Pinballs

I've conducted two operations on the Whoopee lately:

First, I've replaced the broken backbox female connector for which I received replacement thanks to a very nice eBay seller (7059didier). It went relatively smoothly; old solder melts nicely at a relatively low temperature, so despite the fact there there was a lot of solder on each wire, removing them was easy:

I'm waiting to get some rosin flux before soldering back the wires to the new connector, which, as a used part, already has some solder on it.

I took the opportunity to give a visual check to the backglass. It looks exceptionally good for such an old machine: see for youself:

By the way, I'm still looking for Krylon Triple Thick Crystal Clear, to protect that backglass (and others)!

On the playfield now, I removed the bumpers. In order to do that, you have to be careful: you need to remove the bumper caps, remove the bulb, then under the playfield you need to desolder the bulb's bayonet receptor, see:

On one side you have the ground plane, on the other side you have the trigger. Both need to be disconnected before removing the bumper body. Once this is done, unlock the metal flange's nuts, and then on the playfield side, unscrew the two small screws at the bottom of the bumper body. Now pull gently, making sure that the bayonet's pins can pass freely through the playfield hole. Tada, you're done:

Once this was done, I setup to remove the mylar decals, as I want to eventually completely clean the playfield before restoring it (filling up the scratches and repainting them) and vitrifying it.

To do this, you need:

• A hair drier
• Flat-nosed pliers
• Gloves (to protect yourself from heat)
• Cotton and methylated spirits (to clean residual glue)

Warm up a side of the mylar decal to soften the glue, close to a place where you can peel it off. Once it's warm enough, gently uses your nails to peel a little bit off. It should come easily, you shouldn't need to scratch it off. Once you've peeled enough, hold the pliers with your glove and use them to peel the rest off. Be VERY gentle, you shouldn't need to pull.

You should basically maintain enough tension so that the mylar comes off "on its own" as you keep warming it with the hair drier. Typically, unless you're experienced, you should peel more than a couple centimeters per minute. If the mylar starts tearing apart, you're already pulling too strong.

Once all the mylar is gone, pour meths on a piece of cotton and use it to gently soak the area. There again, you shouldn't need to rub. Let the meths do their job, and then smoothly wipe the now un-adhesive residual glue out of the playfield with your soaked cotton. Another plus of meths: they evaporate quickly without staining the material.

Here's with mylar, mylar removed, and cleaned. Voilà! ;-)