swapping the playfield on a Kiss pinball

[RichSorr]

I'm swapping out the playfield on an original Kiss machine this weekend. The guy I'm doing it for has a blank NOS playfield, so I'm going to be moving everything over, top and bottom. He also has the art stencils so we're debating if we should repaint it. I've never done a full playfield swap, any tip and suggestions? I'm excited to get into this thing

[Buddabing]

My number one suggestion is to take a lot of pictures. Second suggestion: take more pictures.

I did a playfield swap last year. Link to project thread. Every machine is different, but the general strategies for swapping a playfield are the same. Please feel free to PM or email me with any questions, and I'll try to help. The folks on the rec.games.pinball newsgroup can be helpful, too.

[ChadTower]

I sure hope you're talking about repainting the cabinet and not the playfield.

[RichSorr]

haha yes the cabinet.  Budda I saw and read your old thread, great stuff.  Luckily the guy who owns the game has a bunch of original replacement parts for the pf. the backglass is also autographed by the members of kiss  . apparently he took the game to TNT Amusements some years ago and they did a horrible job at shopping it, then it sat at eastcoast amusements for over a year and they never did anything to it. now its with me . I'll be taking a lot of pictures so when I have a chance I'll post some along with my progress

[ChadTower]

If you're going to that much trouble you may as well restencil the cab while you have it empty.  Obviously this guy is going for the high end.

[Buddabing]

This isn't your machine?

Do you really want to undertake this kind of project when you have no expertise at it and you're not going to be enjoying the rewards of it?

It took me five months of nights and weekends doing my playfield swap, starting with zero knowledge. You will probably take less, since Stargate is more complicated than Kiss and I'm not mechanically minded. Do you realize what your hourly wage is going to be?

[ChadTower]

It's not going to be a moneymaker unless the guy is really paying high.  Kiss should be a much simpler swap than Stargate, though, and if he follows the "keep the harness shaped" method, slides it over on a piece of thin plywood, it shouldn't be as hard as the Stargate method.

What's going to hurt here is if the guy doing the swap isn't familiar with pinball troubleshooting... one incorrect connection and there goes hours of diagnosis time.

[RichSorr]

dudes paying me for it. I have about 6 years  experiance with pinballs and arcade games in general. I also work for one of the top redemption game manufacturers. I've taken apart playfields, I've just never had to remove everything from the bottom to another PF. I'm more than confident doing it, though. I deal with some form of an arcade game every day, and it's been a little over a year since I've been on this side of things, so this will be a fun thing for me to do in my spare time

[Buddabing]

Ah, okay, you aren't starting from ground zero like I did. You should be in good shape then.

[RichSorr]

have some pictures. The owner took pictures of the game completely set up before I took it from his house, when I get them from him I'll toss them up.

The game all opened up. not horrible. I'm going to sand out all those stains once I vaccuum it all out.


Old playfield.


Glued together piece, PF is very dirty, tons of cracks, bubbles in the mylar. I'll be replacing majority of the playfiel plastics, hopefully I can track down a full set of the playfield guards.


The horrible "touch up" job that TNT Amusements did.


Lower playfield (I removed the plastic) rubbers are all rotted and literally break apart when you touch them.


close up of the paint, its all pretty cracked. again, TNT did a pretty bad touch up job, the colors on each side don't even match. The owner bought stencils awhile ago, so I will be sanding and bondoing the entire game and repainting it.


I'll post more as I move along, haven't really had time to work on it. The boards are in HORRIBLE shape, horrendous solder jobs, splatter everywhere, loads of dirty. amazingly they are work. I'm going to give them a run through the dish washer and I'll clean up all the bad solder work.

I forgot to take a picture of the NOS playfield, but its in great condition. One leg was bent but i was able to get it back into shape, I have all the legs sanded down and I'll be repainting them tomorrow (owner didn't want to replace the legs, just levelers and hardware).

[RichSorr]

Also, it looks like the black framing going around the playfield was removed to be repainted, whoever did it didn't put it back on with the original screws, but instead stapled it. hopefully i can remove  them safely so I can once again, repaint them and put them on the new playfield.

[RichSorr]

some more pictures...

terrible soldering job, I have no idea how its working.


back of displays.


broken wire on knocker, extremely dirty inside.


power filter, broken ground strap.


broken off power switch. all the nuts for the coin door and pulled into the wood so far I can't even get a wrench on them. coin door is pretty beat up and painted silver.




warped plastic



bottom of current playfield



NOS playfield

[modessitt]

I did this exact same thing - swapped a Kiss playfield.  Took one that someone had screwed up by putting a Mylar replacement graphic over an old playfield without proper sanding or alignment.   Put everything on a new playfield.  Did it in the living room during the week when I was home at night.  Took about a week, but I wasn't rushing it or anything - watching TV, etc.

The best advice I can give you is to not desolder ANYTHING except the lights to the pop bumpers, and make sure to label those as to which one they go to!  Once unscrewed/unstapled, the entire thing will lift right off.  Lay both playfields down on the floor side-by-side.  Make sure to use a soft towel under the new playfield as you don't want to risk it getting scratched.  It's a good idea to get a sheet of paper and map out the stapled GI grounds and lighting wires so you'll be able to route them the same way to keep from having shorts later.  The hardest thing of all is to remove all the staples.  It's easier to just get some good snips and cut through them (don't cut the wire, though!) and remove the wire.  Get a good staple gun to restaple it once it's on your new playfield.  Keep the screws in a dish to keep track of all of them, and inspect how the pop bumper switches interact with the mechanism before you take off the nuts holding it in place.  The same thing with the slingshot arms, spinners and flippers.

Once everything is loose, just pick the entire wiring and parts up (have a friend help if you're worried)  and slide it over to your other playfield, and begin screwing it back down.  Make sure the GI wires are routed and staple correctly.  if you're lucky, all the screw holes are pre-drilled into the new playfield and everything should line up perfectly.  if not, pay attention to the drop target assembly as incorrect placement can cause problems with the drop targets hanging up or not resetting properly.  Once you have everything secured, remove the top side rails from the old playfield and attach them to your new playfield.  Then transfer over the pop bumbers, remembering to attach the light wires.  You'll also need to make sure the metal guide rails are transferred and seated firmly (tap them in gently with a hammer).  Finally, CLEAN the posts and plastics before transferring them over, and install new lights and rubbers.

Should work fine once in your game.

[modessitt]

As for the warped plastics, some places now make repro plastics and pop bumper caps for this game (can see Gene Simmons has been busted and re-glued), but you can "flatten" your warped ones by heating it up at the curve (with a heat gun, blow dryer, or sometimes a lighter if your careful) and then setting something heavy and flat on it until it cools.  This flattens them out pretty well.

You can get your coin door off by using a small flathead or needlenose to get a grip on one side of the bolt, then using a pliers to turn it out far enough to get a grip.  You may have to cut a small groove in the wood around the nut in order to get a socket on it.  put a washer on before re-bolting to keep this from happening again.  The door probably had a bit of rust if was painted.  Don't know if stripping the paint would be an improvement, unless you have good relations with a chroming place.  Or just want to replace it.

I've seen worse soldered power supplies than that and they still work fine!  I notice some discoloration on the male connector plastics.  This is usually caused by heat.  If the female end looks quite discolored, you should replace the connector housing and clean/replace the pin.  Overheated connectors can warp internally and cause intermittent or unstable contacts, causing many problems with the game.

You didn't include any pics of the boards, but I'd doublecheck the on-board battery of the CPU as they quite often leak battery acid and can have green corrosion all over the bottom of the board causing many problems.  Sometimes it gets so bad it is easier to just put in one of those new repro CPUs that allow free play settings.

Check that knocker coil before you hook the wire back up.  As it looks "Stuck" in the up position, it is very likely fried, hence the removal of the wire.  You'll probably find the drive transistor for the knocker is shorted as well.

Good luck with it!  It will look nice when done!

[RichSorr]

hey, thanks for the reply. The plan as of now is to just find a new coin door, the current one is beat to hell. Luckily I already have some replacement parts, including original pop bumper caps, new drop targets, spinners and plastic guides. If you look close enough, part of that board is burnt to hell where they resoldered, crappy pic though. I've been cleaning the boards with rubbing alcohol and they are comming out well, still need to fix some rusted solder joints.  I had to cut small grooves into the wood for the coin door, no way those things were comming out. anyone know if this lockbar is/was a standard part? the one I have now is pretty rusted up and I defiantely want to replace it.  I'll try to flatten those pieces out, or I'm not sure if I want to find NOS plastics or repos..hmf.  lots of screws are missing or stripped, guess I'll be making a trip to lowes.

[ChadTower]

To make it a little simpler, rather than take tons of manual notes as described above, take a few really good pictures from various angles.  You can then refer to them all you want during the process or print them out and bring to the workbench if there's no computer available close enough.  That's what I usually do and it works really well - saved ---my bottom--- multiple times on Twilight Zone.

[modessitt]

I agree pictures are good and all, but notes aren't what I meant.

Just grab a sheet of paper and draw the outline of the stapled wires, maybe with blocks or circles added for reference points.  A photo far enough back to show the whole playfield usually won't have enough detail to show exact placement, and close-ups don't always demonstrate fully how everything ties together.  Drawing a quick map takes maybe 2 minutes tops, and will make it MUCH easier to put back on.  The most tedious part is removing staples, then restapling.  Everything else can be done in a few hours.

[ChadTower]

A photo far enough back to show the whole playfield usually won't have enough detail to show exact placement, and close-ups don't always demonstrate fully how everything ties together. 

That's why you take both far shots and closeups, but either method is valid.