Rebuilding a pinball flipper

On the Harlem Globetrotters pinball machine, only two of the three flippers were working and they seemed sluggish. It was time to rebuild them!



Step 1 was to get it off the table. I unscrewed the plate everything was on and tried to remove it. No luck. It was connected to the flipper on the other side. I thought I would just pry the flipper off, no luck.

Finally after some head scratching I noticed the hex pins on the side of the shaft. It took awhile to locate the proper sized hex tool, but eventually I was able to loosen it.

Once it was removed I was able to take the whole unit apart.

Into the tumbler all of the parts went for an overnight cleaning and polishing.The plunger itself was sanded with 1000 grit sandpaper and then polished with some polish so it would slide through the solenoid with ease.

After a night of tumbling and cleaning everything out, it was time to put it all back together. I don't have too many pictures, but I do have a nice little 15 second video of the flipper in action. Check out the action on this thing!

Woohoo, now to do the other two!