I'll drop in an order for that asap.)

did you check motorcycle shops?

ChadTower · « **Reply #7 on:** February 24, 2006, 05:50:36 pm »

You don't need a rotisserie for the playfield. One step at a time. When you order the Novus, get 1, 2, and 3. You're also going to want to order some bulbs and a new rubber kit. And some caranuba wax, you can get that lots of places, I use regular Turtle Wax I got at Target.

When you start removing stuff, take pics. Tons of pics. Halfway through each disassembly take more pics. You cannot have too many pics. They will be your guide in putting the stuff back together.

PetitMorte · « **Reply #8 on:** February 26, 2006, 04:05:49 pm »

Whew!

There's a LOT of teeny littly pieces all cobbled together to make up playfield items!

At this point, I have the backglass sealed, with all the curled paint nicely flattened down and sealed in! I didn't know how it would come out, but it looks very good!

I've also got the playfield almost entirely stripped. I'm still working out how to remove the bumpers, as they're not really intuitive on how to take them apart. Any hints?

now that all of the plastics and posts and stuff are off, I can definietely tell that the only wax this machine has ever gotten was applied without removing any of the playfield elements. blah... and it's lumpy too!

I've got a new rubber set, the novis, new balls, and new lightbulbs on the way. I ordered #47 lights instead of #44 lights... They're supposed to burn less hotly and last longer. Some of the playfiels plastics are a bit warped... presumably because of the heat of the lights underneath them, so I want to avoid that in the future.

On the positive side, my wife came home, I broke the news, and I am still alive to talk about it! She's not really happy, but I can tell that she's intrigued!

ChadTower · « **Reply #9 on:** February 26, 2006, 04:50:55 pm »

I hope you took a LOT of pics taking that apart. Sometimes that's the only way to remember small things like which star posts went in with a through bolt and which with a wood screw... and I usually dismantle each logical part (i.e. one bumper) and put all the pieces in a baggie with a little label... a bag for each part of the playfield.

PetitMorte · « **Reply #10 on:** February 26, 2006, 05:50:12 pm »

Quote from: ChadTower on February 26, 2006, 04:50:55 pm

I hope you took a LOT of pics taking that apart. Sometimes that's the only way to remember small things like which star posts went in with a through bolt and which with a wood screw... and I usually dismantle each logical part (i.e. one bumper) and put all the pieces in a baggie with a little label... a bag for each part of the playfield.

Heh. yeah, I took tons of pics, and all of the parts *are* in baggies, labeled with where they came from.

I'll post some of them asap

PetitMorte · « **Reply #11 on:** February 27, 2006, 12:31:26 pm »

Good god those bumbers are complex to take apart!

1) remove screws, take off top cap
2) remove bulb
3) under playfield, unsolder coil, label wires (remember that the 2 red wires go to the same lug as the stripe on the diode)
4) under playfield, unbolt metal bumper thumper
5) remove metal bumper part from above
6) under playfield, unbolt, remove coil and mech.
7) under playfield, unsolder the lamp socket
8) remove lamp socket from bumper body
9) unscrew bumper body, remove it
10) remove skirt, try not to drop the little spring that goes with it.
11) under playfield, push out bumper "holder"

I don't know how I'm going to re-solder those lamp holders without flipping the playfield upside-down.

Ta-Dah. One playfield, completely stripped and ready to be cleaned.

PetitMorte · « **Reply #12 on:** February 27, 2006, 12:46:21 pm »

Ya know, here's a question. Since I've got the playfield all stripped, why not touch up the places where the paint has been worn off? 90% of the wear is on black paint, so color matching shouldn't be a problem. I can't see doing it later, as I'd have to re-remove everything, strip the wax that I'm going to put on it, and then rewax and reassemble it. Lots of extra work for a guy as lazy as me.

ChadTower · « **Reply #13 on:** February 27, 2006, 01:38:24 pm »

Because the restored parts will stand out just as surely as the wear spots do if you don't get it right. Better to come back to it later when you are more experienced.

And you don't have to strip EVERYTHING to clean the PF. I didn't take the bumpers off the Laser Cue, I just cleaned around them and cleaned up the exposed parts with Q tips.

PetitMorte · « **Reply #14 on:** February 27, 2006, 02:31:13 pm »

Well, I definitely wanted to get the bumpers up. The mylar under/around them is all yellow-milky, bubbled up, and torn in spots. I don't know if I'm going to replace them or not, but I definitely want them removed.

Without all of the stuff on the playfield, you can really see how it was treated in the past. I tried to get some pics of this, but can't get the lighting right to show it. Somebody put some sort of thick, clear goop on the playfield, without taking off any of the parts. And once they put it on, it flowed down a bit before it hardened, so there's lumps and valleys and stuff. There's no way a ball would roll straight over those. That'll have to be addresses as well.

ChadTower · « **Reply #15 on:** February 27, 2006, 02:34:51 pm »

Bad clearcoat attempt?

PetitMorte · « **Reply #16 on:** February 27, 2006, 05:13:16 pm »

Ewww, I hope not.

What would you use to remove that? Without endangering the paint, I mean... I'll try a few things and see what works. Hopefully it's just poorly applied liquid wax.

Either way, it's going to be a lot of elbow grease and careful attention.

ChadTower · « **Reply #17 on:** February 28, 2006, 08:44:28 am »

If it's wax then you can just use Novus 2 to get it off. If not, who knows what it may actually be.

ClubNinja · « **Reply #18 on:** February 28, 2006, 02:30:03 pm »

Just noticed this one. Barracora is sweet - congrats and good luck with the shop job. At least Chad and I are awaiting your results.

CheffoJeffo · « **Reply #19 on:** February 28, 2006, 06:45:55 pm »

Quote from: ClubNinja on February 28, 2006, 02:30:03 pm

Just noticed this one. Barracora is sweet - congrats and good luck with the shop job. At least Chad and I are awaiting your results.

So am I ... I've been watching Buddabing's thread and this one with anticipation ...

Cheers.

PetitMorte · « **Reply #20 on:** March 02, 2006, 09:59:45 am »

Ok. I finally got the camera downloaded, the pictures hosted and here comes the Pic-y goodness.

Starting out, got the legs attached, before all work started. And the head, with backglass up on the workbench.

PetitMorte · « **Reply #21 on:** March 02, 2006, 10:04:50 am »

You can see the paint coming off on the bottom of the backglass.

This needed to be sealed as soon as possible, before it got any worse. There was also some minor peeling up in the upper right corner, but that section is all black, and the peeling isn't visible much at all.

It struck me that the only spots where the paint is peeling are in the spots where your hands would naturally be when you take out the backglass.

PetitMorte · « **Reply #22 on:** March 02, 2006, 10:33:53 am »

So I dropped by the local hardware store and got me some of that sweet sweet Krylon Triple-Thick Cyrstal Clear sealant. (check here for some great information on saving and restoring pins)

I had to wait for a while for my garage to warm up enough to spray the triple-thick. It was bitter cold outside, and I just had a tiny little heater in there struggling to keep the place warm.

After spraying the whole backglass with a nice wet coat, I put down some saran-wrap over the curled paint areas and smoothed them down. The paint was very curly and refused to lay flat by itself, so I put a few small items on the peeling areas to keep them flat. I did the same for the black ares in the upper right, but didn't need weight to get it to behave.

I left it out in the garage for about a half an hour, until the clear coat was mostly dry to the touch, then brought it inside to dry in one of the back bedrooms. I gave it about a day and a half to dry, then peeled the seran off. Just like the article said, it peeled off very happily and the paint had laid down nice and smooth.

PetitMorte · « **Reply #23 on:** March 02, 2006, 10:49:06 am »

That done, I looked into the head and was happily surprized. The ad had said that the pin was missing both the power supply board, and the audio board. Evidently the guy who had it didn't quite know what boards were what, because the sound board was right there where it ought to be. There is, however, an obviously empty space with an empty mounting bracket right next to the audio board. It's where the Speech board would go if this was a Black Knight, or Gorgar, or any of the other System 7s that had speech. Maybe that's what confused him.

All of the other boards look like they're in pretty good condition. There's a bit of discoloration near the big bank of large resistors on the driver board, but it doesn't look like anything has been burnt or cooked off badly.

I *did* find a little problem in the transistor bank that controls the solenoids... One of the components looks like the magic smoke is all gone. I'm betting this needs to be replaced before I power up.

Fortunately for me, I'm pretty handy with a soldering iron, and big circuit boards like this don't scare me.

ChadTower · « **Reply #24 on:** March 02, 2006, 10:49:22 am »

I don't see any pics... must be the corporate firewall filtering them out. I'll check when I get home.

PetitMorte · « **Reply #25 on:** March 02, 2006, 10:54:19 am »

darn it!

I'm posting them up from yahoo pictures. Can you see anything here?

http://photos.yahoo.com/alakazam_oh

I'm trying to avoid something like flickr or photobucket.

PetitMorte · « **Reply #26 on:** March 02, 2006, 11:04:40 am »

Damn it! Now I can't see them either! Crap!

ChadTower · « **Reply #27 on:** March 02, 2006, 11:05:18 am »

Attach them to your posts rather than hotlinking.

PetitMorte · « **Reply #28 on:** March 02, 2006, 11:08:20 am »

doh.

All right... editing...

Ok. done.

That should be ok so far.

ChadTower · « **Reply #29 on:** March 02, 2006, 01:23:14 pm »

Tell me you didn't use an old battery holder (complete with rust and acid) to hold down the plastic wrap on that BG...

Those parts of the BG that you think didn't show much, that is the black parts that have cracks/chips, are really going to show once it is backlit. Keep that in mind.

That one resistor is definitely toast, but there's probably a few more. I wouldn't be surprised if you have to replace at least one or two of those IDC connectors and have to reflow the interboard (MPU-Driver) connector. Those board level interboard connectors are a pain in the ass.

PetitMorte · « **Reply #30 on:** March 02, 2006, 02:18:18 pm »

Don't worry. It's actually a rechargable battery from an RC boat.

It looks a little rusty, but the plastic coating on teh outside is quite clean.

Yeah, I'm hoping I don't have to do a lot of repair/replacement, but I know I probably will.

ChadTower · « **Reply #31 on:** March 02, 2006, 02:35:35 pm »

Even if you don't HAVE to do some of the touchup fixes, you probably should, since who knows how much life some of the common failure points have left in them right now.

PetitMorte · « **Reply #32 on:** March 05, 2006, 03:54:18 pm »

Hey there.

Well, I got a can of air, and peeled off the mylars from the playing field... one from each of the three bumpers, and one from in front of each of the two slingshots. With the freezing air treatment, they came off beautifully, with no paint loss! A little orange powered Goo-Gone, and they're the best looking patches on the whole playfield!

I made a couple of passes over the playfield with novus, and it's really looking nice and shiny. Much more clean than it was. There's a couple of spots that seem to need cleaning more than others, but in some of them, I'm running into a problem.

Evidently the "gloopy stuff" on the playfield is some sort of shellac. In a couple of places, it's thick enough to see that it's orangish-yellow, and where it's actually come up, it definitely looks like dried shellac. Whoever put it on didn't really clean the machine well before they slapped it on, so there's dirt trapped, and didn't make things level, so as it dried, it flowed a bit here and there.

They even put the shellac over the slingshot mylars, so after peeling them up, there's a visible edge. The novus has been doing pretty well to smooth out the edgeline, but it's taking a lot of time, and my arms are starting to get tired. I ordered that 2" buffing kit yesterday, and I'll be much happier once it arrives.

What I'm wondering, is when I get to waxing it, will the wax be thick enough to be able to smooth out the lumps/lines?

ChadTower · « **Reply #33 on:** March 05, 2006, 04:03:08 pm »

Hard to tell without pics... this is probably a good "get some closeup pics and post on RGP" issue.

PetitMorte · « **Reply #34 on:** March 05, 2006, 06:32:05 pm »

Is there *nothing* RPG can't do???

ChadTower · « **Reply #35 on:** March 05, 2006, 07:45:11 pm »

When it comes to pinballs, probably not.

PetitMorte · « **Reply #36 on:** March 07, 2006, 12:03:21 pm »

Well Chad, you said that novus would take off wax, yes?

On the one hand, there's so much I want to do to fix this thing up! I don't want to leave it all chipped up and lumpy!!! On the other hand, there's all of the electronic stuff that's waiting to be done, seeing if I can actually get it playing... and that can't be done with the playfield all apart like I have it!

So I'm torn... conflicted, as it were, on what, I say, What I must do next for this poor machine.

So what I can do is just wax the darn thing, put the playfield back together, and work on getting the game *working*... THEN go back, restrip the playfield and get it beautiful. Hmmm... That advice sounds strangely familliar.

That is, if I can't pick up the NOS Barracora playfield that just became available on Mr. Pinball's Classifieds. (grin)

Hmmm... must stop at Radio Shack on the way home today and buy fuses...

ChadTower · « **Reply #37 on:** March 07, 2006, 12:15:14 pm »

Yeah, get it working, then worry about making it pretty. Once it is working you'll be surprised at the motivation you have to get it shopped out in 8 hours vs the two weeks it will take when it's not ready to play.

PetitMorte · « **Reply #38 on:** March 07, 2006, 12:19:30 pm »

I hate it when people give me advice, I disregard it, and then it turns out that they were right in the first place.

I may pick up a nice soldering-station while I'm there too.

and a couple of replacement transistors, and resistors... I found another set on the driver board thatappear normal from the front, are all burnt and toasty from the back.

ChadTower · « **Reply #39 on:** March 07, 2006, 12:28:34 pm »

Can't hurt if you are a good enough solderer. A spare boardset may be a good eventual investment, too, if for nothing other than diagnostics when it fails later.


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