 If you thought it was already ridiculous enough trying to move heavy, bulky pieces of coin-operated equipment around such as pinball machines, driving games, and videogame cabinets, you're in for a treat! But first, I'll have to explain what type of game I'm going to be talking about. If you saw the flyer above and thought this game was called a Skee-Ball machine, you'd be mistaken! And so was I when I first started researching it. Even though this is an "Ice Ball" machine made by Innovative Concepts in Entertainment, ice ball isn't the correct term for it either. Skee-Ball actually refers to a very specific iteration of these machines, which were first manufactured by the Skee-Ball Alley Company at the start of the 20th Century (their website has a great page on their history). The game was so called because of the "skee" (ski) jump ramp at the end of the alley, which launched balls onto the playfield. The original games were incredibly popular and were one of the first redemption games. Since then, "skee ball" has become a genericised trademark to refer to similar types of games. The generic term for these games are "alley roller" games. It sounds way less cool but it is a lot more descriptive of the actual machine, at least. This machine was manufactured at some point between 1993 to 2005. All Ice Ball machines made by ICE during this time were the same, so there is no way to tell specifically how old a particular one is. History lesson over! One fateful night while browsing Facebook, I saw someone selling one of these games cheaply. This was always one of my favourite games in the arcade, so I was keen to actually own one! I got in touch with the seller, and organised to pick it up from Singleton, a few hours away. If you've ever seen these games in an arcade, you'll know that they're massive. The alley is about two-and-a-half metres long, with the playfield and scoring holes occupying another section of cabinet which is as tall and wide as a pinball machine. So, plenty of chances to break your back while carting it around! But Fiona and I were up for a challenge. Below were the photos of the machine as we saw them on Facebook.
Fiona and I drove up in the van and after checking that the machine was (mostly) complete, we had to figure out our first challenge: how the hell do we load this monstrosity into the van? It turns out, you can't! But as the machine was broken up into two main parts (alley and playfield sections), we decided that the only way we could transport this thing was to put one half in the van, and the other half on the roof. The playfield section of the game got disassembled, with the playfield and scoring holes being completely removed, as well as the displays, marquee, and other hardware in the head. This got the playfield section of the cabinet light enough for the three of us to hoist onto the roof racks. It wasn't easy, but we eventually got it up there...
At least pulling the game apart meant that it would be easy to start examining and repairing it when it got home! After cajoling a friend to help us get it off the van at home, I started cleaning, fixing and reassembling what I could. I tried to figure out a bit about the history of the machine. The seller just advised that it belonged to an operator who removed it from a site recently. There were some additional clues in the cabinet. The game had some tickets inside it belonging to a place called Galactic Circus, an arcade in Melbourne the closed down in the mid 2010s. It also had AMF Amusement stickers on it, but they were undated. One of the test and tag label was dated 2019, so it looked to have been in commercial operations up until only recently.
In the cleaning and reassembly process, I found a few issues that needed attention, as listed below. Cabinet
Good condition overall.
Alley and Playfield
Good condition overall.
Electrical
Poor condition overall.
Once it was (mostly) back together, I gave it a test and turned it on. It booted up! The game seemed to work, however, the game kept releasing balls into play even when it should not have, the start button didn't work properly, and most of the lights didn't work. So, there were clearly some things to fix. Let's dig in... Ball replacements
Of course, my game had no balls in it. Alley roller games traditionally give you nine ball throws to get your best score, but this game can operate with only one ball if it needs to. The problem with that is that the gameplay is way too slow. The player needs to wait for the ball to roll back down the ball return before being served back to them. This isn't fun, so I figured it would be best to have all nine balls in the trough.
At first, I wanted to be fully original and genuine and buy exact replacement balls from ICE. Those cost $10 USD each. No thanks! Next, I looked at local distributors (Zax). Those are $24 each. WHAT?! That's over $200 for a full set of balls! No thanks to that, too. How about SuzoHapp? They have original style wooden balls, but they are $17 each, or plastic balls for $14 each. Not much better... I started looking at alternatives. How hard can it be to find a plastic ball? Turns out, it's pretty hard. The original balls are 3 inches (7.62 cm) in diameter. Weights depend on the material (traditionally, skee balls were made of wood), but Ice Ball balls are made of polypropylene. According to ChatGPT, a solid ball of polypropylene should be 210 grams. So that's our target weight. I started thinking about what kind of balls I could use as substitutes. There was nothing suitable at any local sports store, K-mart, or discount shops, so off to Temu I went. I found lots of contenders including wooden craft balls, cork balls for sealing containers, street hockey balls, pickleballs, and plastic ball bearings. Balls 50 mm in diameter or less were plentiful and cheap. Anything larger than that was harder to find, and expensive. The closest I found was a set balls made of Sycamore wood (Temu). According to ChatGPT, a 3-inch ball made of Sycamore should weigh approximately 120 grams. A little lighter than I'd like, but let's see how they play. Turns out, they play pretty well. The size is just right. They are lighter than the original plastic balls, but not massively so. They roll nicely up the alley and get airborne quite easily. They were a little roughly made, and were not perfect spheres (some minor bumps and flat spots on them). Looks like they were sanded and finished in a rush. They also get scratched relatively easily. However, they do a pretty good job for a cost of only $5 a ball. 
Wooden ball replacements for the original nylon balls.
Lamp replacements
This game uses a lot of lamps for general and feature illumination. This includes one lamp mounted in the top of the head box which shines downwards onto the scoring area, two fluorescent lamps which illuminate the marquee, and two fluorescent lamps which illuminate the ball return area, where the balls are stored.
First, let's deal with the lamp in the head box. To get to it, you need to remove the marquee. This one had no lock installed, so it simply lifted up and pulled out. This reveals the display panel. Two of the fluorescent lamps normally sit on this panel, but both of mine were missing. I simply whacked in a couple of replacement 9-watt CFL tubes (Bunnings). That was the easy part!
The display panel can then be lifted up and out of the game. A couple of connectors will need to be undone here so you can remove it from the cabinet. The main one is on the rear of the display panel. If your game is assembled properly, you'll also have to disconnect the large head box lamp, and the beacon topper. My game had neither of these installed, so there was a lot less to disconnect! The main lamp which illuminates the scoring area is depicted in this video. A steel reflector box sits in the head, which contains a fluorescent lamp that shines downwards through a sheet of plastic. The lamp is an odd one, and is a "2D" or "butterfly" shaped tube. Not an easy tube shape to source. My game had none of this. Somebody had ripped out the entire light fixture and tube, and had replaced it with a single batten holder fitting screwed to the top of the cabinet. I can see why, too. They probably couldn't be bothered sourcing an oddball fluorescent lamp tube, so they replaced it with a more common fitting. But they did something else, too. They also installed a transformer into the head of the cabinet, which supplied the batten holder with power. This is because the lamp wiring throughout the cabinet supplies 120 VAC to all fluorescent lights. Each light also has a ballast, which is rated for 120 volt operation. So even replacing the light fixture doesn't help much unless you have a supply of 120 volt-compatible light globes. I guess the previous operator realised this and installed the transformer so he could just whack in a standard 240 volt lamp from Bunnings. 
Replacement lamp holder and transformer in the head of the cabinet.
Now, I like to keep things simple and original. In this case keeping things original would be a pain because I don't want to source a new reflector, fluorescent tube, and ballast. So, I opted to keep things simple and keep the setup as it was. Except I made one adjustment and removed the transformer, connecting the fitting directly to the 120 VAC supply. There are two spade connectors on the rear of the display panel which are for the light fitting. 
Black and white spade connectors for the light fitting.
I did this because I'd like to keep the transformer for other projects, and it adds a lot of weight to an already heavy cabinet! I set out to find a 120 volt-compatible light fitting and, surprise surprise, I found one at Bunnings. Not cheap, mind you, and it's a huge unit, but it fits into the bayonet batten holder and lights up the scoring area well. 
Replacement lamp for the cabinet head. Chunky!
I think this is a pretty reasonable replacement for the original light fixture, and we'll see how it holds up! I suspect most of the lamps you can buy at Bunnings would actually run on a 120 VAC supply, but I didn't feel like buying a bunch of them just to test that theory. 
New overhead lamp installed and working.
We're not done yet! Next we had to deal with the ball return area. This is where the balls sit before they get served to the player. The area is backlit, with two fluorescent globes illuminating the balls. After removing the cover for the right side of the game, the ball return assembly simply lifts straight out of the cabinet (lift rear end up, and push slightly back to free the front end). No tools needed. It's a very nice, service-friendly design! I've seen some videos that show panel-mount connectors attached to the base of this assembly, which plug in nicely to connectors installed into the cabinet. My connectors were just flopping around loosely, and there was nowhere to mount them onto the base of the assembly. No idea what's going on with that, but it's not a big deal. The earth/ground terminal had also fallen off, so I made sure to reinstall it the next time I put the assembly back in.
Now, onto the fluorescent lamps. The one towards the rear of the assembly worked fine. The one towards the front did not. I swapped the tubes around, and neither of them worked! That helped confirm two things. The tube originally in the front socket was dead, and the front socket itself was dead. Onto troubleshooting. First, I checked out the wiring harness. One of the connection points for the live (black) wire had also lost its insulating covers. Although the base plate is painted, it's definitely not a good idea to have a live 120-volt wire near metal. So, new insulators got installed on both spade connectors. 
Missing insulation on the supply conductors for the lamp ballast.
This didn't fix the issue, though. I noted that the ballast powering the front lamp socket was discoloured. It was much darker than the other one. It looked a little burned up, and as if the pitch within it was starting to melt and leak out. Often a sign of a transformer going bad. Sure enough, when I tested the socket, the ballast was only outputting about 13 VAC. Nowhere near enough the 120 VAC it should have been. So, the ballast was the culprit here. 
Low power output from the ballast which powered the front lamp socket.
An easy solution would be to order another ballast. They are still available (ICE). But I didn't want to pay that much for a ballast from overseas. Plus, 120-volt compatible ballasts are hard to get here. So, I opted to remove the ballast completely, as well as the socket, and install a simple strip of LEDs along the base of the assembly. In fact, I decided to rip out the working lamp socket and ballast towards the rear of the assembly and do the same thing here, too. LEDs are much more efficient, and they'll last a lot longer than fluorescent lamps will. Plus, I'll now have some spare sockets and a ballast for when one of these in the head of the cabinet needs replacing. Since the lamps are all running on a 120 VAC supply, I needed an LED strip that could interface with that. This would require a bit of fiddling. I grabbed some cheap, 5-volt LED strips from Temu. There are heaps of different styles available, but I decided I would use a 3-metre long strip which would cover the entirety of the base of the ball return. In fact, it's enough to line the base of the assembly four times. Most of these strips are adhesive-backed, so installation is pretty simple. 
Ballasts and sockets removed, with LED strip installed.
I bought a strip that had a USB plug for power, so I could connect this directly to a simple wall plug transformer, as I had plenty of these around. These wall chargers are often universal, and can operate on a range of supply voltages from 100-240 volts. Then, I simply connected the supply cables in the cabinet to the pins of the transformer, and connected the LED strip to the USB output of the transformer. It's not the most elegant solution, but it works, and it cost less than $5. It's easy to disconnect when servicing the assembly, too.
Beacon topper replacement
Descriptions in the manual and photos of other Ice Ball machines online showed a blue beacon topper on top of the cabinet. This goes off during gameplay when a double point score ball is in play, when a high score is reached, and during other gameplay events. I love toppers, especially rotating beacon lights. I've already got a red one on The Getaway (Williams, 1992), and a green one on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Data East, 1991). I'd love to have a Lethal Weapon 3 (Data East, 1992) which has a blue beacon topper, but unfortunately I haven't got one, so I'll have to settle for the blue beacon on Ice Ball.
The problem was that my beacon was completely missing! You can buy a replacement direct from the manufacturer but as the description on the website explains, the replacement is a strobe light whereas the original part was a rotating beacon. Lame! Beacons are way more fun. I've seen the strobe on a couple of games and it doesn't have the same visual appear as the beacon. First some research on the type of beacon I need and how to connect it. Looking at the display panel in the head, there is a connector with red and blue wires which is hanging loose. This connects to P11 on the logic board, labelled as "Misc". Not very helpful labelling! If you go into test mode, the game will turn the beacon on for the first half of the test cycle. I used this to determine that, when the beacon was "on", the red wire was powered with 12 VDC, while the brown wire acted as ground. So, this was definitely the connector for the beacon. The schematic in the manual for the logic board specifies P11 as being for a "Mars light" but the pins are numbered incorrectly. I replaced the original connector with another standard Molex-style receptacle as I did not have a spare female connector to match the original.
I connected a spare 12 volt lamp that I had to the connector in the head, booted the game up, and went into test mode. The lamp turned on. This meant that I was getting power at the right spot and I was all good to connect a proper beacon. The next step was to find an appropriate beacon. As I had done for my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles restoration, I found plenty of 12-volt beacons in various styles and colours on AliExpress. I settled on a blue one which looked like a reasonably similar unit to the original. I installed a new set of male and female connectors and pins, and secured the beacon to the top of the cabinet with some strong adhesive tape. I placed it as far as I could towards the front of the cabinet, so it really grabs your attention while playing! I installed a Molex-style connector on it to match the one I had put on the supply wires in the cabinet, connected them together, and everything was good to go. 
New beacon light installed on the top of the cabinet.
Optical switch repairs
One of the advantages of modern, electronic alley roller games is that they often use optical switches to register scores and ball positions instead of microswitches with wire actuators. This makes them a little more reliable, and maintenance-free. However, they still have problems from time-to-time and I realised I had a switch issue once I powered the game up and started testing it.
In test mode, the game will play a sound whenever a switch in one of the scoring holes is hit. All of these switches worked perfectly. I tried to activate the ball return sensor (at the rear of the alley) and the sensor at the ball count sensor (at the release solenoid), but I heard nothing. Were these switches broken?
I took the ball return sensor off its mounting points and noticed some wire connections that had not been soldered together at the connector for the receiver board. I assumed this was the problem and soldered them together and shrink-wrapped them for protection.
I chased my tail for a little while trying to figure out why they would not work. Eventually, I decided to test them by moving them to another location. The optical sensors used throughout the game are all the same, so to assist in troubleshooting you can simply plug it into another sensor's location on the playfield. 
Ball count sensor moved to the position of the 1,000 point sensor.
With the ball count sensor in its new location, the switch registered just fine! So what the hell was going on? I assumed there was an issue with the cabinet wiring which was preventing power getting to the sensors on this side of the cabinet. I examined the rest of the wiring and it appeared OK. I checked for continuity from the ball count sensor to the logic board. It connects to connector P3. This was all good. It turns out I had made a mistake: I made an assumption. That assumption was that ALL switches would trigger a sound effect in test mode. This is not the case! The ball count switch and ball release switches do not trigger sound effects! All other switches do except for these two. Why is this? I have no idea. It's a really stupid programming decision, as it makes it difficult to troubleshoot these switches. Once I started a test game, I realised that the ball count switch worked just fine. So I had worked myself up over the last couple of hours for nothing. Or had I...? During my test game I noticed that the ball release solenoid was staying on for much longer than it needed to, and was actually releasing more balls than it was supposed to. Time for more troubleshooting. 
Ball release solenoid assembly.
Mechanically, the assembly worked just fine. It was opening and closing well, and there was no binding or slop in the assembly which would explain why it was opening the ball gate for longer than it should. The issue was actually with the ball release sensor. This one sits just behind the release gate, and tells the game to disengage the release solenoid once the requisite number of balls have been released. If this switch doesn't work, the game doesn't know how many balls have been served, and keeps the solenoid engaged for a little longer to make sure all necessary balls have been released. Clever programming, but not how things should work. I did the same thing I did with the ball count switch, and moved the sensors to another location and plugged them in. They didn't work here, either. So the problem was definitely with the sensors themselves. A quick test you can do is to use an incandescent torch and shine it into the receiver (transparent) opto. This should trigger a switch closure, and tells you the receiver is working. I was getting no such activity. So, my problem was on the sensor board.
I probed around with my multimeter but could find no apparent issue. Which was silly, because you can actually see the issue in the photos above. It took until I compared a working switch sensor board to this one to realise what the problem was. Take a look at where the black and red wires are connecting on each side of the board. They are connecting to the same solder pads, just on different sides of the board! There are two vacant solder pads which had nothing connected to them (marked "LED"), but this is where the transmitter (dark coloured) opto should be connected. Somebody had done some work on this board previously, and had soldered the optical sensors to the same terminals by accident. I simply moved the transmitter opto wires to the vacant pads they were meant to be on, and the switch started working again. 
Sensor board with transmitter wires connected to the correct pads.
The funny thing about this is that this optical switch pair would have never worked in this configuration. The game would have been releasing all of its balls at the start of a round despite the game settings for number of balls. It's doesn't make the game unplayable, but it means the player ends up with some extra balls at the end of the game which they throw into the goals but score no points for, as the game is over. This causes confusion, and reduces player appeal. Goodness knows how long this sensor board was malfunctioning for, but it sure seems happier now. Start button repairs
When I was loading the machine into the van to take it home, I removed the channel covers on the left and right sides of the game. The start button is located towards the front of the left side cover, and it was not attached to any wiring harness. This meant that it would never work, so this was one of the first things I had a look at when I got it home.
There was a small wiring loom consisting of four wires in the vicinity of the start button. I figured these were for the button. They led to connector P9 on the logic board, labelled "Start Harness". Looks like we're in the right place! The manual labels these wires as "Power", "Start light", "Start switch" and "Ground" but it's not clear which is which. I did some probing with my multimeter and determined that the black/red wire was ground, and the yellow wire was for the start switch. Shorting these two wires together registered as a start switch closure. That meant the other two wires were for the lamp. The brown wire was putting out 12 VDC, and the orange wire must have been the return wire for the lamp. All I needed to do was replace the crimp terminal on the brown wire, and push them all back onto the switch.
But there was no switch to be found. The switch and lamp housing was present, but the switch must have broken off at some point in the past. The housing was also damaged on one side, with the white tab that pushes in the actuator on the microswitch being torn off. So, the whole thing needed to be replaced. You can get original replacements (ICE) but I had enough spare parts to rebuild the button. The lamp and switch housing pulled out of the rear of the assembly. Getting the white button actuator apart is a little more difficult; I had to get the "Start" plastic out of it to move it to a new assembly. This took a lot of prying to pull the blue plastic cover off the white housing piece, but I finally managed to get it done after a lot of swearing. 
Removal of the Start plastic (below) and transplantation into another housing (above).
The button is a standard two-inch arcade button, so I had some switch and lamp housings I could swap straight in. I put a new globe in the lamp socket, too. Once that was all done, the switch lit up and registered like it should. 
Switch and lamp housing replaced, and wiring harness connected to start button.
The button was fixed, but there were holes above it where another button had been installed at some point in the past. The holes weren't from the factory, as they had been crudely cut. And unfortunately a standard button wouldn't fit into the holes to cover them up. So, I resorted to covering them up with tape for now. If I decide to refurbish the side rails in the future, I will fill these holes with putty and then paint over them. But for now, some tape will seal things off just fine.
Coin mechanism adjustments
When I pulled out the right side panel, I discovered that there was no coin mechanism installed. Bummer. However, there was a universal credit board (Sunrise Micro), so I should be able to install pretty much any electronic coin mechanism and get it to work, right?
Universal credit board but no coin mechanism present in this game.
I initially tried a QL Microcoin mechanism, which appeared to half work. I double checked the DIP switches on the credit board, and they were set correctly (first three switches ON, for $2 per credit pricing). But I would get credits registering after only a couple of 20 cent coins were inserted, or when several $2 coins were inserted. The game was also not registering these credits properly. The credit sound would play through the speakers, but the start button would not light up, and did nothing when pressed. 
Universal credit board properly configured for $2/1 play operation.
After a fair bit of research I realised that the universal credit boards require coins to be set to specific channels on the coin mech. The QL mechs have different assignments, so they were registering as the wrong coins. I could have reprogrammed the coin mech to the correct channels as specific in the credit board manual, but instead, I just whacked in an NRI coin mechanism which already had the correct coin assignments. Easy! Coins started registering as expected after that. 
Properly connected and working coin mech and credit board.
Key replacements
Good lord, this game has a lot of locks. Unfortunately it didn't come with any keys, so I was forced to replace all of the locks and keys as a set. Luckily I didn't need to drill any locks out, as some were missing and others were already in the open position. You can grab new locks from the manufacturer (ICE) however they are simple cam locks. You can grab replacements from the cabinetry section at Bunnings, but I had bought a bunch of keyed-alike locks recently (AliExpress) so I decided to use those.
The main thing to remember here is that the lock barrels are different lengths depending on where they are in the machine. However, you can also adjust the cams on the locks a little (bending them forward or backwards) so they engage with the receptacles in the cabinet even if the lock barrel is not exactly the right length. I bought 25 mm lock barrels and managed to get them all to engage with a bit of adjustment. There is a lock for the ticket door (left side), coin door (right side), coin box, control board panel, and the marquee. Five in total. I had to saw down the cam for the coin box lock so it would properly engage. Likewise, I had to shave a bit off cams of the ticket door and coin door locks. 
Front of the machine, where four separate locks are required.
Ticket dispenser switch and lamp repair
Even though I wasn't planning on running tickets through this game, I wanted to get the ticket door working properly. I noticed there was an LED attached to the front fascia, but I never saw it light up. Once I removed the ticket door I discovered why. It had nothing connected to it!
Simple enough to fix, right? I thought so too. The loose connector hanging around this area has red and black wires. Seems like it would connect to this LED. So, I rigged up a connection to the LED and turned the game on. Still nothing coming from the LED. I removed it and connected it to a 5-volt supply on the bench. It lit up just fine. So there was something weird going on with the supply wiring or the game logic. I reinstalled the LED in the ticket door, and made up a connector for it so it could interface properly with the wiring harness. 
Ticket LED connected to wiring harness.
There is a switch mounted to the ticket bin. This tells the game when the tickets are low (or out). Accordingly, it should light the LED on the ticket door to alert the attendant. Fiddling with this switch did nothing to change the state of the LED. I removed the switch and tested it on the bench, and realised that it registered just fine in the normally closed and normally open positions. But when I went to put the switch back, I realised what had happened to make the LED stop working. Whoever had connected the switch up previously had connected the game wiring to the wrong switch lugs. They had connected one connector to the NC lug, and another to the NO lug. Nothing had been connected to the common lug at all. So, this switch would never have done anything! This switch is actually designed to be used in the NC configuration, as the tickets push the switch actuator closed. When the tickets are empty, the switch springs open, so attach the connectors to the COM and NC lugs. With the wiring corrected, the LED began to respond when the switch was pressed or let go. Success!
Playfield Cage Repairs
The scoring holes on the playfield are surrounded by a cage on all three sides. This prevents people from walking alongside the game and dropping balls into the high-point value holes to get a high score with no effort. The left and right side cages simply rest on the side rails, and hook into the top section of the cabinet. The front section of the cage then bolts onto the two side pieces.
The bolts that secure the cage pieces together are meant to be 1/4" thumb screws. My game had lost these screws at some point, and they had been replaced with countersunk hex bolts. Not really an issue until somebody torques the bolts down too hard, making it impossible to remove them! They had done this to two of them! The captive nuts on the opposite side of the cage are circular, and are pressed into the cage body. This means they aren't massively strong, and can come loose from the cage body with a bit of force. This is what happened when the hex bolts were torqued down too hard, causing the circular nuts to separate from the substrate and begin freewheeling. This made it impossible to loosen two of the hex bolts, because they were too tightly screwed into the nuts, and the nuts couldn't be held onto. I ended up drilling the bolts out.
Once they were drilled out, I passed the cage onto my mate Darren who was able to weld some new captive nuts onto the cage. Plus, he re-welded some of the other sections of mesh back onto the cage frame. Of course, this created huge areas on the front and rear of the frame that had lost their paint due to heat.
So, off to Bunnings I went to get the frame colour-matched. The difficulty with this paint is that it is a bright, fluorescent paint. It is not possible to match with normal paints you'd buy from Bunnings or a paint shop. The best way to get an exact match is to strip the paint entirely, and recoat it with the paint of your choice. A spray shop may have the correct style of paint, but I didn't go that far. I was happy enough to get a "close enough" match and simply repaint the front and sides of the cage. After a few mixes, the paint guy at Bunnings came up with a pretty good match. 
A good paint match for the purple on the cage.
In terms of application, this is a standard Dulux interior low sheen paint (Wash & Wear). I brushed it on with a couple of coats, sanding in between. The end result is a smidge darker than the original purple, and not as "bright" in terms of its fluorescence, but it looks pretty damn good from the player's perspective at the end of the cabinet. I'm happy with how this one turned out. Playfield score plastic replacement
The scoring playfield consists of a piece of plywood with several hole cut into it, a layer of thin foam, and a thin sheet of plastic. Balls hit the foam-backed plastic, which deadens the ball, and then fall through one of the scoring holes and trigger the relevant scoring optical switch below. The scoring sections are delineated with strips of white vinyl material, and have plastics attached to them indicating how many points each hole is worth. The playfield and associated parts were all pretty filthy, so the first step was a thorough clean. Alcohol works well on the stubborn stains here, and you can even bleach the white vinyl if you feel so inclined.
There were a couple of cracks and holes in the plastic and foam layers, as is to be expected for a 30-year-old game. I didn't consider it was worth replacing them altogether. But the main issue was that some of the score value plastics had broken. Namely the 2,000 point and both 10,000 point plastics. 
Broken 2,000 point plastic on one of the vinyl rings.
To remove the plastics, which are riveted on, you need to remove the vinyl circles. They are screwed into the playfield from below. They also used a bit of adhesive to lock them in, so you might have to use a bit of force to encourage them out. Unfortunately the adhesive was a little too strong below the 10,000 point circles, and I broke off the inner ring of timber. Easy to glue back into place, though.
Once I removed the 2,000 point ring and the two 10,000 point rings, I removed the remaining pieces from the destroyed plastics. These are riveted at each corner, and glued onto the vinyl. I needed to use some baby oil to remove the glue residue from the vinyl; it was really stuck on and ground in after thirty years. I drilled the rivets on the flange side of the rivet until the flange was gone, and then tapped them out with a punch. The 2,000 and 3,000 point plastics share the same mounting screws, with the 2,000 being on the outside of the ring and the 3,000 being on the inside of the ring. I decided to try and remake these point plastics, so I removed the 3,000 point plastic and scanned it in so I could use it as a reference for creating the new plastics. You can also just buy a new plastic set if you feel so inclined (ICE), but I wanted to see if I could create a reasonable imitation. 
Intact 3,000 point plastic used as a reference.
Once I had it scanned in, I copied the dimensions for the 2,000 point plastic (approximately 300 x 62 mm). The 10,000 point signs are a little smaller (200 x 62 mm). They were pretty simple to recreate in Photoshop. I just created a pink background layer with the appropriate dimensions, using the eye dropper tool to copy the pink colour from the scanned plastic. Then, I just needed two text layers, one in blue for the foreground text, and one in green for the shadow text. The most difficult part was finding an accurate font match for the text. I eventually settled on Futura Std, and specifically the bold oblique variant. A couple of test prints, some adjustments to the sizing, and I think I had a good reproduction. Below are the final files I generated; feel free to use them to replace your own! 
Next step was to get them printed. I initially considered getting them reverse-printed onto plastic, like the originals. However, I opted to go for a slightly cheaper route and get them printed onto adhesive-backed vinyl. This means I don't need to bother with screwing them onto the vinyl, and they should be quite durable as well. I got some help from my friend Gunther at Gun Graphics who was able to print them up for me. They look the part, and the colour matching is pretty good as well! I bolted the new plastics on with nuts and bolts, which will make it easier to replace them when they break again (hopefully not anytime soon!).
Alley rubber bumper repair
While cleaning the alley surface I noticed something odd. The rubber ball bumpers on either side of the alley were misaligned. The one on the left side was relatively straight. The one on the right side tilted upwards towards the rear of the alley.
Rubber bumper tilting upwards towards the rear of the alley.
Taking a closer look, I found that the bumper had not been nailed in properly towards this end of the alley, and was loose. When I pried it away from the cabinet, I realised that several of the nails were horribly bent, and someone had just tried to mash them into the cabinet instead of lining them up with their holes. Nice! The last nail, closest to the jump ramp, was digging into the vinyl alley covering, pushing the bumper upwards.
A bit of finesse with some pliers got the last three nails straight again, so I could line them up with their original holes. Then, some good bashing with a mallet until the bumper was flush with the side of the cabinet. The rear edge of the bumper should align nicely with the alley as it rises towards the rear; there should be no gap here. 
Nice and straight again, and flush with the ramp.
If needed, you can also buy new bumper rails (ICE). While I had the bumper off, I took this chance to peel up the alley material, a thick layer of vinyl, to inspect the condition of the ramp. This is a plastic ramp which gives the balls a nice jump into the scoring area, and it prone to getting smashed. When you watch people play these games you will see why. Most people throw the ball down the alley from above, making the ball bounce. The ball then hits the ramp with a lot of force, as it is basically connecting with it from a perpendicular angle, instead of rolling up it. You're actually meant to roll the balls down the alley, which means getting low and as close to the alley height as possible. Easy for kids, but no so much for adults, who don't like to bend their backs. Luckily, this ramp was fully intact, so I didn't need to replace it. Replacements are available for that, too (ICE). Replacement Rubber grommets on cabinet and playfield
There are several sections on the cabinet and playfield were small rubber grommets are used to slow down the speed of passing balls or protect cabinetry. One such location is at the front of the game where balls are served to the player. There is a rubber bumper here to protect the balls from getting damaged by the metalwork. The bumper had disintegrated, and balls were slamming into the metal screw that fastened the bumper to the metal. This got removed, and I replaced it with a rubber bumper with an adhesive backing (Bunnings). This is the only spot where you can use an adhesive-backed bumper, as balls smack into the front of it instead of the sides.
I also noticed that there were two screws attached to the cabinet under the right side rail, but they were holding nothing in place. Turns out, there are supposed to be rubber bumpers here too, but they had perished and disappeared. These bumpers slow down the balls as they are released from the trough, but I'm not entirely sure why this is necessary. The game seems to work fine without them, and the bumper at the front of the ball serve area ensures the balls don't get damaged by coming down too fast. Either way, I replaced them both with similar bumpers that I found locally (Bunnings). They are a little bigger, but work just as well.
Next up is the playfield. There are rubber bumpers on the inner edges of the vinyl ridges that separate the different scoring areas. These bumpers also act to slow down the balls so they fall into the holes more easily, rather than rolling up and down the sides of the vinyl several times. I had no issues with installing the new bumpers on the upper vinyl section (for the 2,000 points area) but on the lower section (1,000 points), the new bumpers caused the balls to skip over the hole and then fall out of the playfield. This results in the balls falling into the return trough below, and scoring nothing. I can only assume the slightly larger size of the new bumpers causes the balls to deflect at a different angle, which causes the scoring hole to "fling" them out of the playfield area. I kept the original bumpers on the 1,000 point vinyl because of this.
Ball trough cover replacement
There is a plastic cover that covers the ball trough so players can see the number of balls present, but prevents them from pulling extra balls out. For some reason I can't fathom, one of the previous owners painted this plastic with black spray paint, making it completely opaque. I don't know why they would do this, but I can't think of a good reason to keep it that way, so I opted to fix it. New covers are available (ICE) but I figured I could fix or replace it easily enough.
First, I tried cleaning the paint off. Acetone was the only solvent strong enough to do anything. A good scrub with paper towels after liberal application of a few puddles of acetone eventually got everything off. Unfortunately, the plastic looked horrible. The acetone had etched into it, making it cloudy, and also revealing a lot of other big scuffs and marks that wouldn't come out.
So the only way to go from here was replacement. I got in touch with Mark from Youneek, a local laser engraver who was able to cut a new piece for me (820 x 120 mm). It fits well and looks much better than the scuffed original. I applied two strips of double-sided polyurethane tape along the edges of the piece, and then stuck it to the underside of the side rail. It's a perfect fit, and sits snugly against the cabinet. I also added another rubber bumper to the underside of the plastic, to stop balls from hopping over the ball release arm. 
Shiny new plastic installed over the ball trough.
Photos of cabinet internals and major assemblies
I struggled a little to find photos of the game internals to figure out how things should be connected and how they should work. Below are a number of photographs showing these aspects; I hope they help somebody out in future!
Reassembly Before I put everything back together for the last time, I gave each part a thorough clean. This game had been in operation for a long time so it had accrued its fair share of grime, dents, and other battle scars. Below are some photos showing the result of cleaning and reassembly on some of these thirty-year-old parts! There's nothing much to write here about reassembly of the cabinet and playfield as it is all quite simple and there aren't really any "gotchas" to look out for. Where screw goes out, screw goes back in!
Conclusion Alley roller games are great fun, particularly for kids. They have a good player appeal and are easy enough to understand that anyone can walk up to a game and give it a go. This is great for arcade and street locations who are looking for games that are more approachable than most videogames or pinball machines. It's a simple game, so it doesn't have the staying power of some of the aforementioned games, but it's a great icebreaker. Perhaps when the playfield gets damaged, I'll go ahead and replace the whole thing. This is a big job, as it is glued to the timber alleyway, so there's a lot of work in removing the old glue residue and filling the holes that may be left in the timber. Something I'm keen to avoid until I have to face it! The plastic ramp at the top of the alley was in good shape, but is common for these to be smashed to bits. New ones are available (ICE) but are pricey. Once this one gets destroyed, I might look at getting it reproduced in metal. That will certainly make it a bi more durable. Until then, it plays smoothly, scored accurately, and looks good. So at this point, I'm trying to decide what I'm going to do with this gargantuan cabinet. Perhaps you may see it sometime soon in an arcade in the local area? Perhaps it will be accompanied by a number of other machines that have featured, on this blog? Stay tuned...
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