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Johnny Mnemonic Pinball Restoration: Episode 2

Cary Hardy·video·16m 48s·analyzed·Mar 22, 2021
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.018

TL;DR

Johnny Mnemonic restoration begins with full machine disassembly and cabinet stripping.

Summary

Cary Hardy documents the restoration of a 1995 George Gomez-designed Johnny Mnemonic pinball machine. The episode focuses on complete disassembly: removing the backbox, playfield, boards, wiring harness, and cabinet hardware. Hardy identifies damage including a missing translite that requires replacement, documents the condition of boards and components, and begins stripping the cabinet to bare wood for assessment and restoration planning.

Key Claims

  • Johnny Mnemonic is a George Gomez game from 1995

    high confidence · Hardy states this at the beginning of the video as factual identification of the machine.

  • The translite has missing art in three areas that require full replacement rather than repair

    high confidence · Hardy visually inspects the translite and identifies three damaged areas, determining replacement is necessary.

  • The boards appear to be in good condition with no major issues except battery replacements

    high confidence · Hardy states 'there's nothing major wrong with these boards' and plans to replace batteries with NB RAM.

  • Hardy has been recently contacted to try out new aftermarket boards for Williams machines

    high confidence · Hardy states 'I've been recently contacted about trying out some new aftermarket boards for the Williams machines' and plans to test them on this game.

  • Side rail removal from this machine requires 10-15 minutes per rail due to double-sided adhesive

    high confidence · Hardy discusses the difficulty of removing side rails and notes from experience that each takes approximately 10-15 minutes depending on difficulty.

Notable Quotes

  • “Johnny Naumani, a George Gomez game from 1995. based on a not Keanu Reeves best movie but definitely a damn good pinball machine.”

    Cary Hardy@ 0:17 — Introduction to the machine being restored with characteristic humor about the film adaptation.

  • “I've got a feeling this will be in this position for a couple of days at least but this is what the playfield looks like completely out of the cabinet yeah thanks pretty dirty”

    Cary Hardy@ 10:17 — Observation of the playfield condition after removal, noting significant dirt accumulation.

  • “once you get to the end and you're having to use a little bit of muscle to pry up there's a chance that this side rail can fly off and land on your skin and burn you”

    Cary Hardy@ 15:35 — Safety warning based on personal experience regarding the dangers of side rail removal using heat gun.

  • “I know the buddy of mine that removed his side rails and he was a little rugged with it and took a big old chunk of the veneer out on his cabinet”

    Cary Hardy@ 14:21 — Anecdotal warning about potential damage from improper side rail removal technique.

  • “I believe the only time I've ever used this in my toolbox is for removing these side rails”

    Cary Hardy@ 15:16 — Indicates the specialized scraper tool is specifically designed for the side rail removal task.

Entities

Cary HardypersonJohnny MnemonicgameGeorge GomezpersonWilliamscompanyKeanu Reevesperson

Signals

  • ?

    product_strategy: Hardy plans to install NB RAM battery replacement and is testing new aftermarket control boards for Williams machines as potential upgrades.

    high · Hardy states 'I'm going to put nb ram into this one' and 'I've been recently contacted about trying out some new aftermarket boards for the Williams machines.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Development and availability of new aftermarket control board options for classic Williams pinball machines.

    medium · Hardy mentions being contacted about testing new aftermarket boards specifically for Williams machines, suggesting this is emerging technology option in the restoration market.

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.050

0:00
Hit me. And here we are with Johnny Naumani, a George Gomez game from 1995. based on a not Keanu Reeves best movie but definitely a damn good pinball machine. I'm very excited to start this restoration. Luckily I've got my time on the game so I can go a good while without having the major urge to play it. But first things first it's time to take it all apart. Here we go. Day one. we are going to begin disassembly of this machine i do not know the extent of the damage yet but the plan is by the end of at least this one uh when i say this one i mean like maybe this video or at least today's work i want to have the plate build out of the cabinet and the cabinet ready to be stripped down. That is my goal. We will see if we get there. Here we go.
1:37
So looking at my trans light, we are missing art right here and right here and over here where that moves up and down so not to my standards i will need a new trans light all right guys just want to give you guys some closer footage of what i'm going on right here with my johnny looks like the trans light is definitely going to need to be replaced got one two and then three these areas right here there's no sense of trying to touch that up or repaired it's just a trans light and it's definitely not going to be very appealing so going to need to get a replacement of that it doesn't look like any of the plastic around this is damaged so that's a perk usually these things will get all dried up and crusty and start breaking off if they've been in a bad condition but luckily that one looks pretty good upon i think in my first episode i go over the boards there's nothing major wrong with these boards or anything i think the only thing i had to deal with was just the uh the batteries uh more than likely by the end of this i'm going to put nb ram into this one so as far as like board condition and everything like that, these are fine. But as of right now, I've been recently contacted about trying out some new aftermarket boards for the Williams machines. That's going to be obviously further down the road, but when I get these boards, I'm definitely going to try them out and let you know how I feel about them and how they function with this particular game. I think I'm ready to take some pictures and then get this back box taken off.
3:37
This is the current state of the playfield. I have not disassembled anything just yet. My goal at this point is to remove this back box and have the playfield able to be removed. and that's what I'm going to start doing next and all I'm doing here I mean I wasn't gonna take pictures but I'm pretty sure that I've got this all down now I don't think I'm gonna have to take pictures but I still going to I not gonna get too cocky here because eventually I going to be throwing this into the dishwasher to get this wiring harness all cleaned up But there no issues with the boards They all look pretty damn solid
4:22
Good old high quality Harbor Freight batteries going right there, but they do the job. Alright, start taking some pictures and getting these boards out of here.
4:33
Got my ribbon cables removed. Now what I'm going to go about doing is I've already got the DMD removed right here as well. Those are going to be going over there. It's already there. So what I'm going to be doing here is photographing all the boards and all the connections. then I'm going to be removing the boards and the boards are going to be going into this box right here and covered up because they're going to be out of this machine for a good while and I'm just going to keep them covered up in this box so I don't have to be concerned about any more dirt or anything like that getting in them and just kind of keeps them protected from any other things that might be going on I'm not going to leave them open to the elements but this this wire harness seems pretty dirty so now just a matter of like I said documenting removing all the connectors getting the boards out feeding the wires down into the cabinet as you can see all boards have been removed and they are now in the box down here going to be closing all that up time to get the back panel the light panel right here taken off and all the wires fed down to the bottom got all the boards removed wiring harness is turned over now I'm going to be removing my back box light panel and that's simply just by removing this Phillips screw right here and it should be able to just lift up and come right out after that going to be removing these zip ties feeding my wire harness down into the cabinet and then I should be able to take off the back box. I'm going to keep that hardware in sight so I know where to go with it. That's out. Remove these zip ties if I can access them.
6:53
All right, zip ties are removed. I want to say that the only thing that's holding this back box to the cabinet are the six bolts that are on here from the hinges. So let me get the wire harness completely out of the way first. That wire harness feels very, oh yeah, it is very dirty. That, eww. Alright, so let's get this back box taken off. There we go. Wow, those are on there almost finger tight on all of them. was a little worrying. I like to try to keep as much of the hardware together as I possibly can so that way it helps me remember where everything goes. So all the bolts and nuts I try to keep those all together There that is right there Those are all on finger tight as well Okay We should be ready to remove this bad boy Yep. There we go. Now it's all a matter of disconnecting the play field from the rest of this machine. and pulling it out.
8:51
Hmm. So begins that. My goodness. Yeah, this is filthy. So I believe I got the wire harness to the play field and the wire harness to the cabinet completely separated. So I should be able to lift this thing up and out of here now. Let me get that out of there. I think I've got clearance.
9:18
Hope I do. up underneath there because right now it's resting on one of the mechs and I don't like that.
9:55
Playfield is out. Got them currently resting on these right here. I don't want it actually touching. If I wanted to I could have it resting on this solenoid right here. This vuck that feeds the glove. But I don't want to do that. At least not for a lengthy amount of time. and I've got a feeling this will be in this position for a couple of days at least but this is what the playfield looks like completely out of the cabinet yeah thanks pretty dirty so here we are inside of the cabinet this is where this thing currently sits. Still got the matrix down here, the matri, still down here stapled and everything. I'm gonna get all these wire harnesses out of here and get those all bagged up or boxed up one of the two and start getting the shot back on all this mess man and this is where we are now got all the wiring removed except for the AC inlet right here that goes to the power box that will be next but uh yeah I'd say a majority of the stuff is out cabinet is almost bare bones work in progress I think I'm gonna go ahead and get the shop back over here and start getting some of this stuff up and the shop back is done not going for super clean at this point just need to get all the heavy-duty stuff out of there and so it's already looking a lot better right there as it is but I'm gonna get the rest of this stuff off this cabinet get it down to just bare wood removed some more stuff I believe all I got left now is the coin door lockdown bar receiver and the leg cabinet mounts And then the hinges and then finally the side rails not looking forward to that
13:00
Come here bugger. Got all the screws out of there. Alright, I don't want to assess the damage yet until I've got everything off of here that's going to be taken off. So I've already seen a couple of things, but I'm going to go over everything all at once. I've got it down to where all I need to do now is remove the side rails, legs, and the cabinet leg plates and the grounding strip. So we'll get rid of that and once we have everything stripped off of this then we'll go over the cabinet for damages and assessment. Now I know I've done this in another video but I figure I'm going to do this again on video to show you guys how I go about removing side rails
14:02
because of this double-sided adhesive and this is a Difficult and a little bit of effort and everything has to be put into this Especially if one you don't want to damage your side rails and two you don't want to damage your cabinet I know the buddy of mine that removed his side rails and he was a little rugged with it and took a big old chunk of the veneer out on his cabinet and I also know someone else and that guy was me on my getaway I think if you go through my restoration portion I have pictures but at that time I wasn't doing video but I had pictures about I think it was like down around this area right here and I had to bond to that all over and fix it. So these side rails, I think the left one does have a pretty good size of a dent in it. This one looks pretty good. Of course, I don't think you can buy them separately, but I'm still going to take them off and try to keep them intact. And what we're going to have to do is use the heat gun and this designated scraper right here. I believe the only time I've ever used this in my toolbox is for removing these side rails. Now so what we're doing is we're heating up the scraper and the side rail simultaneously. This is a giant heat sink so eventually it's going to get hot and I want to stress that because once you get to the end and you're having to use a little bit of muscle to pry up there's a chance that this side rail can fly off and land on your skin and burn you. I don't think I've got the scar anymore, but trust me, once again, learn from my mistakes. So, when you get to the last portion and you're pulling up, be very careful on not to let this land on you. All right, I might be still a little wore out from the other side rail that I just did, but we're going to go at it. I'm obviously going to speed the time up on this because I want to say each side rail, depending on how difficult it is, is a good probably 10-15 minutes. Here we go.
16:40
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