Data East Secret Service

Found a pin on Craigslist here in Surrey BC.  It was a Data East Secret Service.

The playfield looks pretty good and it is from the same era as the Playboy - I can swap boards and some other parts.  Which is good because it doesn't run.

I had a good rapport with the seller but I always cringe when they tell me "it doesn't work but I think the problem is....".  Why didn't you fix it then?  I always lowball at that point. 

And it turns out the seller of this game was wrong.  He thought transformer.  The power board isn't working.  I swapped in the Playboy board and the game fired up immediately.  I'm going to try my hand at trouble shooting and repairing the board.

But the game looks cool and I think it will play nice.

Here it is in all its glory.

More pins from the USA.

I really enjoyed fixing the Amazing Spider Man pinball machine I picked up. It was a nice chance to get to tinker on a project. The layout is really old looking and captures the comic styles of Ditko pretty well.  I think I will be keeping it for a while and slowly returning it to restored condition.

I caught the bug for pinballs though. And started looking to expand my collection. Shortly before the long weekend I found 2 machines for sale in the US. I called and set up times to go look at them.

I left Friday morning right after shift at 2am and drove to Portland. The first machine was a Data East 35th Anniversary Playboy. It was made in 1989.

The machine was in good shape but not running so I picked it up on the cheap. The board had fried but the previous owner had bought and installed a new board. I figured I could get it running. It took soldering in a new power supply pin and some work on the switches in the playfield.  But it works, and is hella - fun to play.

The second machine was a Williams F14 Tomcat. Super fast game - #94 on the top 100 pinballs made listings. The guy selling it owned a company that supplied pins to bars. He seemed like a good guy and I paid an ok price for the game, figuring I could sell it later if I didn't like it. It was missing the red white and blue lights on the top but had LEDs in the play field. Super bright. It plays 100%

P.I.N.B.A.L.L.

The safety work I am doing in Vancouver is on the Expo Line for Skytrain.  While we were working one of the Skytrain employees mentioned to me that he had a pinball machine he wanted to sell.

Upon review it turned out to be a Gottlieb Series 80 Spider-Man.

I bought it - Duh....

Moved it into the townhouse with the help from my friends.  It is heavy.
I bought the machine being told it was working.  But I never actually plugged it in at time of purchase.  Ooops.

Because it wasn't working.  And for arguments sake lets just say maybe it got jostled a bit in the move and that's the reason.... Whatever.

So I bought a digital multi-meter and sourced the issue - turned out to be the power board.  I took the board in to John's Jukes here in Vancouver for repair.  But once the board was back in the machine other problems surfaced.  So I bought a board from Flippp.fr
Once that arrived and was installed the game fired up and worked electronically. 

I repaired the pop bumpers with boards from RottenDog.com.  And repaired a kicker bracket.

And, finally, it plays correctly.

It is a lot of fun.  Quite a bit older and thus slower than new games it none the less has a certain charm.  I'm unlikely to sell it quickly so I don't mind the parts and work that has gone into it. 

I also found I enjoyed the process of repairing it.  I may look for a few more pinballs in the future.

Yay! A new hobby.......

Royal Enfield - From India with Love?

I was cruising Kijiji and found a gentleman in West Vancouver who had listed a 1965 Enfield Bullet for sale.  The pictures of it looked good so I called and drove over to take a look.  He was a police officer who had bought 2 Enfield motorcycles in India and had brought them back with him when he returned to Canada.  He kept on and sold the other to his brother in law.

I don't know about you but I enjoy finding a sale that happens easily.  The seller seemed genuine.
Once I had made the purchase he pulled out a bunch of spare parts for me, including 2 spare gas tanks. Wow.

His brother in law showed up while I was loading the bike and told me all about his Enfield, the intricacies of ownership, and how much fun it was.

So now I am the proud owner of a 1965 Enfield.  It's 350cc, kick start only, single barrel, shift on the right, points and condenser, drum brakes, old school fun.  The bike wasn't running so I need to get it repaired. But it should start with a little work.  I just need to find the time.

In case you are not keeping score I now have 3 bikes in the garage.

Triumph Thruxton - Yamaha R1 - Enfield Bullet

Triumph in the family

While in B.C. in May, 2013 I found a 2012 Triumph Thruxton with low km.  I always liked this particular model so I decided to pull the trigger and buy it.  Here's a shot of it at the dealership.

 

 

So I added a Triumph to the stable and now have 2 bikes in the garage in B.C.

I rode it quite a bit and even did a quick trip to Seattle.  A bit different because it has no windscreen but overall I would say it has some great charm and fantastic curb appeal.

Back at it - New Location, New Attitude, Same Old Junk.

So I had a lot of life changes in 2012.

I went to work in Esterhazy Saskatchewan on a short term contract and was away from home quite a bit.  Then I got shipped to Prince Rupert B.C. on another contract and was away from home more.  The Rust Bomb and all my bikes sat for a year because I literally was not around.

I sold Project Retro in 2012.

The rest of the projects are sitting in the Edmonton garage waiting for me.  The Rust Bomb has been outside under a tarp. 

Fast forward to 2013.

I moved to Vancouver B.C. to continue work on another contract that should last for a year and a bit.  It is a temporary move and I have a place in Cloverdale.  Luckily it has a garage.
I brought the 2004 R1 with me.  I finished getting it to look like Rossi's MotoGP bike.

I will continue to update the blog now that I am settled.  And I have a few other projects I am doing in BC that I will document as well.

I will say that my life right now is excellent.  I am really liking BC and the place that I am in is fantastic.  The garage is big enough that I can still do a bit of work on bikes. I can't do any really large repairs like I can at home in Edmonton. But I can tinker.

 The Rust Bomb will have to wait.  But I will get back to working on it when I can.

Rust never sleeps - why should I?

In keeping with the grand tradition of having a ton of projects on the go I bought a 1991 Chevrolet step side half ton.  It belonged to a friend of mine.  We put a ton of km on it riding around the country.

I won't bore you with details but I bought it in Edmonton and trailered it out to the farm in Lloydminster where it is in storage. 

Here's me dragging it home.  It needs some TLC.  I would like to do a frame off once the Rust Bomb is completed and out of the way.

We will see what time has in store.