Spring Question

[CftBL]

I'm going through my newly acquired High Speed and I just rebuilt the upper flipper using the Pinball Life rebuild kit. The flipper assembly was pretty beat; the only original piece is the mounting plate. Now the flipper sticks about 40% of the time. When I turned off the power and the bat stuck in the out position, I figured it was mechanical. I initially thought the arm was binding up in the sleeve but I've tried three different sleeves; all had the same problem. I gave the arm a nice light buffing with emery cloth and steel wool and I cleaned the edge of the new bushing to take care of any potential burrs. I have the bottom of the bat set at .7mm away from the new flipper bushing, so I should have the proper clearance. When I manually swing the bat it never sticks. The coil causes it to happen quite often though. Once it is stuck, I flip the table up touch the bat to release it and watch the spring snap free of itself; the conical spring on the plunger arm is getting caught on itself when the arm is pulled in to the coil. Is there any good way to lubricate this spring? I don't have the old one i took out anymore so swapping it back in is not an option. Any suggestions for keeping the spring from catching on itself? Is this a defective spring or am I missing something?

Cheers!

Mike

[MikeS]

I would recommend converting your flipper mechs to the newer WPC style which use a better designed spring and move snappier. It's what I did on my High Speed and my other sys11 games. Your issue is common with the original design. There's a great tutorial over on Pinside which explains how to do it. Only downside is cost because you have to buy new flipper mounting brackets which I think we're around $11 each from Pinball life. I think it's worth it as the game plays much better with them converted. Here's the thread:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic ... g-flippers

[ralphwiggum]

Silly question, is your spring on backwards? The fatter side has 4 grooves it sits in on the bracket to keep the spring from moving around. Make sure the spring is seated in those grooves. Also you can stretch the spring a bit to tighten it up.

[Eric_S]

I had a SF2 that the flipper would get stuck up and it ended up being the coil stop. Not sure why as it looked fine, but swapping it fixed the issue.

[Hilton]

I have had that before also Eric. I think the stop became magnetized, but after pulling it I could not get it to act the same.

I then decided I must have had the coil just a little off center or torqued when I had originally installed and putting in the new stop I must have changed the position just enough to remove any binding.

Any way, I have learned to take it apart and put it all back together sometimes is enough...

I also suggest upgrading to the newer style spring and flipper like MikeS suggests!

[BigDaddyBanjo]

Hey Mike,

First make sure that you have the flipper mech back together correctly, many times people put the sleeve in wrong or don't put the retention spring between the plunger and the flipper bracket. Double check against a picture on the internet if you are not sure.

If that looks good, then a lot of times the mech is just generally misaligned. I find that this is often caused by tightening one of the components completely before tightening down the others. What works for me is to loosen the coil stop, coil bracket and flipper pawl a bit and then tighten it all "simultaneously" by rotating from screw to screw gradually adjusting torque as I go. Finally don't forget to leave a (small) bit of play between the bushing and the flipper, if you have that too tight it will sometimes bind like you describe.

That being said, I like Mikes idea about converting to WPC mechs in Sys11 games. I am going to start doing that from now on I think. They are snappier and seem to have less of these types of problems.

G#

[BigDaddyBanjo]

One last thought...Did you replace the flipper bat? Sometimes that is the culprit with something like this. If you need a spare, I have a ton of them.

[CftBL]

Thanks for the ideas guys!
I did put brand new bats on all three flippers when I rebuilt the three flipper mechs. The upper flipper is the only one giving me fits. I've taken it apart and tried realigning it at least half a dozen times now... I believe I will be going with Mike's idea of the WPC style flippers, starting with the upper one.
Cheers!

Mike