Techno Stuff
The parts listed in the common section below can be obtained from a number of suppliers. Rubber parts are cheap, and you should just replace all of them. Don't make the supplier work too hard looking up part numbers - the descriptions should be good enough.
Common stuff/ordinary maintenance
| Rubber Parts | ||
| Bally Part # | Quantity | Description |
|---|---|---|
| R-108-3 | 1 | Ball shooter tip - small hole - brown or white |
| R-115-4A | 1 | Rebound rubber - brown or white. |
| R-243 | 30 (max) | 5/16" white rings for yellow posts |
| R-243-2 | 4 (max) | 5/16" grey(dead rubber) rings for red posts. "dead rubber" is less bouncy. May be very hard to find. You can use the standard 5/16" white rings above (and you may find hitting hole #16 is a little easier :-)) |
| R-135A | 2 | 1" white rings |
| R-295-5 | 6 | 3" white rings - only used on Shoot-A-Line |
| Balls | ||
| Bally Part # | Quantity | Description |
| M-168-15A | 8 (max) | Bally: 1-1/8" diameter. NOTE: a standard pinball is 1-1/16". In general, these won't work. The row of balls in the ball trough will not line up correctly over the trough switches
United: 1-1/16" diameter standard pinballs on some games, 1-1/8" on others. You'll need the manual or look inside the game for a paper tag that says. |
| Lamps | ||
| Bally Part # | Quantity | Description |
| E-125-2A | lots! | #47 lamps. People often replace all the #55 lamps with these.
They are a little less bright, but not as hot, so they don't burn the backglass/melt
the playfield light sheilds. They usually come in boxes of 10 or big
bags of 100 or more.
If you really like the brighter 55's, I'd at least change out the playfield lamps to #47's. The remaining GI (general illumination/always on) lamps in the head are your decision. You probably aren't running the game lots of hours/day...then again, the ink on the backglass probably isn't as solid as it originally was. If you have an OK/red letter game, you'll need red #55's for those six lamps due to the way the circuit is designed. Red ones probably can't be purchased, so you'll need to paint them yourself - or apply a few coats with a red permanent marker. MarkJ has some luck using #44 lamps with red lamp condoms. The condoms are plastic covers that slip over the lamps, and they can be gotten from the pinball parts people. You need #44's because they are brighter than #47's. Mark says it's not as good as the #55's, but it's ok. |
| E-125-47A | 10 | #1464/#1458 lamps. These are usually the light bulbs used on the
bingo cards. They are on a 17V circuit. #1458 and #1464 lamps
can be used interchangably.
If you are having trouble finding these, I got a bunch
from norman lamps. The probably
have a minimum order, and the bulb size is a little bigger, making them
harder to insert/remove.
#1464's I recently got from pinball resource. |
| Miscellaneous | ||
| What | Quantity | Description |
| leg bolts | 8 bolts | 3/8"-16 (16 threads per inch) x length, where length is:" 2-3/4" for metal legs (std pinball size) 3-1/2" for wood legs length not counting the head of the bolt, which is supposed to be an acorn head. for wooden legs, also use washers on the bolts. |
| playfield screws | 4 | #8 x 2-1/2" oval head. you'd probably have to online order, so use phillips. The decorative washers under the oval screw head are called #8 finish washers. |
| foot rail wing nuts | 2 | size 10/24. used to screw down the foot rail |
| rubber grommets | 4 | used on ball lift motor bracket and sometimes other motor brackets - size 7/16 x 3/16" |
Needed for repair/restoration work
| Tools/Major Repair Items | ||
| Item | Quantity | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Switch adjuster kit | 1 | The suppliers have these. Usually you get three to five switch blade adjusters of different shapes so you can bend the switches as needed. |
| Lamp remover | 1 | This gadget makes it lots easier to get the lamps out of the backbox panel insert. It's a conical rubber tube that you just push on bulb, twist, and yank. People use all sorts of rubber tubing to accomplish the same thing, and grippy rubber gloves are probably the easiest of all. |
| Contact file | 1 | I've never used one, as I prefer the Dremel tool approach (see Overhaul section). However, if you have a badly pitted contact, and don't want to replace it, I guess it could be useful. |
| Coils | 1 | Coils should just be ordered as needed. Use the bally part numbers in the manuals, and the suppliers will cross-reference to a replacement coil. Coils don't fry too often on bingos. If the wire is just broken at the solder lug, unwrap a turn of wire from the coil and solder it back on. |
| Backglass | 1 | Well, there are still some out there, but I don't know where they are. Your best chance is probably using the pinball classifieds or the rec.games.pinball newgroup. I can put up a for sale/wanted area if there is enough demand, or maybe consider the backglass rescreening option (typically $200/glass). |
| Playfield | 1 | NOS playfield blanks are practically unheard of. I bought one a couple years ago, and was surprised that they even existed. Since bingo playfields held up pretty well, operators didn't buy replacements. Usually your only choice is to find a parts machine and swap out the playfield. |
| Motors | 1 | The ball lift motor can be rebuilt by moto-search (they made them) in racine,
wisconsin.
Control unit/mixer motors made by Multiproducts can be replaced with new ones. The sealed control unit/mixer motors on early bingos made by Merckle can be replaced with a multiproducts motor, though you may need to deal with the multiproducts motor having a large shaft diameter. I don't know of a supply for the smaller feature unit motors (magic screen, magic square, etc.) made by Molon, but those style motors were used in slot machines, so they should be out there someplace. Fortunately, they rarely cause a problem. See resources. |
