Williams Solved Big Daddy (Williams, 1963) Sticking Pop Bumper

[md171]

Greetings,

Pop Bumper on my machine is sticking down, causing the scoring reel coil and plunger on the ones and tens reel (Ones more than tens) to do the same. Loud buzzing I get is the pop bumper coil stuck in the down position. Scoring reels also stuck down and buzzing, I am guessing because the bumper one is down telling the reels to score - but wont let go. (I think?) When bumper coil releases, on its own or my help, all is good.

• I cleaned the coil and plunger under the pop bumper in question, cleaned the plunger on the "Ones" reel (it was mushroomed, fixed that).
• Cleaned the plunger on the tens reel as well. Both reels functioning smoothly mechanically.
• Cleaned the relays for the ones and tens reel. They appear to be fine, but are now clean.
• Checked switches for sticking bumper and for reel relays. They look to be functioning as they should, gaps look appropriate and when moved manually they close and open. Cleaned them with small file.
• Mechanically bumper is smooth. No sticking.
• No magnetism in reel plungers/stops.

The only things I can think to do is clean the relay for the bumper coil/plunger. It looks to be in a bank of relays and can be identified by manually hitting the bumper, corresponding relay moves. I had the bumper plunger out today but didn't check for magnetism. Duh.

When trying to bring up the bumper manually when its stuck down - it doesn't want to come easily, but it will come up and then the buzzing stops. This indicates to me it is still charged and not staying down due to a weak spring or such, and causing the reel issues. Again when all is off, mechanically its smooth. Machine scores fine when bumper doesn't stick.

I am new to Pinball machines and this forum, learning a lot as I go. Any help is appreciated tremendously. Thanks in advance!

 

[md171]

Additional

The pop bumper in question eos switch (NC) fully opens but coil still energized. Do these switches go bad?

Also the triggering of another pop bumper - they all appear to be on the same relay in the bank, causes the bumper in question to release.

No magnetism in coil stop or plunger.

Hopefully this will help. I'm out of ideas right now.

 

[md171]

Got it fixed. As it turns out two of the bumpers are on the same relay - which I knew, and as such, all bumpers that activate must hit the their respective EOS switches at the same time for the relay to cut power to them. The other bumper that never stuck down actually only sometimes fully opened its EOS switch. A little adjustment and all is good.

While I got no replies on this question, and granted it wasn't here long, it was reading others and learning about these things through their posts that got me thinking in the right direction.

So still - Thank you.

 

[pinballdaveh]

Congrats on figuring it out. You got it fixed before I could suggest that answer. It looks like a fun machine to play. It might be one of the earliest machines to have a drop target.