I found this site the other day (http://www.flippers.be/learn.html). It is full of funny anecdotal stories from other pin collectors of things that happened along the way in the hobby. Here is one of my favorites:
It made me think that I would love to hear from you guys of the various things you have run into/done along the way:2012-02-01: Entertaining shot.. by Bob.
Bought a Roy Clark the Entertainer. The stupidity does not end there.
I discovered a whole big bunch of hacks, one of which was the coil stop was missing on one of the flipper coils and it had been replaced with...wait for it...beer coasters.
Basically disassembled the flipper mechanism and made a list of parts to search for. I had an Allied Leisure parts game at the time, so there was hope. Didn't do anything with the machine for a while, and completely forgot about the flipper disassembly.
I got the game to boot up a week or two later, and was playing a test ball while kneeling in front of the game. The coin door was open. Can you guess what's coming? Yep, hit the flipper button, and the coil shot the disconnected plunger through the open door, right into the jewels.
Here is one from me...
I am always looking to learn from other more experienced PinHeads about how to do various repairs etc. I had a badly acid damaged board and one of the guys in our gang down here says to me "What I do is put the board in the dishwasher and run a cycle, cleans em right up". Thinking this is one of the best ideas I have ever heard I waited until my wife was gone on an errand (because getting permission to put pinball parts in the dishwasher wasn't going to happen) and threw it in set to "normal" and went out to clean the garage. An hour later I open the door and knew I was in huge trouble when the smell hit me. I hadn't thought to cancel the heated drying cycle of the dishwasher and the board heated up enough to peal 1/3 of the green mask off! I also noticed that the relay casing on the board was now full of water. Amazingly, I drained the water from the casing and used a couple of bottles of fingernail polish to replace the mask and the board worked fine afterwards! (BTW: When my wife got home I was able to blame the smell on a lamp in the corner that I had always hated anyway and we threw it out...please don't tell her the truth )