Addams Family

Mesa, Arizona

Family had owned this machine since 1996 and only had it serviced once about 10 years ago.  They had been searching for a tech for over 2 years and even called the guy who restores them for Pawn Stars to try and find them an AZ pinball tech but he could only tell them who NOT to call.  Luckily they found the Firebird Pinball website and gave us a call.

Machine worked surprising well and was well taken care of.   It was mostly dirty and needed a quick shop job and some adjustments.  They opted not for a full shop job where we bring it back to our shop and do a full teardown but rather for a quicker cheaper clean and tune-up at their house

Lower flippers had tons of play and needed to be rebuilt and  the right one was sticking occasionally. Plungers and coil stops still looked brand new.  All the slop in the left flipper was in the pawl.  The little hole the bolt slides through was egged out,  so the pawl and bushing were replaced.  On the right side the pawl still looked good and when we seperated the pawl from the plunger you can see where the metal bushing had fractured into a dozen pieces, this chewed up the plastic bushing and this is what was causign the hang-ups.  The metal and plastic bushings were replaced, new coils sleeves and the flippers could now make the top ramps.  All flippers got new rubber.

A few bulbs were out so I showed the owners the new Pinball Life Frosted LED’s that we now carry and once he saw how much more vibrant the colors are with the inserts he was sold on the idea.  We opted for the frosted ones as these give great color without being overly bright or flickering.  Additionally if there is any ghosting on the frosted ones it is so subtle that you cannot see it through the top of the playfield.

There was no leakage on the CPU at the batteries but we mounted a remoted battery holder for insurance and changed the batteries (old battery output was under 2 volts yet somehow it was still holding the settings)

Replaced a broken target by the swamp, fixed the switch on the upper part of the ramp (or course it had to be the one at the far back that is impossible to reach), Cleaned 10 years of crud off the playfield. I was amazing how good it looked after the cleaning.  Brand new pinballs and a test game and it was good to go.