Author: LyonPinball
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A recent service call took me to North Bristol to work on a beautiful, modern machine: Spooky Pinball’s Looney Tunes. The owner is considering selling the game and wanted to ensure it was running flawlessly for the next potential owner. The main issue was that the switch at the rocket was failing to detect the…
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Every pinball enthusiast dreams of finding a classic machine for free. For my client David in Winchester, that dream came true 15 years ago when he rescued a 1968 Gottlieb Funland straight out of a skip. He managed to get it into his car and safely home, but the game never played 100%. Eventually, it…
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Recently, I headed over to Llanelli for a tricky Star Trek 25th Anniversary pinball repair. His Data East classic was suffering from a frustrating mix of symptoms: the machine would reset after a couple of games, it kept losing its memory (requiring Rob to constantly re-enter the menu to set it back to freeplay), and…
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Today, someone reached out asking for advice on a Gottlieb Centigrade 37 they just acquired. As one of my all-time favorite machines—and a proud part of my personal collection—I was more than happy to share some tips. This conversation sparked a bit of nostalgia, leading me to dig through my archives. I found the photos…
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Every now and then, you hear a story that makes every pinball fan a little jealous. Recently, I was called out to Pontypool to look at a Gottlieb Class of 1812. The amazing part? The owner had wanted a pinball machine for a long time and was incredibly lucky to be gifted this one by…
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The Hidden Treasure in Cheltenham Today’s job took me to Cheltenham to look at the best-selling pinball machine of all time: The Addams Family. The owner had purchased it over 20 years ago for a fraction of today’s value and didn’t realize he had a serious collector’s piece sitting in his home. The Symptoms The…
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The Quest for the Childhood Machine Finding the specific pinball machine you played in your youth isn’t easy. You can’t just walk into a shop and pick one up. That is why, when this client finally found his “Holy Grail” — a Data East Star Wars (1992) — he didn’t hesitate to buy it, even…
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Repair log: Fixing a reset issue on a Gottlieb Capt. Card in Llandeilo. Diagnosis of sticking latch relays and general service on a vintage EM pinball machine
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Machine: Williams Twilight Zone (1993) Location: South Bristol (On-site Service) Issue: Random Game Resets / Rebooting during play It is arguably the most common issue on 90s Williams/Bally (WPC) pinball machines, but it is also the most frustrating. Today, I traveled down to South of Bristol for a service call on a Twilight Zone that…
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The Problem The center plastic on the Gottlieb Big Shot is notorious for breaking due to airball impacts. Original replacements are incredibly hard to find (Unobtanium), and leaving the game without it ruins the aesthetic. The Solution Since no new old stock (NOS) parts were available, I decided to manufacture a custom reproduction in-house to…