The 1994 Bally The Shadow is an interesting game in many aspects. It has no pop bumpers, but instead it features a lot of gadgets. And we know gadgets are the first things that break, right? :)

I got this machine in a non-working state. I was warned beforehand it wouldn't even boot. A quick inspection showed that the machine was nonetheless "sane": all its playfield parts were present, and the backbox didn't seem to scary, at least at first sight (more on that later). Yet, the diamond playfield (typical for WMS/Bally games from this era) was covered with an ugly mylar. There was also significant damage in the magnet area of the playfield, and everything was very dirty. Metal ramps were tainted and not shining anymore.

Work on this machine was divided in two parts: the playfield cleanup and touchup, and the backbox electronics repairs.

What happened to the Whoopee since the vitrification of the playfield? Quite a few things, since the game is now (almost) playable! ;-)

The quite standard procedure (and as usual very well documented on Pinrepair), has been adapted to the particular case of this machine:

And here we go again. Silence doesn't mean nothing happened, it just means I've been too lazy to update the website ;-)

The Creature underwent a complete and thorough cleanup, and it was about time! As these pictures show, you couldn't see through the ramps anymore (and that was just the top of the iceberg!), but look at the result after:

I completely dismantled the playfield, stripped naked down to the bare-bone wood, and carefully and patiently cleaned it up (thank you Mr Red Devil and GoldCat ;-).

So, what happened to the Sinbad? Well, it had its share of love, but unfortunately I couldn't go very far:

I first ran the preliminary checks, as outlined in the ever useful Gottlieb sys1 pinrepair guide. All the coils were ok, though there was two blown fuses ("playboard" in the cabinet, and "bank setup" under playfield). That was the least of my problems, see below ;-)

It's been a while since I last discussed the Creature. The reason for that wasn't because there was nothing to say, it was because there was a lot going on and I wanted to wait until I've made enough progress to warrant a story :)

First things first, big news: the Creature is 100% operational, everything works. YAY! Picking up where I left off, here's in a somewhat chronological order what happened on that machine for the past few months.

Considering what we've seen before (see previous posts), two things needed immediate attention:

We haven't talked much about some of the flippers that we have had for quite a time. Dolly Parton is one of those. Truth be told, we didn't forget it, but repairs on this machine went relatively smoothly. We have to confess having slightly "cheated" though, see below ;)

Here's a quick summary of what happened in the past months:

One of the key problems with the Kiss was that its MPU board was non-functionning when we first tried to start it up. It took us quite a while to fix it, because the failures where numerous, spread across many areas and inter-related.

Finally, the playfield of the Whoopee has been completely restored. Pictures of the complete process can be found here:

Continued adventures on the Kiss: after ordering on eBay (flipperking.de) new stickers for the rollunders, they've been replaced (as well as the broken bumper column, received from 7059didier):

Before:

After:

The result looks pretty nice!

The dead transistor (Q2) on the solenoid board has been replaced by a compatible one, a TIP120 (the original reference SE9302 is no longer manufactured). Finally, the backbox pedestal has been reinforced with wood glue, as it was showing signs of weakness...

A new machine has joined the project: a very nice 1978 Solid State Gottlieb Sinbad.

It seems in fairly good shape, save for a little electronic problem somewhere which, according to its previous owner, permanently powers one of the reset coils. Stay tuned!