Mr Pinbologist Pinball Restorations

Mr Pinbologist Pinball Restorations Pinball machine repairs and restoration to most brands of machine. I do repairs and restoration to most brands of pinball machines. No job too big or small!

Set up in late 2011 from a hobby, with the intention of saving pinball games from ending up in landfill, and to bring them back from the dead. If you have an old pinball gathering dust and not working in your garage or shed etc, i can most likely save it!

Service call done today in Byabarra, 1993 Williams Bram Stoker's Dracula. Had his one here about two and a half years ag...
23/06/2026

Service call done today in Byabarra, 1993 Williams Bram Stoker's Dracula. Had his one here about two and a half years ago, and it has been that long since I last saw it! Main issue was a blown line fuse, usual cause for this is a shorted line filter and/or MOV varistor.
The MOV was blown apart, as was the NTC thermistor, so all three items were replaced. A quick playfield clean and replacement memory backup batteries finished the job.. no other issues found!

Return service call done this afternoon; 1979 Stern Dracula, right here in Wauchope five minutes away! Had switch matrix...
11/06/2026

Return service call done this afternoon; 1979 Stern Dracula, right here in Wauchope five minutes away! Had switch matrix issues related to the MPU board. The MPU was taken away for repair a week or so ago, returned today after full testing in my own Stern Dracula!
One bumper mech had a busted metal yoke and wasn't working too good so it was quickly repaired to get it playing better (found a good 2nd hand one in the van!)

09/06/2026

Spiderman; Finish line is in sight finally!! New playfield glass has been ordered, only a few switches to be adjusted/cleaned and it'll be totally playable.. Only real issues now are the apron is the wrong one for the game and missing backglass lock and locking levers/mechanism.

Centaur update; playfield swap, new lamp socket and LEDs fitted, braid stapled and soldered into place, wire rollovers r...
09/06/2026

Centaur update; playfield swap, new lamp socket and LEDs fitted, braid stapled and soldered into place, wire rollovers removed from old playfield, cleaned and fitted to new.
Wood side rails removed from the old playfield and repaired where needed, primered and painted in preparation for fitting to the new playfield. Wiring will be reinstalled after the wood rails go on.

Another game dropped off yesterday; this time a Williams Medieval Madness from 1997. Have had this one on the waiting li...
06/06/2026

Another game dropped off yesterday; this time a Williams Medieval Madness from 1997. Have had this one on the waiting list for a while, at a previous service call it had an issue with the 5 volts so it wasn't booting up (lack of parts/info at the time forced it to be put on hold). Once it's up and running it'll get a full playfield teardown, clean/polish and go through all mechs etc and repair as required.

Fish Tales update; Sound board and DMD driver were sent down to Ken Shipley for a checkover/possible repairs, the are ba...
30/05/2026

Fish Tales update; Sound board and DMD driver were sent down to Ken Shipley for a checkover/possible repairs, the are back in the machine and have been running flawlessly for a couple of weeks now. He found the sound board eprom read faulty on his tester, (which might explain the intermittent faults i'd experienced prior to sending), so EPROM was replaced along with all the usual capacitors. DMD driver only needed a few dodgey solder joints redone.
All of the data ribbon cables have been replaced for good measure!
I still need to check/replace a few switches and connectors, one bumper is sluggish so all three will be rebuilt then it'll be ready to go home!

Nitro Ground shaker; playfield removed, stripped and cleaning up nicely. Some loose inserts removed and re-glued in leve...
30/05/2026

Nitro Ground shaker; playfield removed, stripped and cleaning up nicely. Some loose inserts removed and re-glued in level. Next will be some touch-up work where possible.

Prior to removing the playfield some circuit board work was done.. lamp driver needed a few SCRs and connector headers replaced, MPU was working fine but the batteries had destroyed the battery holder so it was replaced. Solenoid driver had its main filter cap replaced for the 5/12 volts, connector headers were fine so they were left alone (J3 and J4 headers look like they'd been replaced not too long ago).

Service call done today on these two games in Port Macquarie; 1991 Data East Star Trek and 1992 Bally Addams Family. Sta...
30/05/2026

Service call done today on these two games in Port Macquarie; 1991 Data East Star Trek and 1992 Bally Addams Family.

Star Trek only needed a check over, customer complained of an issue with the backbox animation lighting, has a bad fluorescent tube which will need replacing, only other issue found was a sluggish drop target reset coil plunger which was sorted by cleaning.
MPU was already fitted with NVRAM so no batteries needed!

Addams was getting balls stuck under the playfield, found balls were sticking at the entry to the 'thing' kickout assembly.. two issues here; an alignment issue with the thing box and the kickout assy, and a sticking coil plunger were causing the problems (new coil sleeve used). A few rubbers replaced as needed and memory batteries replaced.
Both games got new balls as the old ones were going rusty.

Bally Centaur playfield swap progress; a whole crap load of wire labelling and a ton of pictures later here's the result...
07/05/2026

Bally Centaur playfield swap progress; a whole crap load of wire labelling and a ton of pictures later here's the result so far.. wiring completely disconnected and removed, ready to be cleaned for reassembly when the time comes!!

Started with the T-nuts fitting to the new playfield.. swapped over from the old playfield.. several had to be replaced. New lamp sockets and braid will be the next step (made a start on that tonight.. no pics yet!!)

Spiderman update; finally starting to see it coming to life for the first time in god know how many years!! With the bac...
07/05/2026

Spiderman update; finally starting to see it coming to life for the first time in god know how many years!! With the backbox connector woes sorted I'm finally able to start powering boards up one at a time and see Spidey live again!!
The playfield is pretty much complete and ready to drop back into the cabinet, lamps and coils/mechs were tested from a bench test fixture.
Brand new complete ball shooter assembly purchased and fitted!
Coin door and tilt panel have been tidied up, polished up etc, Wiring cleaned and tested.. switches working, can add credits and start game, go into test mode etc.. pretty good start i'd say!!!

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Wauchope, NSW

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