# Part 10: 1978 Interflip Alaska 4 Player EM. Alaska is Alive!!!!

**Source:** Pinball Shenanigans  
**Type:** video  
**Published:** 2026-03-17  
**Duration:** 16m 0s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ8TK70ibX4

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## Analysis

Mike Dus of Pinball Shenanigans and Corey Cook of London Pinball successfully power on a restored 1978 Interflip Alaska 4-Player EM machine for the first time after restoration work. The machine initially has a seized motor that requires disassembly and cleaning with brake cleaner, but once repaired, the machine becomes functional with working flippers, drop targets, kickers, bumpers, and scoring mechanisms. Minor issues remain including tilt sensitivity and some electrical gremlins, but the machine is substantially playable on day one.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] The motor in Alaska was seized and required disassembly and brake cleaner cleaning to restore function — _Mike Dus and Corey Cook, shown disassembling the motor and cleaning solidified grease_
- [HIGH] Alaska uses a different soundboard than Dragon, lacking the dual-sound capability (tones only, no creature sounds) — _Corey Cook comparing Alaska soundboard to Dragon during restoration_
- [HIGH] Interflip machines have a hi-tap voltage selector on the transformer allowing adjustment from 100V to 120V — _Corey Cook explaining the voltage adjustment feature and its effects on game play strength_
- [HIGH] The machine initially had the voltage set too high, causing overly strong flippers and aggressive gameplay — _Hosts adjusted transformer from 100V to 120V setting to reduce game strength_
- [HIGH] Alaska has excessive tilt sensitivity that required a tissue wedge adjustment to prevent unwanted tilts — _Multiple tilts occurring during initial gameplay, resolved by adjustment_

### Notable Quotes

> "Oh my god, it's alive."
> — **Mike Dus**, Early in power-on sequence
> _Celebratory moment when Alaska first shows signs of functionality after years of restoration_

> "This motor is not interested in turning at all."
> — **Mike Dus**, During motor diagnosis
> _Identifying the primary mechanical failure preventing operation_

> "I was kind of worried about going through all this trouble to make it all pretty and then have it just never work."
> — **Mike Dus**, During motor repair discussion
> _Expresses the restoration concern—cosmetic restoration without mechanical function_

> "I imagine it's uh some 50-year-old solidified grease."
> — **Mike Dus**, Opening motor for inspection
> _Diagnosis of the mechanical failure cause_

> "That's the only thing I kept from that machine. Oh, actually that's not true. I kept this ashtray."
> — **Corey Cook**, During parts cleanup discussion
> _Casual aside about a Led Zeppelin machine in his collection_

> "I cannot believe it is working."
> — **Mike Dus**, Multiple points during gameplay testing
> _Expresses amazement at the level of functionality achieved despite being early in restoration_

> "Holy hell. Is this English?"
> — **Mike Dus**, Examining the playfield during gameplay
> _Commenting on the Interflip machine's non-English origin and design_

> "way more functional than I thought it was ever going to be uh on day one."
> — **Mike Dus**, End of episode summary
> _Assessment of successful restoration progress and exceeding expectations_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Mike Dus | person | Host of Pinball Shenanigans YouTube channel, performing restoration and operation of Alaska machine |
| Corey Cook | person | Technician from London Pinball, assisting with motor repair and restoration of Alaska machine |
| London Pinball | company | Pinball repair and restoration service where Corey Cook works |
| Pinball Shenanigans | organization | YouTube channel/content platform hosting restoration video series |
| Alaska | game | 1978 Interflip 4-player EM pinball machine being restored and powered on for first time |
| Interflip | company | Manufacturer of Alaska machine, known for hi-tap voltage selector feature and thick plastics |
| Dragon | game | Another EM machine in Mike's collection, referenced for soundboard comparison with Alaska |
| Gamatron | game | Another machine in Mike's collection where Corey will test soundboard |

### Topics

- **Primary:** EM Machine Restoration, Motor Repair and Cleaning, Electromechanical Troubleshooting
- **Secondary:** Interflip Machine Features, Soundboard Comparison and Diagnosis, Game Balance Adjustment (Voltage/Tilt)
- **Mentioned:** Pinball Restoration Documentation

### Sentiment

**Neutral** (0)

### Signals

- **[restoration_signal]** Detailed documentation of EM motor cleaning procedure using brake cleaner on seized/solidified grease, including disassembly, parts inspection, and careful reassembly with attention to washers and spring retention (confidence: high) — Extended motor surgery sequence showing step-by-step cleaning and reassembly process
- **[restoration_signal]** Systematic approach to EM machine power-up: initial power test, motor function diagnosis, switch adjustment verification, gameplay testing for functional systems, and iterative adjustment (confidence: high) — Sequential testing of motor, switches, flippers, bumpers, kickers, drop targets, scoring, and sound
- **[gameplay_signal]** High voltage setting (100V vs 120V) causes overly aggressive flipper response and drop target sensitivity, requiring transformer adjustment to achieve balanced gameplay (confidence: high) — Corey Cook explains hi-tap selector purpose and Mike adjusts voltage downward, immediately noting softer flipper feel
- **[product_concern]** Alaska exhibits excessive tilt sensitivity requiring physical adjustment (tissue wedge) to prevent unwanted tilts during normal play (confidence: high) — Multiple unwanted tilts during initial gameplay test, resolved by wedge adjustment
- **[restoration_signal]** Interflip Alaska shows crack damage in corner plastics despite thick plastic construction; repairs included Lexan washers to reinforce weak points (confidence: high) — Visual inspection showing small cracks on corners with Lexan washer repairs applied
- **[gameplay_signal]** Alaska soundboard produces three distinct tones (hundreds, thousands, 10,000) versus Dragon's dual-channel sound system with creature effects; limited to electromechanical chiming (confidence: high) — Corey Cook comparison of soundboards and tonal output during test sequences
- **[restoration_signal]** Host uses video recording during disassembly to document part placement and reassembly sequence, emphasizing importance of photographic/video documentation for complex mechanical restoration (confidence: high) — Mike states 'probably good that I'm recording this so we know how to reassemble everything'
- **[operational_signal]** London Pinball technician demonstrates expertise in EM machine diagnosis, motor repair, switch adjustment, and troubleshooting methodology; positioned as knowledgeable resource for ongoing restoration support (confidence: high) — Corey Cook's systematic approach, component knowledge, and ability to diagnose and correct issues
- **[content_signal]** Pinball Shenanigans producing long-form restoration documentation video series tracking incremental progress on EM machine restoration project, building narrative arc and community engagement (confidence: high) — Part 10 designation indicates ongoing series; episode focuses on single major milestone (first power-on)
- **[restoration_signal]** Post-power-on diagnosis identifies remaining gremlins including possible switch issues, ground line problems, and scoring display anomalies requiring follow-up work sessions (confidence: high) — Mike notes 'there's going to be some gremlins' and 'we figured as much' regarding ground lines; mentions homework assignment for following week

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## Transcript

Okay, I'm here with Corey Cook of London Pinball and we are going to turn on Alaska for the first time. On go. Ready? I'm ready. Three, two, one, go. Is it plugged in? Yeah, it's plugged in. Oh no, it's not plugged in. Drop target bank. Oh my god, it's alive. Okay, ready. First game of Alaska. Oh, what have you done? No. DJ Cory in the house. Go ahead. I'm Mike Dus and this is Pinball Shenanigans. Let's try that again. Where's the plug? Uh, right above there. I just saw that plug and I assumed it was it, but that is my soldering iron. Here we go. Okay, we got lights. It's a good start. Okay, let's There is a ball in there. And uh-oh, that sounds like our credit reel is stuck. Possibly. Maybe. No, this guy's not trying to Oh, no. We got a seized motor. Oh, it's kind of sort of trying to turn. Oh. Oh, [expletive] This motor is not interested in turning. Oh, and everything just turned off. Oh my god. That motor doesn't want to turn at all. Clutch here is not even close to spinning. See, I was kind of worried about going through all this trouble to make it all pretty and then have it just never work. Well, these aren't hard to get at. So, there's a couple of screws and then this comes off and you can clean that up. Okay. So, that's no problem. Well, we're doing a little bit of motor surgery here. Not sure what's going to come of it, but definitely uh needs some love. All right, surgery continues. We're going to crack this thing open and see what it looks like. I imagine it's uh some 50-year-old solidified grease. All right, let's see what we got. Oh. Uh, is it going to be probably good that I'm recording this so we know how to reassemble everything. Like this guy here is supposed to go in and out loosely and it's not doing that at all. And then this is like the gearbox. Yeah. And then this this little guy here comes into contact with the Oh, careful, bro. Oh [expletive] Okay, this is probably a bad idea. Oh my god. Yeah. You want to be careful. We don't want to lose. So, you got the spring on the other side of that washer. Yep. You don't want to lose any of that stuff. And then this, see how that's not free at all? No. And looks like it's spinning. Okay. But it's not. It's very, very firm. Mhm. And it's not supposed to be. Do you have any brake cleaner? Yeah, I do actually because you told me that I should buy brake cleaner cuz it is good for things from the shitty Led Zeppelin. That's the Led Zeppelin machine. Zeppelin. It's amazing. I love it. Can you grab me a rag? Rag. Thanks. Yeah, I that's the only thing I kept from that machine. Oh, actually that's not true. I kept this ashtray. All right, we got the parts freed up. And now that spins nicely. Yeah, I'm going to I'm going to clean it up a little more, but it's supposed to spin nicely like that. Yeah, it might be uh moving in the right direction here. I'll show you what the other motor looks like here. This is the the clutch, and it's supposed to spin nicely like this and in and out like that. And it basically wasn't really moving, but we're making some headway here. All right. Now, the fun part. Reassembly. Like, look at all these pieces. Goes like that. And then that goes like that. But I need those washers. Okay. Reassembly is actually going fairly well all things considered. We may have lost a washer. Cory's on the other hand, that's why I'm filming from afar. It's been very active. But uh we're almost there. Couple more pieces to go. Okay, so Cory just noted that this is not the same soundboard as Dragon. No. So we may not get any fun sounds at all other than just the bleeps and bloops. Yeah. And that's your So your volume controls here. Oh, wait. Hang on. You got What does that What's that say? We got tones. Volume and volume and tone. Okay. So volume and tone. And then you got two caps, the regulator and the amp. I don't know which one is which. Yeah. And then two chips, four transistors. I mean, it's easy to see what's going on there. That's for sure. On Dragon, is there some sort of obvious like extra part that is responsible for the sound? Yeah, there's basically this the dragon soundboard is two complete separate things. Um, it one side does tones, one side does dragons. Mm. So, I'm not going to get any dragon sounds or polar bear sounds probably. I don't think so. All right, motor's going in. Okay, motor is installed. We're going to try and turn this on again in three, two, one. Oh, that sounds better. Look at that. It's spinning. I heard some score wheels. So, this is definitely a step in the right direction. Maybe the dragon schematics will come in handy if needed, but we're not quite there just yet. Motor works nice. That's amazing. Ah, okay. Do we need to clean that? It needs a switch adjustment. Okay. Got a switch adjuster? I do. Got lots of options. Cory thinks he's got this uh thing working as it should. Just so people are aware, this is the motor run switch right here. So, if it's gapped too close, then it'll just run and run and run and run and run. If it's gapped properly, if you hit it, it will run one rotation and stop like this. Look at that. working as it should. Okay. Now, what do we do? Hit start. Where's the start button? Right here. This one way down here. Yep. Okay. Let's uh see what happens. Okay. And then we got the out hole switch. Okay, it's kicking. Stuff is happening. See what we got here. Drop target bank. Oh my god, it's alive. Sort of. No way. Oh my god. First signs of Alaskan life. Flippers are flipping. Where's the ball? Oh, where did it go? Give me a ball. I get a ball. I got a We could do a multiball if you really wanted to. Okay. Ready? First game of Alaska. Oh, what have you done? No. Oh, man. That has to be my intro now. Okay, here we go. Here we go. This is it. Okay, let's see what happens. Nothing. No, no sound effect there. Oh, there's the high pitch sound effect. You drained that back. First flip. Sweet. It's flipping. It's playing. It's Alaska. I think we're just Oh, I Oh. Oh, that's what's happening. The tilt is so freaking close to the edge. Yeah, the tilt's sensitive. Okay. All right. So, we're missing I think one chime, right? Not necessarily. No. Okay. So, let's see. Uh, this is hundreds. Oh, it tilted. Oh, [expletive] I Do you want to like do something about that? No. I'll just be gentle. This is hundreds. So, that's hundreds. Boo. Are we tilting again? I'm not sure. There's a light there. Oh, yeah. Probably. Hang on. Okay, let's let's be really gentle. You tilted. Okay, hang on. Hang on. As soon as I score points. Okay, let's do something about that. What do you want? A cloth or Yeah, just give me something to like a Kleenex even. Just jam it in there. Sure, sure. Sure. Okay, here we go. Might be. That might be game over. Okay, there you go. Let's say that game over. Press start. Oh yeah, most of the score wheels are resetting except for this uh those two those two guys. I think those are the two guys I was working on actually. Okay, here we go. Turned on a couple of pop bumper lights. I can't believe how many lights are actually working. So we got hundreds here. So that's your hundreds tone. And then you got thousands up here. That's your thousands tone. And then turn off your headlamp for a quick second. Sure. Okay. And then here's tens. Oh, no. That's thousands. Oh, yeah. That is thousands. Thousands. And then what do these give us? That Well, that's 10,000. 10,000. Oh, because you turned on the light. Yeah. So, you got hundreds, thousands, and 10,000. That's not that. Yeah. You got three tones. I got three different tones. Okay. Um, now there was there is four transistors on that on that soundboard. So maybe there's a fourth tone. Oh, okay. So this is let's count the bonus down. All right. Wow. Might be only three tones. I'm not sure. That actually worked though. That's pretty [expletive] cool. Advance unit is working. 50 60 70 80. It's interesting. Oh, that's a warm white. It's interesting the bonus goes down instead of up. Oh yeah, true. And it's kind of cute that it's like 20 and then three more zeros. 30 then three more zeros. We got extra ball lit. Yeah, extra balls lit. And then what do we got here? Kickers. Oh yeah. Try these kickers out. Bro, this works. I can't believe how functional this is. Let's try the drop targets. Oh, didn't pop up. Maybe you need them all down. And no, maybe you got a drain special. Special knocker. Didn't hear a knocker. There it is. I don't know why we didn't get it on the right side. There you go. Special's working. Knocker's working. Let's see if the bonus seems to be counting down and the drop targets reset. Holy hell. Is this English? Yes, actually. See a couple bulbs out. This guy and this guy. I don't know if the drops are supposed to reset or not. Hey, got to jump switch. Dude, this thing. I cannot believe it is working. Spicy. We got to We should probably look and see what what tap it's at. Okay, check the high tap on it. So, these games, Interflip had a very cool hightap option where on the transformer you can just move this guy. Yeah, I discovered that accidentally. I didn't. Yeah, cuz that's uh to change it to whatever voltage you want, I thought. Right. But if you have it on the wrong setting, then it will just if it's if say you've got it set to 100 volts. Yeah. Instead of 120 or 115 or whatever, it'll it'll make everything play really hot. Okay. So, you can pull it out and then you'll see like the the label underneath. I think it's 1 and 0. It's a little sticker guy on there. Okay. Well, that's Is that what it's supposed to be? We can just leave it at that. Okay. It's just a matter of you don't want to destroy plastics and drop targets and stuff. Yeah. Um, is there a 120 option there? Oh, there it is. Right next door here. Oh, yeah. Let's put it on 120. Hold this playfield. Yeah. Let's put it on 120. This is going to make it a little a little weaker. weaker, but they're but the flippers are really strong right now anyway. Okay. So, let's try not to We don't want to break like unobtanium plastics. Exactly. Drop target. Having said all of that, the Interflip plastics tend to be really thick. Yeah. The only uh cracks are on these corners here, but I put Lexan washers. Tiny little cracks here. Okay. Let's see. Playing Alaska, boys and girls. Cannot believe it. There's going to be some gremlins. And you will probably be back to help me work on them. But that feels those flippers feel better to me. Do they? They're not so strong. Okay. Oh, switch probably. I cleaned all those switches, but what happened? Oh, I tilted. Yeah. I don't know how I managed to do that. Oh dear. We're stuck in tilt. Maybe the Kleenex. Oh, there it goes. Okay. Got to be more gentle apparently. Well, you shouldn't be able to tilt. That's uninteresting. Yeah, that was the worst part. What is going on? Uh-oh. Stuff stopped working. Okay, we got some ground lines to work. Yeah, I mean, we figured as much, but it's uh way more functional than I thought it was ever going to be uh on day one. So, pretty happy so far. Look at that. Resetting to zero and everything except player four. All right, we're messing with switches and now we're changing tone. Oh yeah. Come on, DJ. All right, here we go. Oh, we're going to break it. I don't want to break it. Okay, DJ Cory in the house. Go ahead. Yeah. Oh, we killed it. Oh, no. We're still going. All right. What tone do we actually want this at? This is awesome. Can do this all night. And then Yeah, that's much better. Now, let's light the pops. Uh-huh. For 10,000. Oh, then get it. Yep, I dig that. Okay, that's going to be the end of this episode. Uh, probably pretty short and sweet, but uh, thank you, Corey. You're amazing. Go to London Pinball for all your repair needs. Obviously, there's still some gremlins. And, uh, that's going to be my homework assignment for uh, the week. And Cory will be back. He's got to test the soundboard out in my Gamatron. So once he's back, I'm going to sick him back on Alaska here to uh hopefully work out all of or at least most of the gremlins. So super happy with the progress we made in this couple hour session and uh yeah, we'll see you guys on the next one.

_(Acquisition: youtube_auto_sub, Enrichment: v4)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 8db9e2dd-5b44-4846-93cb-0729f240bf1c*