I completed a lot of restoration work on my Asteroids cocktail during my Christmas vacation. I had to order some parts because my cocktail needed quite a few items “rebuilt” to make sure they were working properly and ensure it would keep working for years to come. I also ordered some new buttons because the old ones looked terrible.
While I was waiting on the parts I ordered, I worked on some of the internals of the game. It was really clean, except the normal dust. That made this much easier! The first thing I noticed when I heard the game playing during testing was the sound was really weak. I’m more used to the sound of the Upright cabinet, which was really more dynamic. The bass on this one was horrible and tinny (is that a word?). The speaker installed in this cabinet was really tiny, and held on with nails through a vinyl frame. Not a great design. The hole pattern on the speaker cover was the same standard hole pattern used my most smaller speakers in arcade games, so I pulled out the old speaker and replaced it with a better one. I had a really nice, magnetically shielded speaker from an old television I used to own. This speaker sounds MUCH better and more in line with what the game should sound like. It was an amazing difference.

You can see the old speaker laying above. Big difference!

As with most Atari games, the volume control was a tiny potentiometer with no knob. I don’t know if Atari was cost cutting or if these were just easier to turn 30 years ago. Now it’s really hard to turn without a knob. Thankfully I bought a couple about a year ago when I was working on my Centipede, so I put my extra knob on this volume control. Looks great!

They should have shipped with these knobs

Perhaps the dirtiest part in this cabinet, besides the control buttons, was the AC power transformer assembly. These are in all classic Atari cabinets and they always seem to collect all the dirt. This one was in the best shape of any I’ve ever had. I usually have to disassemble them and repaint the main frame, but for this one I only had to clean it up. I ended up disassembling it to better clean it up. I love how these look when cleaned up!

Before…

After!

By the time I finished working on the inside of the cabinet, I received my rebuild parts. Since I knew the monitor was not working, I started there. I installed a new cap kit which also included new transistors. This was an easy kit to install. The monitor was not very complicated so the parts were easy to get to. Once I was done I replaced the bad fuses and fired it up. The fuses held and the picture came on! I was very excited that it was such and easy fix.

Nice new caps on the monitor

Picture looks great!

I knew the game board worked but I wanted to make sure I rebuilt the power board and even replaced some parts on the PCB. Bob Roberts sells cap kits for both boards. They were also easy to install and now everything works great. I can also feel confident that this will work for years to come!

AR board with new caps and transistors

Once I was done with all the board work I decided to do one more repair that is recommended for most Atari games from that era. I wired up secondary power lines directly to the PCB so the wiring harness edge connector wasn’t the only power connection point. Atari games have a history of overheating these connections as the connectors start to get dirty. By bypassing this connection the game will be much more reliable. I also replaced the entire edge connector on the wiring harness to ensure all of the contacts were like new. Lots of crimping but just like new!

I ran the lines from the back of the AR board to the PCB with connectors so the PCB can be removed in the future if necessary

Nice shiny connector!

Now that I have the game working perfectly, it’s time to start working on the look of the game. The game was in solid shape but dirty. The glass had several scratches in it and the paint under the glass was peeling. I will need to replace the glass and purchase a new underlay to get this looking new. That will be my next parts order. Arcadeshop.com has a nice reproducion underlay.
The metal legs and glass clips were dirty and rusted. I had a friend at work that has his own powder coating line, and he was able to powder coat them. They came out GREAT! I bought new leg levelers for the legs but the threads don’t seem to match properly. I need to try another set or tap the legs to match the threads on the new levelers.

The powder coating looks great!

Glass clip with new powder coating

The next step was to work on the control panels. The painted graphics on the control panel were great and no wear whatsoever. The buttons looked horrible so I swapped them out with new ones. I didn’t like the look or feel of the new buttons, so I decided to clean up the original ones. They turned out pretty good!

Original, dirty buttons

New buttons. Notice how high they sit above the panel

The originals look much better and “fit” the panel better

This thing is really coming together. All I need to do is get the new glass and underlay, and this will look brand new! I can’t wait!

On my last work day of the year, I came across a Craigslist ad for an Asteroids cocktail. I made arrangements to go see it after work. The game did not work, but was in great shape so I had to pick it up. I really like the game Asteroids but never had the chance to buy one until now. I purchased this from an Engineer that planned to fix it up himself but it ended up just being in the way. Classic arcade games are great but unless you have the space and the time to work on them, they can be tough to restore.

The really cool thing about this cabinet it that it fit right into the back of my RAV4 without even having to lower the back seats. The car was made to carry cocktail cabinets! This is only my third cocktail I’ve ever owned, and the first that I planned to keep.

Fits perfectly in the back of the car!

Once I got the game home I was able to mess around with it trying to figure out what was wrong. The first thing to do when getting a new game is to open it up and make sure everything is connected and there are no visible signs of problems. If there are some bad connections or other problems, you could end up causing more harm just testing it with power. Everything looked OK so I powered it up. Nothing. I then reseated all of the connectors on the wiring harness. This time I got full sound. It looks like the game works, but plays blind! That’s great news because that means I can focus all of my time on the monitor. This game uses a Vector monitor, which displays lines instead of pixel graphics. It’s the second vector game I’ve owned and I hope it’s easy enough to get working.

It’s pretty clean inside. Just some 30 year old dust.

After checking out the monitor I found a blown fuse. I tried another but it blew immediately. I researched online and the symptoms point to a bad transistor in the monitor. Since I generally install cap kits to any new game I get, I went ahead and ordered a cap kit with new transistors from Bob Roberts. I also ordered new buttons, an Asteroids PCB cap kit, and a power supply rebuild kit. These should help me bring this game back from the dead! More to come later after I start installing the new parts. There are also more pictures available on my Asteroids Cocktail photo page.

I’ve had a busy summer this year. I was able to wrap up three projects before the weather turned cold. I already reported on the Time Pilot restoration, and shopping my Earthshaker pinball. The last game I finished up this summer was my Centipede that I’ve had in the garage for a few years. I was never able to get this into the house to work on because it was soaked in mouse urine and smelled really bad. Last year I picked up a replacement cabinet but had not had the time to transplant the working parts from the first cabinet. I finally got this done and now have a nice working Centipede in my gameroom!

All kinds of cabinets around this project! The front one is a friend’s who just happened to store his in my garage for a few weeks. Cool photo opp!

When I last checked in on this game, I had just purchased the replacement cabinet and stripped all the parts out of the original cabinet. I also already rebuilt the control panel and had it ready to install on the new cabinet. I stopped at this point because the new cabinet had its sides covered in white laminate. I needed to take some time to decide if I was going to remove the laminate and buy reproduction side art for the cabinet. Well, the more I thought about doing this, the more I realized that I should just keep the laminate. The white laminate looked great, and I would not even see the sides anyway due to how tight my gameroom is. There just is no space between games to show off the artwork. With that decision out of the way the rest of the project would be easy!

The last step done to the “mouse urine” cabinet. I hate to destroy original cabinets!

Since I had the cabinet gutted and cleaned out, the first step was to put the original Centipede power block back in the bottom of the cabinet. I actually took this apart and repainted the metal framework from this assembly. I then cleaned all the remaining parts and reassembled it. I also put a new fuse holder block in it because the other one was pretty old. This assembly needed to go in first because there were several harness connectors that needed to be plugged into it. This would allow me to align the harness to it. Once the harness was aligned it was easy to lay out to all the other areas of the cabinet.

All cleaned out and ready for some parts.

As I mentioned before I had a special harness that was modified to play both Centipede and Millipede boards. They have different wiring connections so they weren’t interchangeable in the original harness. I added another PCB track above the normal Centipede location so I could install the Millipede above. It fit like a glove! After the PCB was installed, I finished the rest of the internal components and harness installation. Everything looked great when I was done.

Starting to look like an arcade game.

After the internals were all reassembled, I reinstalled the control panel. I rebuilt the trackball and put a new fire button in the panel, but I hadn’t fixed the LED lights in the start buttons. They weren’t working so I was hoping the LEDs were burned out. I picked up a set at Radio Shack and replaced them in the button. I had to drill out the rivets holding the button assemblies together. The LEDs were a little tricky to replace because the they were soldered to the button contacts. It was worth all the effort to rebuild because the buttons are really bright now!

Switch disassembled awaiting a new LED

Nice and bright!

The panel looks great in the new cabinet!

Once I finished reassembling the game it worked great! The Millipede board isn’t working right so I need to do some work to it to get it to run. The Centipede works GREAT and is a lot of fun to play. I had one spot left in the gameroom to squeeze this in. Now the gameroom is done for the year. I have several more projects coming up but with the weather change there won’t be any new games for a while.

All assembled ready to go.

Looks great along my other Atari cabinets.

I have it to the right of my Crystal Castles, but I think I will move it soon because the Crystal Castles looks hidden between the large Centipede and Pole Position cabinets.

Centipede has a great marquee!

Check out all the Centipede restoration pictures in my Centipede Photo Album

As the weather was starting to cool off I wanted to finish up the final assembly of a couple games in the garage. I want to get the car in before the heavy frost so I don’t have to scrape windows every morning. The first game to finish up was Time Pilot. It was in decent shape, but very dirty and a little wobbly.

As I already posted, I rebuilt the control panel. That was really the only functional issue with the game. The “new” control panel really looks and functions great! The next step was to thoroughly clean the cabinet, inside and out. It was very dirty, so to get it to clean up as nice as possible, I used my favorite “Magic Erasers”. They do a great job on cleaning old cabinet. When using them you have to be careful to not scrub so much that you rub off the artwork. You also need to make sure you don’t get any significant water on any of the MDF wood. It will soak water like a sponge, swelling up and ruining the cabinet. I was as careful as possible. There were some really bad and dirty spots on the artwork. I was able to get most of the art cleaned up nicely. This artwork really was never made very well, and almost all Time Pilots have worn or faded artwork. I was lucky that mine really was as nice as it was. There were a couple small places where I did rub off the artwork but I really couldn’t help it. Even with the art rubbed off a bit, it looked better than before!

I had to be really careful cleaning this old artwork!

Cleaning the inside of old arcade cabinets can also be a challenge. You never know what you’re going to find in them. This one was VERY dirty inside. Found a few quarters as usual, which is always fun. There were also loose screws and other junk to sweep out. Some good quality time with a shop vac and it looked great. While I was cleaning the inside of the cabinet, I found where several of the support blocks used to hold the cabinet together were missing or laying loose inside. This explains why the cabinet was so wobbly! I made some new blocks, then glued and screwed the blocks together. This really made the cabinet solid.

While I had the monitor out I installed a “cap kit” to try to improve the picture quality. The colors were a lot better, but I still need to do some adjustment to the picture to tune it in even better. After capping the monitor I reinstalled it in the cabinet. I then cleaned up the cardboard bezel and plexiglass. There were several old stickers on the plex, but I was able to get them off without too much work. I ended up cutting a new bottom bezel out of posterboard. It was just a flat piece that masked off the outside edge of the monitor. Made it look much beter. Once I was able to get this all put back in the cabinet, I had a fully functional Time Pilot again!

Here it is with the monitor put back in. Getting there!

The marquee I had was in horrible shape! I could see almost the entire bulb underneath through all the flaked paint. I bought another from a local operator. He had 10 of them, and they were all flaked badly. The one I got had most of the color there, but flaked black. I figured it would be the easiest to touch-up with a black paint pen. I spent a couple hours touching it up from the backside. I actually mounted it in the cabinet backwards, and used the marquee light to highlight all the holes in the black paint. Turned out pretty well. Good enough until I buy a new reproduction.

You can see the black paint flaked off

Mounted backwards makes it really easy to touch up the paint with a paint pen

Looks much better, but the colored paint flaked away drives me nuts

The last step that I did was to cut a new back door for the cabinet. It didn’t come with one when I picked it up, so I cut my own out of some MDF I had around. I didn’t paint it yet, so I’ll need to do that later on! Overall I’m really happy with how the game turned out. It is MUCH better than when I picked it up. Time Pilot is such a great game that this will be a welcome addition to the arcade.

Here it is all tucked into the game room. Awesome!

For more pictures of the Time Pilot, check out my Time Pilot Gallery

I’m not used to get a fully working game as a project. It’s nice to start with restoration tasks instead of repair tasks. Since the control panel was in the worst shape of anything on this game, it made a good starting point. Get the tough stuff out of the way so the rest of the project is easy! The panel was in terrible shape. The overlay was chipped away on the edges and the exposed metal was severely rusted. The joystick barely moved with all of the packed in dirt and grease. Even the buttons were really scratched and faded.

The first step was to remove the control panel from the cabinet, and remove all of the controls from the panel. This was a pretty normal task, except for trying to figure out how to take apart the Monroe joystick to remove it from the panel. After trying to figure out how to take it apart for a few minutes, I noticed that there was a cloth dust ring that filled the joystick hole in the panel. It was hiding the fact that the hole was large enough to pass the ball of the joystick through the hole. Usually a joystick shaft needs to be removed from the top of the panel so the switch assembly can be removed from the bottom of a control panel. This time I could just pull the whole joystick from the bottom of the panel. I still needed to figure out how to disassemble the joystick to properly clean it, but for now I can work on the panel itself.

I’ve never seen this kind of dust cover before. It’s a nice idea, but it looks like it held a ton of dirt and who knows what else! Probably all kinds of scary germs in it too! The other problem is that it held all kinds of moisture in it, causing the top of the joystick assembly to rust in a matching pattern. That’s got to go!

Once the controls were removed, I had to remove the control panel overlay. It looked like it was falling off on its own so maybe it would be easy to remove. Usually I use a heat gun and putty knife to scrape off overlays. I tried first on the front of the panel. The overlay was so thin and cheap that it melted with little heat. Made the removal of the front very difficult. I started on the top surface next, but that was even worse. I ended up testing a razor scraper and it worked really well. The adhesive was so old and deteriorated that it scraped right off. There was a ton of dried adhesive left on the panel to deal with next. After I removed the overlay I sanded the panel down until it was really clean and ready for a new overlay. I had to sand a ton of rust and adhesive away, but it was so dry it came right off.

The front removed, but wasn’t fun

What a mess!

Nice and shiny!

The next step was to clean the controls. The buttons were pretty nasty, so I pulled out three red buttons from some spare parts I had. They were in really nice shape and the red looked better with the overlay I bought. I cleaned these buttons in my small Harbor Freight ultrasonic cleaner to make them look really nice. The joystick was going to need some cleaning. It was caked with dirty grease and didn’t even move properly. It was a Monroe joystick, which is almost all metal. The ball was a bit worn out, and the shaft was severely rusted. I started rebuilding it by disassembling it. It took me about an hour to figure out how to take it apart, and to actually get the lock rings off of the shaft to actually take it apart. They were really small and had to be taken off in a certain order to allow access to them. The larger one had to be removed so I could compress the joystick spring to expose the smaller lock ring. Felt like defusing a bomb or opening a puzzle box.

Hard to tell here but it actually is really dirty

Lots of metal parts to clean

Once the joystick was disassembled, I cleaned all of the parts with brake cleaner. It took a while to soak them enough to break through all of the grease. The parts cleaned up really nice and had no wear. I chucked the joystick shaft into my cordless drill so I could clean it properly. I used a pad of scotchbrite to remove all of the rust from the shaft. Then I used a soft cloth with Novus 3 to buff out the worn ball. I followed with Novus 2 to shine it up. There was some minor pitting in the surface that dulled it, but it looked 100 times better than it did before I started. After cleaning everything, the reassembly of the joystick was really easy. After reassembling, I greased the assembly with white lithium grease. It’s much less dense and won’t gum up like the old grease.

Right after cleaning off the shaft. Looks great!

Starting to come together. I love the all metal assembly

The next step is to install the new Control Panel Overlay (CPO). I ended up buying an NOS “alternate” CPO from Quarterarcade.com instead of a reproduction of the original design. I saw a picture of one of these CPOs installed on another collector’s machine and I really liked how it looked. Had much more yellow in it which I felt was a better match to the other cabinet graphics. I applied this to the clean panel by first lining up the holes in the overlay with the holes in the panel. Then to finish I trimmed off the excess overlay. Turned out great. After applying the overlay, I reassembled the controls on the panel and ended up with a really nice, new looking control panel. Now to clean the cabinet…

Here is the new overlay. Nice!

All done. I really like the look of this panel and can’t wait to put it back on the cabinet!

I picked up a working Time Pilot on Craigslist last week. It was actually on CL for over a week before I could go get it. Anyone has tried to buy an arcade game on CL for a really good price knows that they usually don’t stay available that long. I was really lucky! I had to drive quite a ways out in the sticks to get it. The last mile or so was on a old gravel road. The seller was a great guy who really likes old arcade games but doesn’t have the space for any at this time. The game was a little rough. It was missing the back door but everything else was there. The game also worked great. The monitor looked bright and the sound was nice and clear. Should be a good starting point to restore this great classic!

Once I got the machine home I could go over it to see what it needed. It looked pretty rough at first, but upon further examination it was in really solid shape. The artwork was worn and faded, but Time Pilots were notorious for this. For some reason the art was really cheap and didn’t do well over the years. The paint has almost fully flaked off of the marquee. The side and front art was faded. The bezel looked decent. The control panel was probably the worst part. The overlay was cracked and worn. The controls were really dirty and didn’t function well. This should be an easy fix!

I started stripping the cabinet of all of the metal parts for powder coating. I also started to tighten up the cabinet construction. Some of the corner blocks were loose. This cabinet was bolted together so I have several carriage bolts to cleanup and repaint.

The next big step is to clean the cabinet from top to bottom. Once this is done I’ll start reassembling it. This will end up being a relatively simple restore, and will be a really fun game to play for years to come! Be sure to check out more Time Pilot photos in my Photos section

Quick Update…This game has been sold to a new arcade collector. I also sold the Frogger to another new collector. It’s good to see more people interested in joining such a fun hobby. Enjoy the games, guys!

On the heels of my last game sale, I am also listing my Sega Turbo for sale this week. I’ve had the Turbo for a very long time, and it’s been a great game. With the acquisition of Monaco GP and the repair of my Pole Position 2, I think I have too many racing games. Got to make room for some of my other games which are taking up way too much space in my garage!

The Turbo has been the kids’ favorite in the gameroom for several year, only surpassed by the Monaco GP because it is a cockpit cabinet and is fun to drive in. Turbo is the first color arcade game to provide a “3D” perspective in its gameplay. It is the unofficial sequel to Monaco GP. I remember when Turbo first hit the arcades in the 80s. It was a huge hit. Coleco purchased the home console rights to this game and created an “expansion module” racing controller to bundle with the game. It was a great home version. Both the arcade and console versions are still a ton of fun to play!

The cabinet is in fantastic shape. It is all original. The artwork looks great. There is a very large subwoofer in the cabinet that sounds amazing when driving through the “tunnel” scene. This game would be a great addition to any racing themed home gameroom!

Here is some more information about Turbo: KLOV Turbo Page

I’m asking $400 OBO for this machine. It’s been a great machine for me for several years. Please send me an email if you are interested in purchasing this game.

Quick Update…This game has been sold to another arcade collector. There is also a sale pending on my Frogger. Another sale is in the works for my Turbo. All games have been sold!

Since I have a few new games to finish up this summer, I need to clear some space in the gameroom. I’m going to be selling a few of my games from my collection. The first game on my list of games for sale is Phoenix. This is a great classic vertical shooter from Centuri. I’ve had this game for several years after picking it up from a go-kart track. The game works great and is all original. The only flaw is that the control panel overlay has some wear and a small part is missing along the front edge.

Here is some more information about Phoenix: KLOV Phoenix Page

I’m asking $400 OBO for this machine. It’s been a great machine for me for several years. Please send me an email if you are interested in purchasing this game.

As anyone who reads my website updates knows, I am a huge Donkey Kong fan. I’m also a fan of the recent movie “The King of Kong: a Fistful of Quarters”. The movie, presented as a documentary but not truly “accurate”, made a fun rivalry between Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe. The movie quickly became a cult classic, renewing interest in classic arcade gaming and competitive gaming. Even though there have been several classic games that have recently had long-standing world records toppled, such as Joust a few months ago, Donkey Kong is still the king. When Donkey Kong has its record beaten, it makes national news. Interest in the movie also spawned many new competitors beyond Steve and Billy. One such competitor, Hank Chien, surpassed both Billy and Steve and took the World Record last year. The record has passed between all three since then, and is currently held by Hank.

It was only a matter of time before someone was going to be able to put together the ultimate Donkey Kong tournament. Richie “Knucklez” Vavrence, owner of Richie Knucklez Arcade Games in Flemington, NJ held such a tournament this past weekend. Richie is a fantastic promoter and has created some great classic arcade events. This latest event, called “The Kong Off”, lined up 11 of the greatest Donkey Kong players in the world to play for the highest score over a two-day period.
The event was well attended by fans, and in the end Hank Chien passed Steve Wiebe and Eric Howard to claim the Kong Off crown and a $1000 grand prize. I was not able to attend the event but I did check in from time-to-time via the live webcam broadcast of the competition and through various Tweets and blog sites. I’ll post some great links to the end of this post if anyone is interested in reading more about the event.

Donkey Kong cabinets all lined up ready for the tournament. What a great sight! Just like in the 80′s when Donkey Kong was the hottest game in the arcades. Thanks to Eric Howard for the picture!

Great atmosphere with all the fans packed in to watch these guys play. This picture was taken directly from Richie’s Justin.tv broadcast video. It was great to watch during the event! Thanks Richie!

Watching this event has really made me want to make another run at my Donkey Kong high score. I spent several months working on my score and last year finally beat 300,000 points. That was good then but not nearly competitive after seeing all of these other people scoring three times that. I’ve never been close to seeing a Kill Screen (Level 22), so it’s time to try again. I’m going to start playing this game on a regular basis, with the goal of reaching the Kill Screen. I worked on my Joust skills with the goal of reaching 1,000,000 points and recently achieved that milestone. Now time for the true test. Very few people have successfully reached the Kill Screen. I want to be on that list!
I started playing again seriously last night. I only hit 139,400 points, but I guess that’s a start. I’m going to log my scores and levels reached over the next few months and see if I can come close to that Kill Screen. There are several things that I know I do not do well, such as retreating between springs on the later elevator levels. I’ll continue to work on these skills and hopefully get much better. Wish me luck!

Here are some links you might like:

• The Kong Off Official Site
• Richie Knucklez Arcade Games – The home of The Kong Off and Flashback Fridays. Be sure to check out the live Justin.tv streaming!
• Aurcade.com – The Kong Off Tournament Results Page
• The Kong Off Recap by Patrick Scott Patterson (Arcade Game Examiner)
• Rhode Island Donkey Kong contender scores at The Kong-Off (profile of Eric Howard at the Kong Off) by Patrick Scott Patterson (Arcade Game Examiner)

I had some really nice progress on my Centipede this week. I picked up a Centipede cabinet a couple years ago. It was fully working, but not in great shape. The cabinet had some damage along the front marquee area on the sides and there was some minor swelling around the t-molding. That wasn’t even the worst part. The cabinet smelled horrible from mouse urine. It was stored for several years out in a barn, and some lucky mouse made a nice home out of it. Since Atari built their cabinets in the 80s from some really cheap MDF, it would soak everything with moisture in it. The speaker area had whole 1/2″ of extra thickness just from swelling due to mouse pee. YUCK!

Nothing like finding a mouse nest in a game…thankfully he was gone!

I was going to still take a shot at restoring the cabinet as it was, but I could not do anything to get that nasty smell out of the wood. I didn’t want to paint the smell into the wood for fear I would still smell it, so I decided to put it on hold until I was able to pick up another cabinet. All I needed was the box, because everything else was in great shape after I rebuilt the control panel.

About a year ago I came across a Craigslist ad for an arcade golf game pretty cheap. I went over to check it out and it was a Centipede converted to a Taito US Classic golf game. The cabinet was in great shape. We haggled a little bit but he was asking more than I wanted to pay, so I left it. Several months later I sent him a quick email to see if he ever sold it. He hadn’t, so I offered what I wanted to pay and he accepted.

I went over to pick up the game a few months ago, and things didn’t go so well. First, the cabinet was terribly heavy like all the old classic MDF Atari cabinets. It was in his basement so we would have to take it up the stairs, and the seller had some back problems so I was on my own. He didn’t have the keys to the cabinet so I couldn’t take out the monitor to lighten the load. I brought in my hand truck that I use to move games so I thought maybe I could handle it. Once I got to the stairs, I immediately noticed that the carpet padding on the steps was so thick that I couldn’t roll the wheels of the cart on it. That wasn’t going to work! Finally he offered to let me use his hand truck. It had really large rubber wheels so I thought I was in luck. As soon as I put it under the game and pulled back on it to balance the weight on the wheels, I could see that the tires on the cart were totally flat. Being out of options, I had to pass on the game and hopefully come back in the future when I could bring someone to help move it out.

This past week I finally was able to work out a day to go get this game. I brought a full size appliance hand truck with me, and a friend who I suckered into coming along. We were able to get it out of the house pretty easily. It was heavy but came out ok.

Once I got the game home I drilled out the back door lock and inspected what I bought. Found four quarters in it, and the key to the lock I just drilled out! It was in really great shape and was a decent conversion. The side art was covered by laminate, so I’ll eventually remove it once I buy new Centipede side art. There was minimal burn-in on the monitor, but it took a while to warm up. I’ll put in a nice fresh cap kit and it should be fine. I also found the original Back Door Instruction Sheet still on the back door and in great condition. This cabinet will make a nice host to all of the great parts I’ve been saving!

It even has the old Back Door Instruction Poster!

The laminate on the sides makes it too wide for the t-molding.
I’ll remove it once I buy some new sideart.

Sunday afternoon my son and I spent some time gutting the old mouse pee cabinet. We pulled out everything. He was nervous a mouse would jump out at him, so it was pretty funny. I still need to gut the new cabinet and get it ready for the parts. I will plan to trade or sell the US Classic parts to anyone who would want them, because this cabinet will once again be a Centipede. I also plan to give away the old cabinet in case someone wants to take on the challenge of restoring it. I hate to see it get thrown away. That artwork is awesome!

AJ helped pull all of the good parts from the old cabinet.

After two years of owning a Centipede, I am getting close to having it in the gameroom. I can’t wait!

They haven’t been this close to each other since leaving the factory!

Check out the Centipede Photo Gallery for even more pictures.