Quick Draw Pinball Machine, Gottlieb 1975

Location: Fort Collins, Colorado.
Symptoms: Score reels sticking, not resetting, 50 and 500 points items not scoring, not always advancing to next player or ball, bonus countdown issues, score accumulating when switching players.

The machine has been missing the rear door for the backbox for a long time and a lot of dust had settled in there.  The switch contacts on the player unit needed cleaning and adjusting.  This accomplished a lot in eliminating problems. The score advancing when changing players was due to the reset contacts (switch stacks P3 and P4) vibrating or set too close.

The player unit keeps track of ball numbers, player turns, and controls the reset of the scores. What makes working on the player units difficult is that the switch stacks are very close together. I’ve made a home-made switch adjusting tool that is able to fit in between switch stacks. I’ve also made some cleaning strips with a jogged shape them to help with switch cleaning.

Some of the decagon units needed to be rebuilt and contacts cleaned. A majority of the time was spent in the backbox.  The owner will craft a new back door to help keep the dust out.

There were a few other mis-adjusted contacts on the bonus unit and the 50 and 500 point relays.

Another EM pinball machine saved.

Fast Draw, Gottlieb pinball machine

Location: Boulder, Colorado.
Symptoms: Pinball machine wouldn’t reset.

A machine not resetting is the most common problem with an electromechanical pinball machine.  In a way, it’s like a self-test, because a lot of things have to be working for the machine to reset.  The reset sequence is like a series of dominoes, one item affects the next item and so on.  If one item fails to reset, then the sequence is either halted, or more likely, gets stuck in a continuous reset cycle.

This Fast Draw had been not working for nearly 12 years.  And typically with an EM machine that hasn’t been used for years, it usually needs some contact cleaning, contact adjustment, and the steppers rebuilt.  This particular machine also had a broken wire associated with the reset relay.