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Part 5: 1985 Pinstar Gamatron Project! Working on the mechs!

Pinball Shenanigans·video·34m 48s·analyzed·Aug 29, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.022

TL;DR

Gamutron restoration: drop targets, kickers, pop bumpers cleaned and rebuilt with design challenges.

Summary

Mike Dus documents extensive mechanical restoration work on a 1985 Pinstar Gamutron pinball machine, focusing on drop target assemblies, kicker mechanisms, and pop bumper installations. He encounters unusual design quirks specific to the Gamutron, including unique drop target mechanisms, trapezoidal switch housings, and proprietary kicker arms that require filing to fit. The video showcases detailed playfield disassembly, ultrasonic cleaning, component repair, and reassembly with LED upgrades.

Key Claims

  • The Gamutron drop target assembly is heavy, thick, beefy, and 'very well built, maybe overbuilt' with a unique design never seen before by the speaker

    high confidence · Direct observation during disassembly: 'whoever manufactured this, I'm assuming it's stern. I've never seen this style drop target assembly before.'

  • The kicker arms on Gamutron are unique with tapered metal heads that differ from standard pinball kicker arms, requiring filing to fit

    high confidence · Detailed comparison and fitting work: 'These are very weird and unique um kicker arms that Stern used here with the metal head... I'm going to just try and file out the hole'

  • The drop target mechanism uses two beefy solenoids and nylon nuts for switch adjustment, different from other pinball machines

    high confidence · Technical observation: 'crazy drop target assembly that requires two beefy solenoids. And then it's got like little nylon nuts to adjust the switches. It's different. Not seen that before.'

  • The switch plate housing is trapezoidal rather than rectangular, with asymmetrical gaps that are 'very displeasing to OCD'

    high confidence · Direct visual inspection: 'This is not rectangular... The gap here where my finger is is like twice as big as the gap on the right side. This is like trapezoidal.'

  • The Gamutron pop bumper design had missing lamp socket wiring that appeared to be a factory defect, not assembly damage

    high confidence · Investigation of electrical architecture: 'I'm pretty sure that this was um screwy from the factory... It was the alignment fault.'

Notable Quotes

  • “I've never seen this style drop target assembly before. And it is very well built. Maybe overbuilt. Is heavy. It is thick. Is beefy.”

    Mike Dus @ ~13:50 — Establishes the Gamutron as having exceptional/unusual engineering for its 1985 era, setting up the restoration challenges

  • “These are very weird and unique um kicker arms that Stern used here with the metal head. So, I think I'm going to just try and file out the hole a little bit. Do some more playfield damage.”

    Mike Dus @ ~21:30 — Shows pragmatic problem-solving approach and willingness to modify original playfield to make parts fit

  • “This is like trapezoidal. It's very displeasing to my OCD.”

    Mike Dus @ ~28:00 — Highlights unusual design choice that appears intentional but unexplained, adding to Gamutron's mechanical uniqueness

  • “I'm pretty sure that this was um screwy from the factory. That's why I had to, you know, file out the back side of the hole. Wasn't the holes fault. It was the alignment fault.”

    Mike Dus @ ~35:00 — Distinguishes between original manufacturing issues and damage from use, important for restoration diagnostics

  • “So, I'm going to find out and uh we'll get this all sorted out eventually.”

    Mike Dus @ ~40:15 — Reflects the iterative, exploratory nature of restoring obscure 1985 pinball machines with undocumented design quirks

Entities

Mike DuspersonPinball ShenanigansorganizationGamutrongameSterncompanyPinstarcompanyKevinpersonShane JacksonpersonMaple PinballorganizationFlight 2000gameNineballgame

Signals

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Gamutron exhibits multiple unique mechanical design choices (trapezoidal switch housing, dual-solenoid drop targets, specialized kicker arms) that suggest either intentional engineering differentiation or experimental 1985-era design that was never replicated

    high · Repeated observations: 'never seen this style before,' 'very unique mech probably only on Gamatron,' trapezoidal gap design 'very displeasing to OCD,' specialized metal-head kicker arms requiring custom fitting

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Evidence of factory assembly issues on the Gamutron, including misaligned kicker bracket requiring filing, missing lamp socket wiring, and blocked playfield areas possibly from factory rework

    high · 'I'm pretty sure that this was um screwy from the factory,' missing second wire on lamp socket with 'doesn't look like there was ever one here,' screws blocking ball walker path suggesting factory blockage

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Sparse availability of replacement parts for Gamutron-specific components; Mike questions whether missing parts can be found on 'the old interwebs' and improvises with generic parts, requiring modification and adaptation

    high · 'if you have one of these things break on you, then I don't know if you can find one on the old interwebs,' custom arm filing, LED hardwiring instead of socket replacement

  • ?

    technology_signal: No accessible documentation or community knowledge for Gamutron-specific repair procedures; Mike must deduce design intent and troubleshooting through empirical testing and cross-reference with similar era machines

    high · Repeated 'I don't know' statements about design intent, comparing to Flight 2000/Viper/Freefall for mechanical logic, testing switch operation without clear original specifications

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

0:03
Check this out. It's called a diamond painting and it consists of 1 million. Okay, maybe that's a bit of of an exaggeration. Little tiny beads that you apply with this little silly dabber tool. And uh I commissioned my mom for the low low price of zero to make this for me. And it probably took her a million hours as well. And I sent her the little file, you know, the logo, this red, black, yellow, white, and maybe some light yellow. But somehow she ended up with like this many different colors. Anyway, that is awesome. And I need to get that framed. Shout out to a mother. I'm Mike Dus and this is Pinball Shenanigans.
1:08
[Music] All right, let's get back to work on this playfield. Don't these oneway gates look so pretty? Oh, don't you be doing that to me.
1:27
There was one that was being sticky. I thought I resolved that, but maybe a little super lube on the uh ends there if needed. See that? Look at that. Maybe a little bugger. So, that means maybe once in a blue moon, if the ball comes around here, hits this, it might end up back down the shooter lane. So, uh, add that to the list, I guess, because once I put the plastic on, it'll not be very accessible. Two screws, and I can mess with this as much as I want right now. So, I think I'll do that. So, I think I'm going to um start working on the mechanics today. Going to replace this broken kicker arm. probably rebuild the pop bumper, those drop targets, and just kind of start with that. But this thing is looking real nice. And before long, the cabinet should be home. Just got to wait for some metals to come back. And then Kevin has to uh populate inside of the head and the cabinet with all the all the metal bits, transformer, ground braid, all that good stuff. Anyway, oh yeah, I should start with um reassembling my spinner. Hey, I want to do a quick little unboxing. I've been uh doing a lot of happy meals lately and these are the toys I got in the last run. Little what they call little Donald's. So, those are adorable. And the last couple Happy Meals I got come with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles meets Hello Kitty and Friends. So, I've not seen what this is all about yet. I still have whole bunch of Squish Malows.
Freefall
game
Split Secondgame
Vipergame
Draculagame
3:36
I have a lot of kids meals. They're cheap and the portion isn't crazy, so I feel like I'm not kind of overdoing it. I do love me some Teenage Mut Ninja Turtles. I don't know about Hello Kitty style. Uh, so red is what? We got Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, Raphael. Red, I think Raphael, Donatello, I think, is purple, Michelangelo. I don't know. It's been a while. This looks like the same box, so it could be the same dude. It would be kind of cool if it was a different dude. Uh, no. It's the same. You know what? I think uh I think I know someone who likes Hello Kitty and might want this. So, this might be going to Julie. Anyway, if I get any more of these guys, then uh we'll do another unboxing. But, uh that guy can go right there for now. All right, spinner is installed.
4:45
Switch is cleaned. And now that I've got the playfield uh swapped over on the rotisserie here, we can have a closer look at the uh hardware and architecture. I'm seeing some interesting stuff. Like this whole out hole kicker assembly is not something I've ever seen before. It's pretty thick piece of metal here, this bracket. So that's kind of unique. This whole multiball trough system here, very early, I'm assuming is probably similar to flight 2000 and nineball. These flipper mechs are definitely first time I've seen these. I still got to figure out why there is a second switch on this stack here that's not wired up. It's on both sides. Hey, we could look over here. Actually, those parts are probably missing. Oh, no. Check it out. There is a switch stack there. And it is also not wired up. What about this side? Uh,
6:10
that one's wired up. So figure out what is going on with that. That's weird.
6:20
Hopefully I've got everything I need and I don't need to rub much off that playfield. But these assemblies appear to be in good shape. Not cracked. They're like a thick plastic. And then these pop bumper, not pop bumper, slingshot assemblies look pretty standard.
6:56
We've got drop target bank over here. This housing kind of looks a little different than what I'm used to seeing. Here's our broken kicker that we're going to have to access. might have to remove this in order to get to that.
7:14
Here is a pretty traditional looking pop bumper assembly. This plastic housing and often the corners are broken. Uh usually at least two corners,
7:32
but this looks to be intact, so that's good news. And what do we have here? I think that's the kick out of when you shoot your ball into the little load zone. So, it'll kick the ball out to the upper play field and then into the lanes there. And then we have the ball walker mech. I just I read that they have it's different than the one on Flight 2000. I think Stern used it in like Freefall or Split Second. Maybe it was freef fall and Viper and Flight 2000. And I can tell you it's definitely different because on Viper, well, first of all, it didn't require two solenoids. And it's actually a lot more simple looking. This has like a bracket here, bracket here, bracket here, one, two, three, four pivot points. A little more elaborate and beefy,
8:43
but looks to be in good shape. I'll probably clean that up a bit. I don't know. May not need to. And then the crazy drop target assembly that requires two beefy solenoids. And then it's got like little nylon nuts. to adjust the switches. It's different. Not seen that before.
9:28
So, that is a uh unique mech probably only on Gamatron. Here's the other side of it.
9:43
I mean, if you have one of these things break on you, then I don't know if you can find one on the old interwebs. Might be interesting to really take this thing apart and clean it up. I don't know how necessary it is, but probably for good measure I should do that. There's a lot of lights I'm going to have to uh convert. So, maybe I'll do that as well while I've got it upside down on the rotisserie here.
10:24
But I don't see any like signs of hack package. Everything looks to be in good shape. I don't see any like rogue wires. This is a fine fine example. Out of curiosity, how is the wear on this playfield? I know it's filthy,
10:45
but doesn't quite have the same wear that I have. I had a little chip here. So, in theory, this playfield might be in better shape than mine. Minus the filth and disgust.
11:11
Oh, wait. What do we got here? Oh, I don't know what that's from, but that's a little sad. They almost It's almost like someone put in some little screws there or something so you couldn't go up here cuz maybe like the ball walker mech stopped working so they like blocked off this area.
11:36
Who knows? They don't really seem that deep though. But yeah. Okay. I was in good shape for the most part. There's uh used to be a post here that just got borrowed.
11:59
All right. Anyway, I am going to uh start with this kicker assembly. And I may have to remove this first. We'll see. Okay, I got the uh drop target mech uh removed. And man, whoever manufactured this, I'm assuming it's stern. I've never seen this style drop target assembly before. And it is very well built. Maybe overbuilt. Is heavy. It is thick. Is beefy. And uh looks like it will last a freaking lifetime. Appears to be fully intact. None of the feet, the drop targets are chipped. But these are totally gotle style drop targets. So that's interesting. Got this weird little spring return system here where it just kind of hooks onto that. That's different.
13:06
Yeah. Very unique mech. This label was kind of peeling off, so I just taped it on there so it could stay there. in case we ever need to refer to it or someone does in the future. 011661 NB1900, whatever that means. Whoever made these coils, we don't know. It's got the beefy diode on there like overkill again. What is it? 1 N 5 4 0 2.
13:49
I'm used to using the one and like 4007s. But anyway, nonetheless, this will clean up. Definitely filthy. Needs a bath. And I will clean up these switches. I just left them
14:12
on the playfield here. Just two screws to remove those. So that's nice. The fish paper still very much intact. So we'll clean those up. And then before I install it, I'll deal with this guy. All right. I think I got this thing dismantled enough to get at everything.
14:42
Pretty greasy down there. And the drop targets. I don't know. Maybe if I have new ones, I'll just pop them in. That might be easier. I'm just debating. Do I want to go ultrasonic cleaner with this? Oh, it's going to fall apart on me. Or by hand. This part probably do by hand just as easily. Anyway, that's what it looks like all disassembled. Lots of bits and parts. Okay. Well, they are definitely gotish targets, but they're not identical. Look at the opening here is uh bigger. So, no biggie. I'll just clean these guys up. But, fun facts. Okay, I am going to bust out the ultrasonic cleaner and stick these parts in it. I gave them a these guys a bit of a rinse just to get off the the crustiest of crust. And I'm just going to set this in like that. It's not going to cover the top pieces, but I don't really care about the top inch. I mean, I can wipe that down. It's all that intricate stuff down there that I don't want to clean by hand. I mean, I could disassemble the thing further, but that's what the ultrasonic cleaner is for. So, just waiting for this to come up to temperature. And in the meanwhile, I did remove the kicker assembly. This is definitely a game plan style coil, which is kind of weird. Then we got pinstar coils. Then we've got quality coils.
16:36
And what is that one? Pin star as well. So quite an array of coils here. But in my slingshot bin, I found a perfect candidate. This guy's going to get a new arm with a nylon head. I could throw that in the ultrasonic cleaner, too. But probably just clean this up while I'm waiting for the other stuff to clean. So then I can at least reassemble this. All right, new kicker arm cleaned up and assembled. Okay, I have the ultrasonic cleaner running, so hopefully the audio isn't too screwy, so I'll make this quick in case it is. See the arm here? How it is straight? See the arm here? How it is thicker? It tapers. That means this doesn't fit and line up in the hole because it is a slightly different style arm. So, you can see the holes just do not line up. I mean, I measured this hole, it appears to be the same um length one inch, but when you compare that to this guy here, I don't know. It seems a little bigger, but I don't know, man. I don't have any like skinny arms. All I got are tapered. These are very weird and unique um kicker arms that Stern used here with the metal head. So, I think I'm going to just try and file out the hole a little bit. Do some more playfield damage. Okay. So, I struggled a little bit. I filed a lot. And I got to get this call. All right. All right, that was the infamous Shane Jackson of Maple Pinball struggling with Dracula Miss Opto issues. Haven't we all? That is a very complex mech that is very troublesome. Anyway, so have a look here.
19:03
Everything is hunky dory now. Still had to file that out a little bit. It's uh just a wider arm. If I had just moved all the screws, I could have possibly did that. Moved the whole thing. Well, no. If I moved this plate a little bit up, I would have had to probably move this a little bit. And um filing was the lesser of all the evils. So, I can check that off the list. All right. How did everything turn out here in the ultrasonic bath?
19:40
Look at these in some light. I wiped them down, rinsed them off,
19:48
but that's looking pretty good. What about this guy? Oh yeah, that is a significant improvement. And I didn't have to go and scrub in every nook and cranny. So, money well spent on the ultrasonic cleaner. Could clean up this fuzz a little bit cuz that wasn't in the bath. So, I'll do that and then uh reassemble this thing. All right, assembly is done. Everything's looking good. I'm happy. Except this is a weird design, man. I don't know why they did it, but this is not rectangular. Look at this. You see that? The gap here where my finger is is like twice as big as the gap on the right side. This is like trapezoidal. It's very displeasing to my OCD. But there's obviously a reason they did that. But that is just weird. But I'll try and demonstrate. That screw is not in cuz the switch plate has to go there. But here we go. See if I can demonstrate. Yep. And then reset.
21:23
Boom. There we go. All right. Well, we'll install that. Actually, I'm not going to install it because everything's so clustered here that I think I need to deal with the pop bumper assembly first before I can reinstall it. So, let's take this apart, clean it, and uh try and access that LED. All right, we got a couple problems here, Houston. one. You can't just remove the pop bumper without removing the pop bumper cap. So, I got to do that top side. And that is a pain in the butt. Problem number two. Kicker head don't look like it can be doing a whole lot of kicking. So, I think maybe I do have to move the whole bracket forward a little bit. Just I don't know, maybe a centimeter. That's really dumb. Um, I don't know how that ever worked in the first place because the arms are pretty identical. So, it's a bit of a boggles my mind a little bit. And how did it break? Just because it was hitting air a thousand times. So weird. All right. So, I got to fight with this. So, I'll be back. Oh, yeah. Another thing I noticed is that there was only one wire going in here to the lamp socket, which broke off when I was messing with it. And the other wire is non-existent. But um I compared to the other playfield and this red wire here goes from like one of these general illumination sockets and that feeds into the pop bumper lamp socket. So I don't know what ever happened to that wire. Doesn't look like there was ever one here, but I can just jumper one from here to there. So add that to the list. I'm pretty sure that this was um screwy from the factory. That's why I had to, you know, file out the back side of the hole. Wasn't the holes fault. It was the alignment fault. And as you can see from this hole here that I had to move the whole thing up a little bit. And hopefully that works. I did a bunch of testing, but you never know until you assemble it all. So, we will see. Okay, I was able to use the same holes for the bracket. So, that's promising because everything is so tight. I didn't really want to have to move it and then go to install the drop target bank to find out that I moved this in a spot that collides with the drop target assembly, but it slings without any obstruction. You know, it's a little bit of an angle there, the the link, but that don't matter. What matters is that the kicker head actually pushes the rubber out. So, that should actually work. All right. I did some tab squeezing and I did some prying and was able to get the cap off without breaking anything. So, that's nice. Weird design, Stern. Weird design. And look what I found.
25:16
Some giant flathead screw. That's weird. Oh, look. I've got some stuff unscrewed from the bottom. So, can uh remove that now. But as you can see, there's no lamp socket in here. But we know that there was one at one point. So, somebody at some point removed the lamp socket and maybe lost a screw and used what they had. So, I am going to I should be able to Can I pull that through? Would be nice if I could stern. All right. I'm going to find out and uh we'll get this all sorted out eventually. All right, that was the key to success there was the uh pop bumper cap removal. See these holes? No threads. So, if you wanted to just add a standard pop bumper cap, you could change the body. And I may just do that. Actually, maybe like a clear blue would be something cool to add. So, I'll check my pop bumper cap stash. And, you know,
26:38
might be a little brittle. Doesn't look too bad, but I'll clean this up and uh see what I uh see what I can figure out here. I'm going to probably hard wire in an LED as well. Screw the socket. All right, I got the thing apart and going to give it a clean. It's pretty filthy, actually. pretty gunky. Give it a new coil. I already cleaned up the coil a little bit. It was worse, but Oh, also the corner is cracked. One of them only. So, I'll crazy glue that as well. Okay, everything's cleaned up. Skirt base.
27:29
This is going to be a new sleeve. This old body here is going bye-bye. I'm going to use this new one where screws will actually go in. And then I can actually
27:46
use one of these. Lots of colors to choose from and don't have to worry about the uh compression fit crap anymore. Oh, I got to get myself a LED as well. Get that ready to wire in. But, uh, time for a reassembly. All right, this is garbage. This is probably garbage. Or maybe I'll save that with this and just I don't know. Maybe some someone with a gamutron wants to keep this. So, I'll set that aside. This uh I'm not setting aside. So, this is all reassembled, cleaned up in tiptop shape. And check this out. No socket. Straight hardwired LED. And I got some real long leads so I don't have to fight under the playfield to solder those on. And I got all kinds of room. Once I screw this base on, then I will add some crazy glue, add this piece, and screw that on. So, I think we're ready to go. Oh, you checking out the Gamatron? What do you think, Ellie?
29:14
What do you think? Huh? Is everything up to your standards? Oh, thought you were going to go right in there. She definitely likes boxes and bags. Well, are you going to go up to your perch or you just come in for a quick little visit? All right. Well, thanks for the visit. We'll see you again soon. Okay. Pop bumper assembly is reinstalled. This corner is crazy glued. Got one LED wire coming out. It's going to go onto the purple lug there. The other old white wire I got rid of. And this one's fed through here. And it is going to go onto the white lug of that general illumination. So, I got coil to solder back on, four wires to solder on, and then the pop bumper is finally done. Then I can install my drop target bank and call it a night. Okay, finally getting nearer to the finish line for tonight. This guy's soldered. This guy's soldered. This wire is fed nicely and soldered right there. Boom. This other wire is fed nicely and soldered there. Boom. And now I just Oh, yeah. Also, this is kind of interesting, too. It's like a two lamp sockets tied together for I guess extra brightness. Maybe they alternate back and forth. If that's the case, then it might be cool to go blue and white. I don't know, though. and won't find out until we get this thing powered on. But since this is pretty inaccessible, I thought I'd throw on those LEDs there for now. All right, maybe I'll do these two guys, too. No, those are general illumination. Um, never mind. Drop target time. I feel like I've been down here for like four or five hours. And what did I do? Installed a spinner. We did the drop target bank. We did the kicker slingshot. And we did the pop bumper. So, we did one 602th of the bottom of the playfield. And yeah, good thing I uh did those LEDs cuz I don't know how the f I would have accessed them otherwise. That would have been a pain in the butt. I mean, I guess I could just unscrew them, but still, you know what I mean? Burn. So, before I forget, Kevin sent me some photos. Progress on the Gamatron cabinet. We got legs, we got leg levelers, leg bolts, cabinet protectors. We got the back door, we've got all the guts, the ground wiring, the transformer, the uh all the goods have been installed. Not completely done yet. We're still waiting on some metals, but have a look at these photos. In the meanwhile, I'm going to turn the playfield over and see what things look like. All right, everything I worked on is right in this quadrant. We got spinach, we've got kickage that can go back on now. Hopefully, I move that forward enough. so that it kicks good. Then we've got dropage [Music] and
33:10
resetage. Which side are you on? This is a hard to do blind. Mhm. Let's go back around this side. We need to see it reset. That is half the satisfaction.
33:30
Oh, here we go. Here we go. There we go. One more. One more. Oh, boy. One more. What? There we go. Enthralling footage, Michael. Your viewers are just long gone by now, I'm sure. We got Poppage. with new body and LED.
34:01
And I've got this adjusted. Should be working good. I'll dial it in if needed. And then don't love yellow. Red. Oh, red looks good. But this is pretty scratchy and old. I'm going to need to get a better looking one than that if I want to go red. Or we have blue.
34:28
Might like blue the best. You tell me what you like. And uh we can have a little pole. Just need a couple screws. That'll be good to go. So that's going to be it for tonight. Hope you learned a thing or two. And uh we'll see you on the next one. Bye-bye.