World Cup Soccer 94 FIXED today!

Well today i shopped world cup and fixed some issues that have pissed me off for some time and some issues that just had to be fixed for the game to work properly. I spent a good 9 hours today stripping the playfield, fixing everything and then re-populating it.

I did the following;

* Drilled through the playfield to fix both the pieces of metal behind the saucer kickouts [pictured below]. They had taken such a beating over time that the screws just didn't "grab" the wood anymore and after a few games they would almost come loose and almost onto the playfield, it was really affecting game play. I got 2 longer screws and matching nuts and some washers for each kickout and drilled though will a small drill bit on my cordless dremel, pretty easy work and the result was excellent, they arnt going anywhere now =)

* Installed new standup targets in front of the left ramp. The game still had the original targets there and they were beat to hell, obviously the new targets look and register a lot better. I am actually getting pretty good at soldering now.

* I had a nagging problem with one of the lamps in a pop bumper, everytime it got hit or touched the lamp would dimm and sometimes turn off then come back on, then dimm again etc etc. I took the cap off and to my horror one of the legs on the lamp socket had broken. I have plenty of spares of the original flat lead sockets so i went ahead and installed one. I don't want to say too much about it apart from the fact that i got it done and its working fine now.. and the pop's have green LED's in them. It was a frustrating and fiddly job!

* I installed LED's in both the inserts and GI. I never used to be a fan of LED's in GI but am all for them now, there is so much more light and really makes a huge difference. The colours really pop out at you now, especially on the W-O-R-L-D-C-U-P inserts which got purple LED's. I will put a video of the game on YouTube tomorrow so other world cup owners or pinheads can see how it looks. I will probably do the same video for Shadow which also looks great with LED's

* The goalie needed a new target, goalie plastic? [the actual piece of plastic the goalie decal sticks on] and a new decal. It went really well although i had to substitute some parts as some got damaged/threaded and were just plain worn out from the original assembly. Pictured below is the finished goalie, only thing i hadn't done was snip the cable ties, i only had red, the original were clear.. meh. It seems to register hits better now and the new target feels more flexible and id say it'll last a long time. I also got it running quite a bit smoother/quieter. Check out the pics below.

* I installed black flipper bats with black flipper rubber, i really like the control that black flipper rubber gives and the black bats just look really cool IMO. I also rebuilt the right flipper because i wasn't happy with it. All good now.

Apart from all that i gave the playfield the once over with Novus 2 then Novus 1 and did a general clean, it wasn't really dirty to begin with though. Its pretty much finished now with no nagging issues and plays and looks 110%. I put a couple of test games through it but will probably have a real game tomorrow, might have to check the level first though.

I re-listened to a few topcasts today while working on it, Gomez and Kaminkow being a couple and really enjoyed them.

Thanks for reading and keep flippin' =)

Neil.