...You Wish 
So Adriano was over last Friday playing some TOTAN and after a few balls he noticed the ball was sort of hanging up in the left orb kick out saucer and then this happened:
We shut the game off to avoid any further damage and were both pleasantly surprised to see the kicker still stuck in the up position. This is a good thing as it means the problem is most likely mechanical versus electrical. If we shut the game off and saw that the kicker went down immediately that would indicate the coil was locked on and energized usually caused by a bad transistor. You can quickly test this theory by turning the game back on quickly and if you see the kicker come back up immediately or when you start the game. Continuing to play a game with a locked on coil will cause it to heat up and make it swell up making it harder to remove the sleeve later. This could also easily happen with flashers in the game too so pay attention if you have a flasher locked on and if you do remove the bulb as soon as possible.
So we lift the playfield up to inspect the mechanism and move it by hand and notice there was some strange resistance.
We were pretty sure it wasn't the helper springs, sleeve, pawl or coil stop related leaving only one thing in question which was this pivot axis point.
So I removed the bracket holding the coil and forgot to take two pics but I removed the two philips screws that hold the coil in place and the sleeve was pretty clean and slid in/out the coil with ease and the coil stop looks good and not mushroomed at all.
I checked the pawl and it was pretty good and no mushrooming either so confident this is no the cause of the problem.
So now I am going to inspect the rest of the kicker mechanism and can already feel the resistance by hand on the pivot point. So I proceed to take it apart.
Taking either a pair of needle nose pliers or a small flat head screwdriver carefully pull off the pin and everything should come apart nicely.
I can see the problem already which was just as Doug aka Menace said when we met up with him at Monkeybug's place later that night. Thanks!
Doug said these come greased from the factory and not sure why as over time it will harden or gunk up like this. His advice was to take it apart and clean it up and don't bother putting new grease or lube when putting it back together as it is not necessary. I used some isopropyl alcohol, wife's make up cleaning pads and some q-tips to clean the inside of the holes which the pivot threads through.
When I put it back together it was night and day difference and TOTAN is running like a champ again
I hope this will be helpful to other people and does not only apply to TOTAN as lots of games use saucer kick out holes too.
-Mike
So Adriano was over last Friday playing some TOTAN and after a few balls he noticed the ball was sort of hanging up in the left orb kick out saucer and then this happened:
We shut the game off to avoid any further damage and were both pleasantly surprised to see the kicker still stuck in the up position. This is a good thing as it means the problem is most likely mechanical versus electrical. If we shut the game off and saw that the kicker went down immediately that would indicate the coil was locked on and energized usually caused by a bad transistor. You can quickly test this theory by turning the game back on quickly and if you see the kicker come back up immediately or when you start the game. Continuing to play a game with a locked on coil will cause it to heat up and make it swell up making it harder to remove the sleeve later. This could also easily happen with flashers in the game too so pay attention if you have a flasher locked on and if you do remove the bulb as soon as possible.
So we lift the playfield up to inspect the mechanism and move it by hand and notice there was some strange resistance.
We were pretty sure it wasn't the helper springs, sleeve, pawl or coil stop related leaving only one thing in question which was this pivot axis point.
So I removed the bracket holding the coil and forgot to take two pics but I removed the two philips screws that hold the coil in place and the sleeve was pretty clean and slid in/out the coil with ease and the coil stop looks good and not mushroomed at all.
I checked the pawl and it was pretty good and no mushrooming either so confident this is no the cause of the problem.
So now I am going to inspect the rest of the kicker mechanism and can already feel the resistance by hand on the pivot point. So I proceed to take it apart.
Taking either a pair of needle nose pliers or a small flat head screwdriver carefully pull off the pin and everything should come apart nicely.
I can see the problem already which was just as Doug aka Menace said when we met up with him at Monkeybug's place later that night. Thanks!
Doug said these come greased from the factory and not sure why as over time it will harden or gunk up like this. His advice was to take it apart and clean it up and don't bother putting new grease or lube when putting it back together as it is not necessary. I used some isopropyl alcohol, wife's make up cleaning pads and some q-tips to clean the inside of the holes which the pivot threads through.
When I put it back together it was night and day difference and TOTAN is running like a champ again
I hope this will be helpful to other people and does not only apply to TOTAN as lots of games use saucer kick out holes too.
-Mike
