I come to you tonight dear reader with a heavy heart and a fowl (?) foul mouth. I will try my best to restrain myself for the sake of the kiddies but it’s going to be very very hard.

I just got back from spending most of the day at the Rhode Island DMV. If you’ve never experienced this lovely branch of government, you have got to try it sometime! Bring some food rations and a couple of sets of extra clothes because you’ll be camping out for awhile.

Let’s go back in our time machine so you can understand what led me to this god forsaken hellhole. Back on August 10th, I got a hankerin’ for a hunka vanity plate. I figured it would be pretty bad ass if I could cruise around in my ‘92 Chevy S10 pickup with a plate that says “JUICY” , or “PIMPALICIOUS”. Now, from my past adventures at the DMV giant suckfest, I figured it would be wise to order my plates online. I was psyched. I tried to get “JUICY”, but it was taken. “PIMPALICIOUS” was too long (I know, a real bummer). I settled on “ARCADE” which was not taken. I coughed up $42.50, including a $5 convenience fee for paying online. I guess the fact that the whole online thing saves them lots of money is so convenient they feel the urge to celebrate by picking my pocket.

I was presented with this:

Now, I don’t use my rust bucket as a commercial vehicle. It’s not up to the task. I’m lucky I can get it started. For the sake of accuracy, I took a look at my existing plates, and they read “combination”. Hmm….I was a little confused. I see nothing on this page telling you what to do for a pickup, so I looked up exactly what a combination plate is. It’s basically a plate for a vehicle that can either be used as a passenger OR commercial vehicle. I knew trying to get through on the phone to these bastards was futile, so I figured it would make sense to put this in as a passenger vehicle seeing it wasn’t for a business.

A couple dozen clicks later, I was done. I paid, and printed out my receipt which said that I should get a notice in the mail saying the plate is done within 6 to 8 weeks. If I don’t, to call a certain number.

OK…that’s not so bad. 8 weeks go by, and I get nothing. 9, 10 weeks – nada. 11 weeks, the big zero. I figured something must be up, so I call the number and left a message. I was called back, and told that was the wrong number. UGH…OK…I call the right number and the dude says it usually takes more like 14 weeks…this is starting to get real convenient now.

Over the coarse of 20 ish weeks, I call a few more times. Finally, after 5 MONTHS I get a notice. This is almost half a year folks…

OK…now, I have a DMV that I could literally walk to. It’s right around the corner…BUT they send my plates to the main DMV in Pawtucket, an hours drive away. Can you see the convenience stacking up here?

Alright…fast forward to today. I decide that I’ll mosey on down to the old DMV and pickup my shiny new plates. I’m told to wait in line and make sure they have my plate, which I do. The guy finds it, and tells me to wait in another line over there. That line is to get a ticket so I can WAIT IN LINE. That’s 3 lines now. At this point, the convenience is piling up pretty high, and I’m having difficulty getting air.

Alrighty then….about 90 minutes later they call my number. The lady takes my paper work, gets the plate, and tells me I can’t have it because it is supposed to be a commercial plate. WTF! She then prints out the same image I have above, and tells me that it was my error. Because it was my fault that their website sucks monkeys, not only do I not get the plate – I don’t get a refund. Now, I’m pretty understanding and I know it might not be this particular shriveled old prune’s lady’s fault, but the lack of compassion in this woman was stunning.

I spent 5 months plus 90 minutes waiting, 2 hrs driving, and $42.50 for jack squat. I can’t remember the last time I was this pissed off.

I have the option of going back there for more punishment with my car, to put the vanity plate on it instead. I may do this, but at this point I’m dreading going back.  I may just bite the bullet and signup for another plate instead:

I finished putting everything back on the Baby Pac playfield, including the flippers with new yellow rubbers. Before I attempted to put the new drop targets in, I searched online to see if there was any info out there explaining how to do it. I didn’t want to risk screwing something up. I couldn’t find anything, so I just flew by the seat of my pants (wooHoo!). I’m writing this post as a tutorial in hopes it might help the next guy searching for the same thing.

This would have been a lot easier with 2 people! I had to hold the playfield up on it’s side the whole time I did this. Too bad my wife wasn’t home yet.

Tools/stuff needed:

• Phillips head screwdriver
  
• Needle nose pliers
  
• 1/4″ nut driver
  
• Fingers – get as many as you can. I have a whole jar of ‘em for emergencies.
  
• Bandaids for above
  
• 5 New drop targets from PBResource.com – $4/each.
  

Instructions

1. Turn playfield on it’s side (duh)

2. Here’s the drop target bank:

The bottom of that picture is actually the back end of the playfield (opposite flippers). Remove the two screws that I circled.

3. Here’s the other side:

Remove the 6 circled screws – 2 of them are phillips, and the rest are hex heads.

4. Remove the two metal plates and it will give you access to the inside.

5. Start with the drop target on the end. Knock it down if it isn’t already, then push all the others up to get them out of your way. Remove the spring for one target from the metal rod so it’s still attached to the target.

6. Pull the drop target down a little so you can work on it.

7. Remove the lock washer at the end with pliers.

8. On some of mine, the post holding the drop target fell right out. On others I had to push on the end to take it out. Here’s one of them:

9. Remove the drop target from the metal arm thingy:

10. The target is now free…pull it out.

11. Put the new target in the same way the old one came out, but be careful not to grab the top. By now your hands are going to be pretty greasy.

12. When you have all the targets back in, put the metal bottom pieces back on, lining up all the guide arms (or whatever they are called). This part was a bit tricky by myself.

Here they are on mine after I finished.

I’m very close to being done with this…the only thing I have left to do is to replace the bulbs on the underside. Here’s a couple of shots of the top done:

Yo. I’ve been working on the Baby Pac playfield for the past few days as time permits and am almost done with it. I placed an order with PBResource.com that came in today!

The new drop targets are awesome:

I also ordered a rubber kit, 2 balls, Novus to clean the plastics, and 4 boxes of bulbs. I’m not sure what I was thinking when I ordered the bulbs. He sells them in 100 packs. I almost ordered 100, but figured I would save money and order 4 boxes of 10. At the time I thought that was plenty, but when I counted later I’m way off. I have 2 extra boxes for arcade games and hope that that will be just enough.

I couldn’t find new spinners or decals for the spinners anywhere. Someone used to sell them awhile back but no longer does. Here’s what mine looked like:

As you can see, they are pretty worn out. The art on the top was missing on both. I brought that image into Photoshop and touched it up. Here’s the final result:

I printed a couple out on glossy photo paper using my Epson R300 printer, cut them out very carefully, and stuck them with double sided tape on the spinners. Then, I used mailing tape to cover the entire face of each spinner, wrapping it around the back. I had to trim it with an exacto knife so the tape wasn’t visible. The pic below shows the spinners afterwards (but before I cleaned up the metal and replaced the rubber rings).

I’ll throw the file for those up on my downloads page for anyone that needs it shortly.

I have most of the parts back on the playfield, and will probably finish it tomorrow. Most of the plastics were pretty warped:

I read some posts on the rec.games.pinball news group explaining how to flatten bent plastics in the oven. I was very scared to try this, but I did and it worked great:

I started with the small pieces, which are all done. I have 3 big pieces to do tomorrow. Cross your fingers!

Here’s the process I followed:

1. Clean the plastics extremely well. Any dust or fingerprints will end up on these permanently

2. Get a non stick cookie sheet. Make sure it’s clean.

3. Put the oven on 200, and put the plastics upside down on the cookie sheet. The painted side will be on top.

4. Put the plastics in the oven, and keep an eye on it. After 5 or 6 minutes, the plastic will start to drop down and flatten. As soon as that happens, remove the cookie sheet.

5. Take the plastics off the sheet and put them on top of a plain white piece of paper on your countertop. Put another piece of paper on top, then a heavy book. On top of the book you might want to put something else that’s heavy to weigh it down well.

6. Wait 30 mins, and then check ‘em out. Hopefully your’s won’t be all bubbly and ruined like your mother’s lasagna.

Wow! Looks like this will be much longer than a trilogy! Hope you don’t get bored.

The 2nd coat of poly seemed to dry rather quickly, and looked good. I decided to skip the 3rd coat and get on with installing the overlay. Here’s a couple pics of the playfield after I finished the polyurethane.

I was really looking forward to putting the overlay on, but at the same time I was dreading it. This stuff isn’t cheap, and if I screw it up I don’t exactly get a do-over.

I decided to do this on the kitchen table because we don’t really use it for eating .

I’m very happy with the results. I opted to spray the playfield down with Windex first so I could reposition the art if needed. I read about this in forums and it worked well. After spraying down the playfield, I peeled the entire overlay off the paper backing with the help of my wife. She held her end up high so I could position my end (please, no jokes!). I had to lift it a few times to get it right (thanks Windex!).

After I was happy with the positioning, I started to press it down with a plastic squeegee thing-a-ma-whats-it:

I’ve used this for sideart before. I think it might have been leaving some scratches, so I switched over to a formica roller which worked better:

Here are some closeups:

I may wax this…haven’t decided yet.

I think the first coat of Polyurethane I did back on Sunday was a little too heavy because it took way too long to dry. I just did the 2nd coat now. I didn’t take pictures because there really isn’t much to see.

Hopefully I can do the last coat today. The guide I’ve been going by says to wait at least 2 hours after the last coat before putting the overlay on. I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with that, seeing the can says to wait at least 72 hours for a recoat if you can’t do it in 2. 72 hrs must be the time it takes for it to completely dry/cure/whatever. It also says wait 24 hrs before normal use, so maybe I’ll just wait a day before putting the overlay on.

If you’ve been keeping up with all this, you know that the cabinet I got was in horrible shape. I’m not afraid of wood work, but this stuff isn’t really wood. It’s like a fiberboard, and it’s swollen beyond belief due to water damage. I was debating on how I would deal with it, and spotted a gutted Baby Pac in Kentucky on eBay that looked to be in great shape. I won the auction for $50, and am working out shipping now. This will be the first game that I’ve had to ship, and I’m not looking forward to that part of it. Here’s some pics from the seller:

He sent me bigger pics showing more detail but my email client screwed them up when I detached them and they are lost.

I’ll post some more pics when it arrives.