Parts and Supplies

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 - includes 4 for red posts) 5/16" white rings for yellow posts
R-243-2 4 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 :-)), or if you want the dead effect, put old rings on the red posts.
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, and the associated six clear lamps need to be #47's. Red ones are hard to find, so you may need to paint them yourself - or apply a few coats with a red permanent marker.

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. The #1458 is slightly brighter.

#1464's I recently got from pinball resource.

1 #63 lamp. This big lamp was used on some games to light up the meters when the door was opened. It was mounted to the cabinet front under the shooter. If you have a lamp socket that's much bigger than the other ones, the #63 went in there.
Miscellaneous
What Quantity Description
anti-split hardware for wooden legs 2 sets per leg

anti-split hardware

This is for the common/wider legs used on most games. A few early machines used narrow legs with screws instead of hex bolts. A set is defined as below, so each leg has 4 bolts/washers and 2 sleeves.

  • two 1/4"-20 hex bolts, 1-1/4" long (20 is the thread count per inch, and is the common size for a 1/4 inch bolt)
  • two 1/4" x 3/4" flat washers
  • one 1/4"-20 threaded sleeve

foot rail wing nuts 2 size 10/24. used to screw down the foot rail
leather clutch washers up to 16 usually 3/8" or 1/2" inside/hole diameter, 1-1/2" outside diameter and have holes punched for nubs in the metal clutch plates. The 1/2" hole ones still go on the 3/8" shaft, but the cams (drag arm, timer and replay on the control unit) have white nylon inserts, so the larger center hole is needed to make space for the insert. Typically you'd replace one or two...if any. The washer for the spotting wiper clutch seems to get the most wear.
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 was originally a 9/16" acorn head bolt. The 9/16" size is the same as the standard hex bolts that fasten the head to the cabinet. Other manufacturers and later bally flipper machines used a 5/8" acorn head, so those are what is commonly found at the pinball parts places.

for wooden legs, also use washers on the bolts.

legs (wood) 4 anti-split hardware
head bolts - united 4 round head machine screws - originals are slotted 5/16"-18 (18 threads per inch) x length, where length is:"
  1-1/2" for the horizontal bolts. Use the thickest 1" diameter washer you can find. You can go up to a 2" length if you have trouble finding things.
  3" for the diagonal screws.

This is for all the "normal" cabinet/head unit games. Oddballs cabinets don't apply.

You can also use hex head bolts or pan head machine screws which may be easier to find. For the diagonal bolts, if you want to use a washer it can't be a lot bigger than the diameter of the hex head.

playfield ball runway bar screws 3 #6 x 1-1/2" oval head. You'd probably have to online order if you wanted slotted screws, so use phillips, which are at all hardware stores. The decorative washers under the oval screw head are called #6 finish washers.
playfield glass 1 most common size is 21 x 40 x 3/16" - Bally part G-213
some late machines were 21 x 41-5/8 x 3/16" - Bally part G-424
There was also a G-213A. Not sure what the difference is.

On some machines it's possible to shove in 1/4" thick glass, others not. It's always a good idea to remove the lockdown bar and measure between the metal rails the glass slides on, and measure from the wood at head end of the glass to a little over the wood under the lockdown bar. Make sure the glass won't cover knob/coin chute holes, but needs to be long enough that when pushed all the way towards the head there is no gap along the bottom where a wire could be stuck into the playfield area.

playfield mounting screws 4 #8 x 2-1/2" oval head. You'd probably have to online order if you wanted slotted screws, so use phillips, which are at all hardware stores. The decorative washers under the oval screw head are called #8 finish washers.
playfield screws for ball shooter gauge and red ball lift chute cover 4-6 #4 x 1/2".
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.