Back To The Future - Polishing A Turd - Again? (2024)

I already refurbished this machine roughly 6 years ago, but it's been on the floor at my arcade for all that time and it needed to be gone through again. We also needed to make room for a new machine to liven the row up a little bit, so I decided to just bring it home, fix it up, and keep it here. For the details on what I did the last time, it's documented here. https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/back-to-the-future-full-refub That thread is packed with pics and such, so I decided to make a different thread for this time. Between the worked detailed in that post and this one, the machine is basically brand new. The original art on the cabinet was planking and falling apart, and this was before reproduction art was available. So I hand-scanned the entire machine and recreated the art myself. Of course, multiple places have it now, but what you see on the machine is something I did and printed myself. I also wanted to powder coat the armor and chose to do it in the style of the BTTF logo with the orange/yellow/orange look. I am sure not everyone will like it, but I do and that's what matters. Here's the full rundown of all the work this time (not necessarily in order of operation). Thanks for reading and looking.

-) The manual calls out for 090-5020-20 coils, but those are WAY too powerful. I chose to install some 090-5030-00s and they are MUCH better.
-) Recapped and replaced the left channel amplifier on the sound board. Had no left channel due to the amp being dead. Also had to open up the volume pot, clean it out, and reinstall it because it was not linear in adjustment and was very scratchy. All good now.
-) Fully tore down, cleaned, touched up, and reassembled the playfield and cabinet. I posted pics of the blue and pink paints below that perfectly match the playfield colors. The inside of the cabinet is stained pretty badly as this is as clean as I could get it with my meager abilities.
-) Had to fabricate new Zee support brackets to hold up the ramp because only one original remained. There are supposed to be at least three support brackets to offer support to the ramp in various places and only one was still present.
-) New topper from CPR (installed two spotlights to offer some backlight).
-) All new plastics.
-) Replaced all the black original acorn nuts with blue ones just because I felt like it.
-) All new Red posts along with the plastic washers under all of them to protect the playfield.
-) Brand new ramp assembly with new decals.
-) Brand new drop targets
-) Brand new drop target switches
-) Brand new drop target decals (with mylar installed over them to help lengthen the life of the decals).
-) Brand new DOC/MCFLY target decals.
-) Brand new DOC/MCFLY target backing foam pieces (ALL of the originals were gone)
-) Brand new pop bumper decals.
-) Brand new side rails.
-) Brand new legs and levelers.
-) Brand new glass.
-) The VUK/Lock wire form ramp has 18 broken welds. It was originally being held together with some small zip ties that allowed it to function, but I got my master-fabricator friend to fix the welds, I re-painted it, and it's back to brand new.
-) Brand new flipper bats.
-) Full flipper rebuild kit(s).
-) Full new rubber kit.
-) Installed mylar on the drain area, inlanes, outlanes, and everywhere that it was not previously installed from the factory.
-) Installed washers under the new plastics in the screw locations to prevent them from being worn away like the originals were.
-) Modified the flasher circuit(s) by installing a 5W 15ohm ceramic resistor in line with EVERY flasher to prevent them from burning up. Basically on these DE machines, the flashers run in parallel in sets of four. The input for each flasher circuit is 32v. There is only a single resistor that keeps the circuit at 12v on the output. If one flasher goes out, the resistance goes up and the remaining three flashers are now getting 18v. Of course, they won't last long and as the next one in line goes out, the remaining two get 24v, then the last one gets a full 32v. This is why so many of these DE machines have melted flasher inserts. Adding these resistors on each flasher keeps them all at 12v no matter if any of the other ones on the circuit fail. In the case of using LEDs, it also has the added bonus of lowering the intensity quite a bit. Really worth the effort.
-) Replaced all the pop bumper skirts (two of the originals were broken).
-) Installed the missing tilt plumb bob.
-) Installed a complete, new fuse kit.
-) Printed and installed a new laminated 'tech chart' since the original was missing.
-) New red flipper buttons.
-) Installed new side blade art and matching speaker grille art.
-) Installed a custom shooter plate.
-) Installed all the custom power coated armor/parts.
-) Ground down the middle rivet on the 2015 ramp entrance because it was causing the ball to fly up and hit the "skyway entrance" when it ran over the rivet head.
-) New leg bolts (with washers).
-) Custom playfield mods.
-) Newly printed manual.
-) Custom Modfather cup holder.
-) Updated the previously installed LED kit.
-) New balls.
-) ....and probably a dozen other things I'm forgetting.

There was a LOT done on the previous refurb, so check out the link to see that. The last thing I'm waiting on is the Huey Lewis backglass decal that I'm having a friend re-create for me (the picture below is an example I found on the internet). It needs to be on clear vinyl, so that's a bit tricky but after I get that done, I'll slap it on and this will be 100% done. Decided to go ahead and post anyway. Thanks again.