# Super Mario Pinball Shop Job: Part 2 **Source:** Cary Hardy **Type:** video **Published:** 2020-07-27 **Duration:** 14m 39s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw5PwYl_H08 --- ## Analysis Cary Hardy documents the restoration of a Super Mario Bros. pinball machine, focusing on disassembly, cleaning, LED bulb replacement, and playfield component repair. The video covers subway system removal and cleaning, flasher installation, troubleshooting lighting issues (including bad diodes and loose connections), backbox LED installation, and partial reassembly pending arrival of additional parts like cliffy protectors and replacement posts. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] The subway system on the Super Mario machine was less dirty than a Star Trek machine the speaker previously worked on — _Speaker compares cleanliness of current subway system to prior Star Trek restoration experience_ - [HIGH] Cool white LED bulbs create a noticeably brighter and whiter appearance compared to incandescent bulbs on the playfield — _Speaker demonstrates visual difference between cool white LEDs and incandescent lighting, showing yellowish cast of incandescent inserts vs cleaner appearance of LEDs_ - [HIGH] Novus 2 plastic polish is effective at cleaning dirty pinball plastics and getting into small crevices — _Speaker demonstrates Novus 2 cleaning on playfield components, noting effectiveness on difficult areas_ - [HIGH] The backbox translite was extremely dirty and required cleaning after LED installation made the filth visible under proper lighting — _Speaker notes that putting translite back on with new LED lighting revealed how filthy it actually was_ - [HIGH] Some LED bulbs on the machine only light up in test mode, not in attract mode, due to code limitations — _Speaker troubleshoots bulb that wouldn't light in attract mode but works in test mode, concluding attract mode code doesn't include that light_ ### Notable Quotes > "Now it's stuff like this that pisses me off guys. Because I did not get any before footage of this. And this looked horrible... And it cleaned up so damn nice." > — **Cary Hardy**, Early in video > _Expresses frustration at not documenting dramatic cleaning transformation, showing restoration documentation priorities_ > "I've got this one looking a lot cleaner as well as this one down here so I'm gonna start assembling what I can but I don't want to assemble too much because other things need to be on there" > — **Cary Hardy**, Mid-video > _Shows strategic approach to restoration workflow, waiting on parts before final assembly_ > "Here you can see the difference between cool white and your incandescence. I would say pretty obviously. on the differences in colors and brightness." > — **Cary Hardy**, Mid-video during lighting demo > _Demonstrates practical value proposition of LED lighting upgrade for restoration projects_ > "I was really wondering what the heck was going on with this one right here and due to trial and error I figured out the reason why I was unable to get this thing to work" > — **Cary Hardy**, Late video during troubleshooting > _Shows diagnostic approach to pinball restoration problems_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Cary Hardy | person | Pinball restoration content creator; host of video series documenting Super Mario Bros. pinball restoration | | Super Mario Bros. Pinball | game | Gottlieb pinball machine being restored; subject of this restoration series | | Titan Pinball | company | Parts supplier; provided clear posts, yellow rubber ring kit, and pinballs for restoration | | Marco | company | Parts supplier; provided posts and other restoration components | | Novus 2 | product | Plastic polish/cleaner used extensively for cleaning playfield components and translite | | Gottlieb | company | Original manufacturer of Super Mario Bros. pinball machine; speaker references build quality (sarcastically) | | Star Trek Pinball | game | Previously restored machine; comparison reference for subway system cleanliness | ### Topics - **Primary:** LED lighting upgrades and installation, Playfield cleaning and restoration techniques, Component disassembly and reassembly workflow, Electrical troubleshooting and diode replacement - **Secondary:** Backbox restoration and maintenance, Parts sourcing and inventory management ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.75) — Speaker is enthusiastic about restoration progress and quality improvements. Some frustration expressed about missing documentation of cleaning transformations and minor technical issues (bad diodes, loose connections), but these are resolved pragmatically. Overall tone is satisfied with results and pleased with machine appearance improvements. ### Signals - **[product_strategy]** Installation of flasher units with directional mounting (red flex bolts) to project light toward player during gameplay impact events (confidence: high) — Speaker installs red flex bolts on two flasher units to direct light output toward player perspective during shots - **[product_concern]** Gottlieb build quality on Super Mario machine shows significant wear and contamination requiring extensive cleaning; subway system and backbox require restoration (confidence: high) — Speaker documents brown/black discoloration on components, filthy translite, and dirty subway system requiring cleaning and diode replacements - **[technology_signal]** LED bulb upgrade on Gottlieb Super Mario machine showing significant aesthetic and brightness improvements over incandescent bulbs, with cool white vs natural white variants available (confidence: high) — Visual demonstration of cool white LEDs vs incandescent showing clearer colors and brighter appearance; speaker shows specific bulb types and their visual impact on playfield and inserts --- ## Transcript Some people Netflix and chill, I on the other hand do Netflix, Marco, and Super Mario Brothers Upper Playfield. So I'm beginning the disassembly and I'm going to have to do some cleaning up and everything on this. This is how we roll. Now it's stuff like this that pisses me off guys. Because I did not get any before footage of this. And I really wish I would have. Because this looked horrible. I mean this was like brown and black on the back of this piece right here. And it cleaned up so damn nice. And this is like I got a nice reflective sheen to it now. Pretty damn sexy. Ah, pissed that I didn't get a before footage shot of that. But yeah, so just gotta keep on keeping on. I have received my order from Titan Pinball. So the end of that order was all my clear posts, my solid yellow rubber ring kit, and some new pinballs. and I've got a lot of other stuff I've ordered from other websites like Marco and I've even got the cliffies on the way now I've got this one looking a lot cleaner as well as this one down here so I'm gonna start assembling what I can but I don't want to assemble too much because other things need to be on there like I can't assemble anything around the cliffy install area because I'm gonna have to take it all off anyways but I will be swapping out these posts that are all around the play field with the clear ones. And then when I get to a point where I'm waiting on product, then I definitely need to get this subway taken out and get this all cleaned up. All right, so now we are gonna be removing the subway system. So this goes in from near the castle. Then we have our opto switch right here that signifies when we make that particular shot, comes down the play field, and then lands on this mechanical switch. and then the VUC activates to send the ball back into play. Now I'm gonna have to remove this whole unit, this and all of this down here in order for this to slide out. I can already tell that this thing is gonna be pretty nasty. Let's pull it out and see how bad it really looks. All right, so I had to remove a few more things than I thought I did. had to remove the motor for the castle that switch right there and then I was able to basically sideways it out and get it out of there without having to remove that so that worked out pretty good and here we have the subway system this isn't as bad as the Star Trek I had back in the day but we'll see what we get all right after giving it a bath and then polishing it up with some novice 2 we see this looks a hell of a lot better and should be less likely to dirty up the balls again now i'm going to try to repair this up here to make this a little bit more durable be able to take the hits and then we get it back in there before that I clean all this up as well yeah nothing but the best quality from Gottlieb right here we are going to be removing this thing and touching it up a bit see if we can improve the way this thing looks here is my setup for this job right here i'm going to be able to rotisserie this around while i'm airbrushing it and of course gotta lay down our base coat of white and then we will move on to the yellow so we'll start doing this in white all right now that we've gotten it all white and dried with our heat gun now we're gonna move off into making it yellow again let's do that Comet has arrived! So now I can install all of my frosted natural white or also known as cool white. These are supposed to be cool white. Those better be cool white. Maybe they just label them as natural whites. I've never actually even really notice that so we'll go through here but everything is here so I should be able to see these say cool white why don't natural one natural one there's also say natural white but these say cool white why is that natural white cool white those are for my pop bumpers should all be they say natural white as well let me check my order again but otherwise all my bulbs are here and there we have just the GI with the cool whites and you can tell the difference on the just the yellowing of the inserts you'll see how much of a difference that makes whenever I convert those to the cool whites on how this machine looks so let me give you a good overview on what this looks like as of right now of course the relay would click off wouldn't it there we go so even the backbox right now has the incandescent still it's a lot of bulbs back there but I still got to clean that back board and everything so hmm now what I got going for flasher wise for this these two flashers I got the two Let me find them here Where they go Not for sure I just had them where I could easily grab them. There they are. I've got these red flex bolts. This will give me the ability to have those facing directly towards that way. Because that's the way it's going to be flashing. towards the player so whenever you hit this it's going to flash red like you're hitting something. I like that effect. So I'm going to install these into here. There we go. So now those are installed and will flash directly out that direction. Here you can see the difference between cool white and your incandescence. I would say pretty obviously. on the differences in colors and brightness. I want to check on this one. I don't think that actually lights up so I could be mistaken. I think it does and it's not lit up right now. I may have to finagle that around or it might be a bad LED. Say it ain't so! Okay well besides that everything else is looking pretty good so under further investigation good old multimeter I've got a bad diode on this board so I need to replace that diode in order to get this bulb to work yay there we go new diode in place now all LEDs are working. Alright, I'm working on the backbox portion for the LEDs. This is just to give you a kind of before and after motif of what I'm working on so far. My hands are already disturbingly dirty. This is a portion that's been gone over and cleaned, you know, not super duper, and this has not been touched yet. So that gives you an idea of the differences of just some cleaning will do for a live box like this. Alright, now to finish it off. Alright, so we've got it all cleaned up and LEDs are installed. All my flashers are working. Those have been tested. Those go out, but as you can see, obviously not all of my GI is working, so it's obvious that we've got a problem here. We're gonna have to start doing some investigating. Alright, here we have it. So all it was was just a loose connection down here which is what I was hoping it was so now the backbox lighting is complete these are control bulbs so those are not needed as of right now all my flashers work as well so when it comes to lighting I've only got those three bulbs see there's the going off right there I've only got three bulbs that I gotta figure out what's going on with now putting the trans light back on the machine I got to see how filthy this damn thing really was when it well lit up this is what's been cleaned but yeah this is nasty got to get this all cleaned up there we go a nice bright shiny I know it isn it be even more gorgeous if these two bulbs right here I working on this one right here gosh it aggravating me okay working on getting these bad diodes replaced with good ones so now i've got this one fixed just need to fix this one and that one up there all right all bulbs are working so I was really wondering what the heck was going on with this one right here and due to trial and error I figured out the reason why I was unable to get this thing to work and see a lot of the times whenever I'm doing LEDs all I do is simply turn the machine on and just let the normal you know a track mode let me know the LEDs are working or there's any kind of issue but trial and error and me a little troubleshooting realize that this does not go during the attract mode but if you go into the test mode then yes it works everything's good to go but for it's the track mode that's not in the code for it to light up so yeah and I can show you that by going into the test mode right now yeah yeah yeah see everything's all good going to the shoot only one and I can go back to it working just fine all right start getting this thing put back together. I want to show you guys what Novus 2 can do for your plastics that are really dirty and need to be cleaned in case you don't already know. But this stuff does pretty good wonders on making your plastics look pretty damn good. It's able to get into those small little bitty crevices and get that dirt right out of of there. Not too bad. You can do both sides of course. Okay, reassembly has begun. I'm only gonna be able to do certain things until I get my cliffies in as well as some parts that I ordered from Marco, the posts that are broken off. Got new ones coming in but what I'm able to mount and some are just sitting here for now is been done. As soon as I get those parts in then I can just reassemble everything. I've even got new flip-a-bats on the way because the ones I have are usable but I wanted to have better looking ones than that. Outro Music _(Acquisition: youtube_groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 4f50ce8f-f544-4243-b483-bc6c949c3dcd*