Tron Restoration - Control Panel

Now that I have the game working, it’s time to get the cabinet restored so I can take it down into the gameroom. I decided to start with the control panel since it was the easiest thing to take off and work on. I’ll tackle the rest of the cabinet later!

Overall the control panel was in pretty good shape. I was happy to see both controllers on it were intact with no damage. Everything was just pretty dirty from 25+ years of play.

Underneath the panel, the controls were pretty clean. There is some visible corrosion on some of the metal in the joystick assembly. I decided I’d disassemble it completely, sandblast the black parts, and repaint them.

Bottom of the control panel

Closeup of joystick assembly

Closeup of spinner assembly

To take the joystick apart, I needed to pick up some security bits. The bolts on the joystick handle used a smaller bit than what I already had. Picked up a nice bit set at Harbor Freight for under $5. They were on sale. The quality of their tools is not the greatest, so I had to pick through quite a few sets to get one with the security holes properly centered.

Once I got the bits, then the real work began. Of course the bolts had to either be stripped or rusted out to where I couldn’t get the security bits to fit them properly. Of the five bolts in the joystick handle, only one came off easily with a security bit. I ended up getting a second bolt out after about 20 minutes of fighting with it. The other three were no-go. I then got out a dremel tool and ground down the security pin in the center of the bolt. That helped me with two more (after a tough fight with each). The last bolt would not come out no matter what I did. Ended up drilling it out. Wasn’t too tough since I already ground out the security pin. The hardest part of any of this was knowing how careful I had to be. One slip could have ruined the plastic pieces. There has been some talk about them being reproduced, but I haven’t seen them become openly available yet. Thankfully I was able to get these bolts out without any damage to the plastic handle pieces.

Here’s what was left of the security bolts

The rest of it went smoothly. Here are a few more pictures of my progress:

The final disassembled mess!

After getting the panel disassembled, I started cleaning things up. The control panel overlay cleaned up really nice with Simple Green and a toothbrush. I was debating whether or not to buy a new reproduction overlay, but I think I’ll keep this one for a while. The graphics are clean and bright. The only issue I see with it is that there is some cracking of the overlay in the bends. In the pictures it looks really pronounced, but in “real life” you can’t even see it without looking very closely at the right angle. I may someday replace it, but for now that’s money I don’t have to spend. After I cleaned up the CPO, I treated it with a product called C-POP. It’s basically an Armor-all type product sold for game panels by a company called Classicade. I bought it a few years ago, and love it! Not sure if they still sell it, but they still have their website out there. I’ve used it on all of my panels and it really makes them look nice.

The joystick handle pieces, start buttons, and controller knob also cleaned up great. I may end up buying a knob sticker soon though. The sticker on it now is in fantastic shape, but for some reason looks punched out off-center. You can see it by looking at it. May seem a bit OCD, but I like it perfectly centered so it looks good when spinning!

I also noticed that the logo on the plate in the joystick handle looks like the paint is flaked off from the edges (you can see what I mean if you look clearly in the photo below). However, I noticed that the same paint is on the INSIDE of the plate. My guess here is that a bunch of these were stacked still wet, and the paint transferred to the inside of the one above it, and it pulled paint from the one stacked below it. Can’t really think of any other reason this could have ended up like this. So I will probably order a new one next time I order something from a supplier who sells them. Not going to make a special purchase just to replace it because it looks fine and is hard to see the flaw

After repainting the joystick base parts, reassembly went pretty smooth. I jumped on a chance to buy a “hardware replacement” set offered online in the KLOV Forums and now glad I did. Someone gathered sets of all of the individual screws, nuts, etc. listed in the Tron manual for the joystick assembly and offered these sets for sale. Really helped in reassembly, and looks great too. One set of parts not in the kit was the set of nylon lock nuts that hold the controls onto the panel, so I had to reuse the original nuts. The kit did include the security bolts used in the joystick handle, which was good since I trashed the old ones!

The finished product:

A closeup of the start buttons. Note how bright the CPO is! I’m really happy with it.

The joystick base with fresh hardware and paint:

Here’s a before and after comparison. Doesn’t look too dramatic in pictures, but it really looks different when you see it in person!

Before

After