Black Hole, Gottlieb Pinball Machine (1981)

Location: Littleton, Colorado.
Symptoms: Overall tune up, spinning disk in backbox not working.

I didn’t get many photos of this machine.  The owner was expecting a house showing and I was trying to get everything finished before the realtor came.

The machine needed a lot of little things fixed, everything from loose ball guides, rubber pieces, bad bulbs, broken bumper caps, broken bumper body, and drop targets.  The machine had too many balls installed in it which caused problems with the outhole and the eject mechanism to the shooter lane. This era of Gottlieb machines can only hold 3 balls in the trough.

Lower playfield

Lower playfield after cleaning and replacing broken pop bumper.

This machine needed a new motor for the spinning disk behind the backglass.  The parts needed to replace these motors are (as of 4-4-2014):

Quantity Description Supplier
1 3 RPM Gear Motor, part no. 638158 Servo City
1 0.770” Set Screw Hub for 6 mm shaft, part no. 545576 Servo City
1 0.770” to 0.625” hub adapter, part no. 545456 Servo City
4 Socket Head Cap Screw 6-32 x 1/4” Servo City
or hardware store
1 Machine Screw M3 x 6 mm Servo City
or hardware store
1 #4 lock washer, split or internal star Servo City
or hardware store

The hub mounts to the motor, the hub adapter mounts to the hub with the socket head cap screws, and the motor mounts to the machine with the M3 screw. The screw holes in the front of the motor don’t align with the existing bracket, so I only used a single screw with a lock washer to mount the motor. It seemed sturdy enough.

The existing black flat-head screws that hold the disk to the old gear motor are reused to mount the disk to the hub adapter.

I attached a connector to the new motor and plugged it into the existing connector on the wire harness. I connected the polarity to spin counter-clockwise. Everything worked great!

I was recently at the Texas Pinball Festival and saw two Black Hole pinball machines and neither had working motors. It seems to be a common problem.

Underside of main playfield

Underside of main playfield