Welcome to Springfield
I’ve got a new addition to the pinball stable..
The Simpsons Pinball Party
I picked up this machine a couple of weeks ago from PinPimp Jr. (that’s Jesse Bohnsack). I was originally looking at a cleaned up and restored machine that he had – but he ended up picking this one up in the meantime. Since I like a good project – I bought the fixer-upper.
This is my first modern Stern (I’ve got an old Stern Flight 2000 as well). It’s a wickedly complex game – with dozens of subgames, wizard modes on top of wizard modes, and lots of playfield toys. It is freshly off-route – and it’s caked with grime. Underneath all the soot, (I swear it was on route in a coal mine) – it’s in great shape and it’ll restore perfectly. It’s a fun change of pace to be able to order ANY part that I need new from the manufacturer – and they are reasonably priced.
I placed a jumbo order with Dave Mercer at For Amusement Only two weeks ago – and Dave hooked me up with a killer deal. I’ve now got all the parts in house and I’m ready to start restoration. It’ll need a complete playfield teardown and cleaning, new ramps, new plastics, new decals, and all five flippers need to be rebuilt. The cabinet is nice, but will need new siderails to cover wear around the flipper buttons. It’ll also need some patching and paint touchup on the inside.
I’ll be periodically posting my progress over the next few weeks as the rebuilding commences. I finally got to start on it late last week. It’s my first time using a playfield rotisserie (from Jason (mnpinball)) – and I can see that it’s going to be night and day better to work on.
The playfield mounted on the rotisserie
After a couple of nights of late night wrenching, I’ve got the topside stripped and most of the black grit wiped away. I also started work on rebuilding the flippers – I’ve never seen such worn mechanisms in my life. Once I’m done with that, I’ll start polishing the playfield surface.
You can see the complete photo gallery here: Link
