United Shuffle Alley Bowling Machine, 1949

Location: Roxborough, CO

Symptoms: Various items not working properly

The owner had previously rebuilt the stepper relays and adjusted the relay contacts which had improved things considerably.  There were a few things that were still not working, including the “strike” and “spare” scoring, and the game reset.

After tracing two problems back to relay contacts that needed adjusting, I decided it would be more efficient to check and adjust all of the relay contacts rather than tracing each symptom. I found 3 more sets of contacts that needed adjusting.  After that everything was working pretty well.

It was an amazing machine with the sound of the electro-mechanical parts, buzzing, clicking and ratcheting the score, all of which was amplified by the wooden cabinet.  Some EM pinball machines are more complicated by comparison, but they don’t have solenoids and relay coils that are as large and noisy.  This thing is awesome!