Track and Field Multi and Cabinet Restoration

[ArtMAME]

Greetings fellow BYOACers!!!

Proud to announce my Track and Field Multi Cabinet!!!

Used to be a converted Street Fighter II cabinet, and it looked like a piece of poop...

But now it is beautiful!!!

I am running MAME Plus 0.92 on an old retired 600MHz P3 with an ABIT mobo.  It launches T&F from a command prompt, then when I press the ESC button that I have rigged up inside, it launches right into the next game, then the next and so on.

It plays:

Track and Field
Hypersports
88 Games
Gold Medalist
Field Day
Recordbreaker

I even got my wife addicted to Track and Field, she did pretty well in the 100m and Long Jump... that's a good start.

Here is a link:

http://home.earthlink.net/~asumner/artsarcadelab/id25.html

I will post some construction details later on.  Right now, I am going to pick up all my tools, bits of wire, etc. that I have strewn about the place from working on this thing.

[TOK]

Nice! Buddies and I play Track and Field after a few beers. Can't imagine a more fun (and funnier) party game.

[ArtMAME]

OK... This was a pretty easy and low budget restoration compared to the ones I am used to doing.  I wanted to go low budget on this one because I have other more intense projects lined up.  But this came out great anyway.

Here is a slide show of the restoration:

http://s177.photobucket.com/albums/w210/ArtMAME/Track%20and%20Field%20Multi%20Game/?action=view&current=1181368698.pbw

Here are some details if anybody is interested:

First I stripped the cabinet of parts.  I repainted the CP hinge and metal brackets for the marquee and bezel.  I stripped the black paint on the inner sides using generous  amounts of Goof Off, revealing the original blue and catching a wicked contact buzz  in the process.  I also removed the carriage bolts and polished the heads by chucking them onto an electric drill and spinning the heads against wet/dry type sandpaper (220 or 320 grit)

Had to make a new lower front panel since the old one was in bad shape.   Painted the new lower front part, and the inner sides with blue spray paint (Rustoleum #7724 Sail Blue).  It was not really a perfect match compared to the original paint that I could still see on the cabinet, but it still came out looking very nice. 

I left the wood grained formica on the sides and just painted over them with Rustoleum Painter's Touch Semi-gloss white latex (#1993).  From experiments that I had done, I discovered it was better to skip the primer and just paint the bare formica with the latex paint.  Using several very light coats and long drying time after each one, I found that the paint stays on there quite well as long as I don't scratch the sides too hard.

I stripped the old CP overlay and wire brushed the panel clean.  It was pretty much swiss cheese, so I epoxied a piece of plywood where the buttons would sit, then bondoed the extra holes and sanded the surface flush.  I re-drilled the holes for the run and jump buttons. 

I used leaf buttons for the runs and jumps, and microswitch buttons for the player 1 to 4 buttons.  I knew I needed leaf switches on the Run and Jump buttons at least.  I had a bunch of them already from a bulk purchase I made on Ebay a while ago.  Wired up the buttons and coin mechs to a Keywiz Economy model. 

I got the marquee from Ebay for under $20 shipped.  It was in good shape but it must have been hacked.  I had to make a couple of thin plywood brackets for the sides of the marquee since it was not really the full width of the cabinet. 

That's pretty much it, other than securing the PC and cables inside, securing the power strip, installing the ESC and PC ON/Off buttons.

Came out really nice, and not too expensive either. 

[willhs]

Very nice!

[leapinlew]

What about the t-molding. I know a few people who have these cabinets and the offset t-mold seems to be a challenge.

[ArtMAME]

What about the t-molding. I know a few people who have these cabinets and the offset t-mold seems to be a challenge.

Well this cabinet had Formica sides that I just painted over.  The groove did not look like it was offset so I used regular 3/4" T-molding and it does not completely cover the edges.  There is about 1/16" of the edge exposed on the inside, and about 1/32" exposed on the outside. 

I am thinking of re-installing some regular 7/8" T-molding and trimming it down slightly on the outside so the whole edge is covered. 

But for now, the machine looks really great and the exposed edge does not bother me too much...yet.  Right now the machine is a blast to play so I am enjoying it before I start to tinker with it some more. 

[javeryh]

Wow, I can't believe you got rid of that sweet SFII marquee.   

Very nice job - Track & Field is one of my favorites!   

[Nostalgia]

Awesome job. One of my favorite games!

[leapinlew]

I love these style games. Another couple I like (but require a joystick) Combat School and BC Games(I think it's B.C. Games)

[IG-88]

Very nice. You should have fun with this for years too come.

[ArtMAME]

Very nice. You should have fun with this for years too come.

Back in the day, I pretty much had mastered Track and Field.  I could go for hours on one quarter.  But I only played Hypersports once or twice ever.  And I don't think I ever saw 88Games.  It is nice to have the old game back as well as its sequels and some additional games that I never heard of like Recordbreaker, Field Day, and Gold Medalist.

[Sinner]

Looks great...I usually used a popcicle stick, back in the day?
Can't do that on my current cab...would be kewl to have the button set for it though...
 

[ArtMAME]

Looks great...I usually used a popcicle stick, back in the day?
Can't do that on my current cab...would be kewl to have the button set for it though...
 

I saw a couple of pencil runners back in the day.  I tried the pencil trick on my cab and it works great!!!

I even saw a guy with an electric toothbrush one time.  He ran so fast that it was hard for him to hit the jump button on time.  He would wipeout so badly on the scratch line  , it was hilarious!!!

[BrentRadio]

Looks great!

Now you need the side art!

http://www.phoenixarcade.com/art.htm#track

Brent