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Part 2: 1977 Allied Leisure Getaway Pinball Project. Set Up and Mice Poop!

Pinball Shenanigans·video·32m 30s·analyzed·Apr 16, 2026
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.022

TL;DR

Mike Dus restores 1977 Allied Leisure Getaway: unboxing parts, first playfield inspection, cleaning mouse nests.

Summary

Mike Dus documents the restoration of a 1977 Allied Leisure Getaway pinball machine, focusing on initial setup, condition assessment, and cleanup. He receives 3D-printed replacement parts from fellow collector Bigfoot Bruce, inspects the playfield and underside for the first time in decades, documents low play count (7,660), and begins deep cleaning while dealing with mouse damage and debris. The machine shows remarkable condition with original components intact despite decades of storage.

Key Claims

  • This 1977 Allied Leisure Getaway has only 7,660 plays on the original coin mech, which is unusually low for a machine of that era

    high confidence · Mike Dus directly reads the play count from the coin door mechanism and contextualizes it as low for the period

  • The machine was originally purchased in Ontario, shipped to BC (Champion Amusements Limited, Vancouver), and later returned to Ontario storage

    medium confidence · Mike speculates based on the Champion Amusements sticker, absence of Ontario Hydro isolation transformer requirement, and shipping history; he acknowledges this is his best guess

  • Allied Leisure machines extensively used plastic components, including drop targets, flipper assemblies, and other structural parts

    high confidence · Mike observes and comments on the plastic parts throughout the machine during inspection

  • Bigfoot Bruce sent 3D-printed resin replacement parts including flipper bats, drop targets, housings, and flipper shaft assemblies

    high confidence · Bruce's letter explicitly states 'all are resin prints' and Mike unpacks and examines each component

  • The playfield remains in excellent condition despite decades of storage, with original plastics, targets, and components largely intact

    high confidence · Mike systematically inspects and documents each playfield element: lane guides intact, rollovers clean, plastics in good shape, minimal cracks

Notable Quotes

  • “This package was sent to me by fellow OG shenanigander Bigfoot Bruce. He is in Ohio and he sent it to Pastimes Arcade when I was there for the mega match play tournament to uh you know expedite things and make things nice and easy.”

    Mike Dus@ 0:55 — Establishes context for receiving 3D-printed replacement parts and community support network

  • “7,660 plays. Now, that sounds like a lot, but for this era machine, it's actually a pretty low number, you know. So, that is why the Playfield is in such nice condition.”

    Mike Dus@ 19:10 — Explains the exceptional playfield condition as directly correlating to low historical use

  • “These edge connectors are probably going to all need to be repinned. Those bottom ones, especially these ones, they might be okay.”

    Mike Dus@ 21:54 — Identifies specific restoration work needed on the electronics board

  • “Check this out. There is a ball in here. But this thing is in wonderful shape... That might be the rustiest ball that I've ever pulled out of a machine. It's not really a good sign, but I'm not going to fret.”

    Mike Dus@ 18:33 — Demonstrates the contrast between overall machine condition and deterioration of individual components

  • “This bottom board is completely covered in a printed paper with all the diagrams on it and stapled to the actual wood. And the mouse didn't eat at all. So, you can read basically everything. It's fully intact.”

    Mike Dus@ 31:51 — Documents preservation of documentation and absence of pest damage to critical service information

Entities

Mike DuspersonBigfoot BrucepersonPatrick BaldwinpersonAllied LeisurecompanyGetawaygameChampion Amusements LimitedcompanyPastimes ArcadevenueManitoba Pinball ChampionshipseventPinball Shenanigansorganization

Signals

  • ?

    restoration_signal: 1977 Allied Leisure Getaway shows exceptional playfield condition with original components intact (lane guides, rollovers, plastics, targets) despite decades of storage, directly attributable to low play count of 7,660

    high · Systematic playfield inspection documenting intact original parts; play count verified from coin mechanism

  • ?

    restoration_signal: 3D-printed resin replacement parts successfully manufactured and shipped for Allied Leisure restoration; parts include flipper bats, drop targets, housings, and flipper shaft assemblies with acceptable tolerances

    high · Bigfoot Bruce's letter and Mike's hands-on inspection of parts; discussion of tolerance comparison between resin and FDM versions

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Machine heavily affected by mouse nesting in underside; however, documentation (wiring diagrams stapled to wood) was preserved as mice did not consume it

    high · Direct observation and vacuuming of mouse nests; discovery of debris and damaged components; note about preserved paper diagrams

  • ?

    machine_intel: Edge connectors on main board will likely require repinning; bottom connectors may be salvageable; no corrosion observed on capacitors or battery areas

    medium · Mike's inspection of electronics under the playfield; specific assessment of connector conditions

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Getaway features loot/heist theme with complex ruleset: collect letters (A, D) to spell words, multiple getaway lanes with value increases, rollover diverters, pop bumpers, spinny wheel, drop targets, standup targets, and extra ball achievements

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

0:01
All right, back in the basement for some more Allied Leisure Getaway action. And let's uh make sure I don't give away my address so you don't pay me a visit um unannounced like Amir aka Gold Balls. Uh and if you want to know where Minnie Mouse came from, you're going to have to watch the last episode of the Grazley Garage. I'm Mike Dus and this is Pinball Shenanigans.
0:45
One giant left for mankind.
0:45
One giant left for mankind. Uh, okay. So, this package was sent to me by fellow OG shenanigander Bigfoot Bruce. He is in Ohio and he sent it to Pastimes Arcade when I was there for the mega match play tournament to uh you know expedite things and make things nice and easy. He even paid for overnight shipping and it was supposed to arrive on the Saturday but it didn't. It arrived on the Monday. It was delayed. So that was a bummer. But thankfully um Patrick Baldwin, who is an employee at Pastimes and also was the main tournament director, he uh forwarded it to me and didn't charge me a dime. And he also um marked the value at like $15 or something and as a gift so that when I did get it from UPS, I wasn't charged all the silly fees and taxes and tariffs and duties and tax on duties and tariffs on tax that they like to charge, plus the 13% uh HST and GST. So, thank you Bigfoot Bruce and Patrick Baldwin and Pastimes Arcade. So, I um finally got this package just a couple days ago. Here we go. And I know that there's something related to um Getaway in this. Hey, look.
2:33
Grazley Garage
organization
Chris Bowenperson

high · Mike reads inserts and playfield text documenting rules: 'collect increase loot', 'left getaway value increases loot', 'open right alley reload D increase loot', etc.

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball restoration community demonstrates active support through parts sharing, shipping logistics coordination, and customs/duty workarounds; Bigfoot Bruce funded overnight shipping and Patrick Baldwin navigated customs declaration

    high · Story of parts acquisition, Bruce's payment for overnight shipping, Patrick's revaluation of package as 'gift' to avoid HST/GST/duties

  • ?

    historical_signal: 1977 Allied Leisure Getaway likely shipped new from Ontario to BC (Champion Amusements Limited, Vancouver), then returned to Ontario storage; evidenced by absence of Ontario Hydro isolation transformer requirement and lack of ON hydro stickers

    medium · Mike's analysis of Champion Amusements sticker, absence of isolation transformer, and no Ontario Hydro identification; explicitly noted as 'best guess'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Mike exploring LED conversion for Getaway but concerned about flicker potential with original AC lighting circuits; seeking solution between retrofit consistency and labor intensity (resistor per socket)

    medium · Mike's question: 'Can I LED this thing and not have them flicker like crazy? And if so, how do I prevent flicker?'

  • ?

    product_concern: Steel ball retrieved from machine shows severe rust; flipper assemblies and drop target housings show wear; edge connectors require repinning; upkicker may have seized components

    high · Direct observation: 'That might be the rustiest ball that I've ever pulled out of a machine'; assessment of flipper and target components; inspection of upkicker

    • Wrong getaway. Not Steve Richie getaway. So, let's see. We've got a little letter here from Bruce. What does it say? It says, "Hey, Mike. I hope the tournament is going well. Enclosed is a few spare parts for the allied pins. All the resin all are resin prints." Oh, interesting. This is the init. I wish I could read English. This is the initial batch of resin. So, I don't know how durable they will be compared to the FDM versions I've been using on my Boogie. This is all 3D print talk, but I believe they should hold up pretty well. The tolerances look pretty good for the first batch. I did notice the flipper bat has a little wiggle on the drive shaft compared to the FDM version. Hopefully, they come in handy with your upcoming getaway projects, Bruce. Okay. Okay, I still don't even know what Bruce is talking about, but Oh, I see. Look at this. It is Well, there's multiple things here. This is for the drop target. That is cool because I think I'm missing one of these. And Bruce must have spotted that. Look at this. Right. See, there's a white one there. So, that was replaced. And then three black ones. So, if I need this, then I have got it. But I'm pretty sure on that one over there. Okay. Should we go all the way over? Oh, I forgot to mention my wrist is super sore today. So, I don't really know how much I can do. Just kind of happened earlier this afternoon. Look at that. That one's missing. So, at the very least, we can uh include this with that machine cuz I'm not going to restore all three. But that's pretty sweet. I don't imagine you can just go out and buy that part anywhere. So, let's see what else we got. Another one of these. Oh, this is cool. We've got a whole bag of goodies here. Bruce has helped out on so many machines. Look at this brand new flipper bats. They feel solid, too. Really cool. Let's see. Um, let's go back over to the machine. Kind of see what they look like.
    5:19
    Oh, yeah. Wait a minute. There's a like a hole in the top here, but there's not on these guys. So, not sure. Must be like, is there a cap that goes on top? I'm sure I'll figure it all out eventually, but that's pretty sweet. And then look, what is these uh like weird drop targets? Is that what Allied Leisure drop targets look like? Oh, they're like standup targets. And they've got the little spot there for the insert. Very cool. And or is it these guys there? It is those guys, right? Yeah. Yeah. These are drop targets, silly pants, not standup targets.
    6:19
    Very cool. They're little shorties, eh? I had no idea. So, this looks like a whole flipper shaft assembly. Yeah, Allied Leisure likes to use plastic parts. And um Wow, this is uh complex. There's a lot of parts and pieces to this. So, it looks like basically two full flipper rebuilds here. And put that there. Couple of those guys there. Couple drop targets. There we go. Flipper rebuild, flipper rebuild, flipper bats, two drop targets, and two drop target housings. So, that's pretty sweet. Thank you, Bigfoot Bruce. What an awesome collection of goodies. Hopefully, it didn't cost you an arm and a leg to send it over to pastimes with the uh, you know, overnight shipping. But, uh, it has finally arrived here in Canada. And, uh, I will make good use of this stuff. Thank you again. And, uh, too bad you couldn't make it out to pastimes, but we'll see you sooner or later. So, what is this Minnie Mouse all about? Well, you're going to have to go back like two or three episodes of the Grazy Grudge to figure out where that came from. But, as for this other Minnie Mouse, she's going to be hanging out there for eternity. All right, I am going to um just very carefully remove the glass and lift up the playfield and look under the hood for the first time. Check out the mice nests. Hopefully no mice. Um, clean up some mice poop. There's one right there. All trying to do so without screwing up my wrist cuz I'm going to Manitoba in a few days for the Manitoba Pinball Championships. And I kind of need my wrist. And uh, I'm pushing my luck just by being down here. But I can't help myself until it hurts too much and I um get angry and throw it in the towel. But uh for now, I am eager and excited and not in pain. And I want to see what uh the guts look like. So, let's get to it. Okay. You know what? The glass hasn't been off this machine in probably decades. So, I figure we should do it together. I wish you could uh smell what I smell too. The head uh this the the head I'm going to use. I did air it out for the last while and it seems to be better, but that head over there seems a little stankier. And I'm sure once I uh lift the playfield here going to unleash some more nasty. So, let's do this together and see
    9:39
    like uh sort of an early stern style with the nipples lock bar. Okay.
    9:54
    All right. Do I need Someone put tape on the edge. Why did they do that?
    10:07
    It's pretty moldy, too. Um, maybe I should put on my gloves. That'll give me a bit of grip in case I need to force the glass.
    10:34
    So, I can put the glass down without smashing it on the concrete.
    10:43
    Although, it's so nasty that I wouldn't really be sad about it.
    10:52
    Almost going to get a new piece of glass certainly. Anyway, all right. Before we look under the hood, let's actually look at the playfield now that we can kind of see it through all of the grime. All right, so what is this? Champion Amusements Limited, Vancouver, BC. Interesting. How the heck did this end up in Vancouver back to Ontario? So weird because this lot all originated in Ontario and then there was two partners. One partner moved to BC, took a bunch of the stuff with him, but this is back in Ontario. So, we got the original apron cards.
    11:49
    Plastics here look good. Target looks fine. Flipper moves freely. It's good. Missing a post cap here, but this plastic looks to be in good shape. It feels kind of thin and flimsy, but it ain't broken. Definitely. Um, it's like a little bit overlapping here, which is different.
    12:16
    This these plastics all to all appear to be good. Is this Yeah, I think that's intact. This guy here. So, all my plastics look good. Another bit of a layered plastic here. So, what else do we got? target spinny wheel that actually spins. Pop bumper. They don't appear to be seized. Drop targets seem fine. I'm assuming that one was replaced at one point, which was weird. Why? I guess these things being plastic just, you know, didn't break. So, you got to replace the whole housing, not just the drop target. Uh lane guides.
    13:07
    Miraculously look intact. All these rollovers. Look how clean these rollovers are. Oh, little sticky.
    13:17
    That's really surprising. I'm not sure how these things are supposed to work, but okay. So, these three want to be left. Let's uh zoom out a little bit. And then they divert. These three all want to be straight. Uh-oh. Or does that one want to go this way?
    13:40
    But we've got uh collect increase loot. Left getaway value increases loot. Right getaway value increases loot. Open right alley reload D increase loot. Reload B. So we got some letters somewhere. Wanted signs. Increase loot up the middle. Oh, here's A and D. So, we're collecting a lot of loot. Um, just looking at the playfield here and like around the pops, around the spinny wheel, I don't see any where the inserts. Yeah, they are cupped.
    14:30
    But that's cute that that is a rollover button. But I don't really see like anywhere on this playfield. That is pretty remarkable.
    14:48
    No U-turn. What's this? Uh, allied electric. Going to have to put on my glasses to read this fine print. Oh, cool. Look at this extra ball when lit insert. That's kind of neat. That kind of reminds me of the old wheels logo that uh was our roller rink back in the day that we'd go to and play arcade games. And there was pinball machines there, too. But that was a little bit before my time, I think. I don't remember the pinball machines there. I remember being on my roller skates playing um arcade games like Dig Dug. So, what else do we got? There's some loot. We don't want to collect this loot. That is bad loot. Same player shoots again. Close right alley. Okay, I'm kind of excited to uh get to the game play, but it's a long ways to go before we get there. All in all, tiny little crack there in the corner. Finally found something wrong with the machine. How about these standups? I look all original and in great shape. One way gate here. This thing is like as nasty as it is. It's mint. That's a bit of an oxymoron, but Ellie, what do you think of it? Hey Ellie, I need your opinion.
    16:24
    Come check out Getaway. >> Yeah. Let me know what you think.
    16:26
    Yeah. Let me know what you think.
    16:26
    Yeah. Let me know what you think. Come on. It's going to be smelly. Might smell like mice. You might like that. Here, I'll open the door for you. Go check it out, Ellie. Here. Ellie. All right. She just wants to tour the area. Maybe she'll go hang out. Yeah, go ahead. You're so vocal. What do you want? All right, you go do your thing. I'll do mine. Don't be uh jumping up on Chad's Gamatron there. That doesn't belong to me anymore. I noticed your footprints on it. I'll have to clean those off.
    17:19
    Oh, see evidence right there. I see I see your hair. Can't fool me. Hey, you stay. Oh, no. Not on the Big Bang Bar translate. I put it uh uh art side down so that you couldn't do any damage cuz I knew you'd be up here, you little dork. Anyway, off you get. Come on. Move your butt. Move it. All right, let's go. So, um, back to get away while Ellie continues being mischievous. Look at that. Every machine going to have cat prints on it now. It's never ending. That's why I have my glass cleaner handy at all times. Okay, so let's pop the hood. See what it looks like. Oh, wait a minute. Hold on. Check it out. There is a ball in here. But you this thing is in wonderful shape. Whoa. Check this out. Oh wow. That might be the rustiest ball that I've ever pulled out of a machine. It's not really a good sign, but I'm not going to fret. This one's so bad that I should put it somewhere. Let's see. What if I put it there? There's no way it's going to stay there. But that's where it's going to go for now. Okay. I just opened the coin door further to see if Ellie wanted to come check out the action. And look at this. This explains a lot of things.
    19:03
    7,660 plays. Now, that sounds like a lot, but for this era machine, it's actually a pretty low number, you know. So, that is why the Playfield is in such nice condition. Got the original coin mech. Oh. Oh, you tricked me. I thought it was a quarter. There's still hope. No, no quarters. Look at this. Slam tilt is here. So, if you knee in the coin door, your game is going to be over here. It looks like to be the diagnostic button. The uh coin switches are clicking. They sound fine. And then coin. Oh, see that's hard on the wrist. You can't do that. So, how the coin return buttons work.
    20:09
    And the bulbs are even there and intact. It's a pretty good start so far. All right, let's get under the hood. Okay, you ready?
    20:34
    Oh, that hurts the wrist. That Oh my god, that hurts the wrist. I was trying to do it onehanded, but I failed. All right,
    20:48
    let's see what we got. Chimes. H I don't know what I was expecting, but we got chimes.
    21:11
    Another fuse there. Couple big caps. The main transformer. I don't know what those are called. Those are neat service plug just with two prongs. And that's the main fuse it looks like.
    21:31
    And then here is the brains. Wow. That is a big board. This is kind of reminiscent of like Atari. You know, some machines the tilt bobs actually come upside down and are supposed to be upside down. So, that's probably factory and normal. Here's where you get into trouble. These edge connectors are probably going to all need to be repinned. Those bottom ones, especially these ones, they might be okay. Um, is there a battery on these boards?
    22:14
    It doesn't look like there's any corrosion. It looks to be in decent shape, all things considered. So, that's pretty cool. And then there is the mouse nest. What is also cool is that haven't spotted anything running around in here yet. Uh, okay. Well, oh yeah, let's look at the underside. We got all this bag of relays here. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Looks like someone hand wrote on all of them. What they're for, I have no idea.
    23:03
    Drop target bank here. So now you can see the drop targets that coil maybe have been has been changed along with uh the whole drop target housing thing. But then again, here's another brown wrapped coil. Some board here. Oh, for the spinny wheel. Okay, that's probably uh like an opto board. Here's the flipper mech. See how this works? There's all your components that Bruce printed off. Starting to make sense now.
    23:50
    Is that broken? No, it looks okay. Uh, flipper relay here. And I do like how the playfield's pretty well labeled. switch ground. What does that say? DC logic. DC logic lights there. AC lights. So, that's pretty cool. I like that. All the bulbs like sockets don't look to be in bad shape. Oh, I got a question. Can I LED this thing and not have them flicker like crazy? And if so, how do I prevent flicker? Is there any sort of thing out there that I can buy, or do I have to add a resistor to every single socket? Because I sure as hell do not want to do that. All right. Well, oh yeah, here's the upkicker. I think this was Wasn't there something that was seized? Maybe it was this. But
    24:54
    a little cleaning should fix that up. But yeah, I don't see any hacks, anything missing.
    25:03
    I don't really see anything wrong, per se, except Let's get a closer look here.
    25:13
    Yeah, that don't look too good, does it? What does that say? Halifax, February 81. Getaway. So, I also have this other board here. Check this out. Haven't really looked too closely at it yet.
    25:43
    And look at these um connectors here. They are in very nice shape. This board could be NOS.
    25:59
    Whether it's set to getaway or not, I have no idea. But definitely nice to have this if I need it. Ally 1977.
    26:14
    So, I guess the plan of attack is to basically just kind of vacuum out this cabinet, clean it up a bit, see if there's any um treasures in that back left corner. Okay, I already noticed my fingers are starting to get itchy. I do have allergies, but uh from now on until this thing's cleaned, going be using gloves. So, I just started with wiping down and vacuuming the neck here and was kind of just like noticing the serial number. And I thought I would check the head just for fun to see if I happen to get a matching serial number, which in pinball it doesn't really matter. It's not like high-end cars or something. Serial numbers don't really matter. But I don't see a serial number engraved anywhere. But look what I do see. 88558
    27:19
    88558. Maybe that's a seven. They probably wrote it down wrong. It's probably like 8855B or 78855B, but you know, close enough. So, technically this is the original head to go with this body. Okay, this cord was pretty filthy, but I got it cleaned up nicely. And uh it surprisingly has the ground pin, so that's a bonus. I'm starting to think, I bet you this was purchased brand new by the distributor in Ontario, shipped out to BC, operated only in BC because there's no Ontario hydro stickers anywhere and no isolation transformer, which is a dead giveaway that it was operated in Ontario cuz those were required. So, and then at some point shipped back to the storage in Ontario where it stayed there until recently. That's my best guess anyways. Okay, I've sifted through all of the crud and this is what I found. A plastic shield popsicle stick. I found the other T-nut. Wait, is that No, I still am missing one. But three or four T-nuts ain't bad. Whatever this is, a fuse, some screws, couple washers, and look the key to the head probably. So, I wouldn't have had to drill that out after all if I had thought to look in the mouse nest. Okay, this will be satisfying to uh deal with. So, bring you along for all the fun.
    29:19
    My shop back ain't sucking too hard. So, I got to uh figure out what's going on. But did you see that? I found a penny. Okay, sure enough. I had a clog in my vacuum hose. So, I just had this long wire. Well, it was on a spool, but I unspooled it and jammed it in as far as it would go until the clog was remedied. Most everywhere. Finally cleaned it all up. This is my reward. 1 cent. Let's finish the job.
    30:13
    All right, I got this Flintstones translite. It's kind of used and beat up. Protecting Big Bang Bar now from Ellie. And Godzilla is going to a new home. Chris Bowen, shout out. It's going to be his first modern pinball machine and he is very excited about it. And in this place, I have something special coming. I'll save that for later. It'll be a surprise. Oh, and I just added this Grazley garage hat to the mix right beside my pinball shenanigans hat. Thanks to Mark Arts at TNT shirts. And also, um, I've had this Robbie the robot for like seven years. Came to me in like five pieces. So, I just crazy glued it together and added an LED. And that is going to go into my Twilight Zone. Pretty sweet. And my vacuuming job is pretty much done for now. Did the front of the cabinet. It's first once over. I'll be uh doing a little bit better of a job. Going to wipe things down, try and clean them up, sanitize them. But look at that. A lot better. And another neat thing about Alli Leisure. If I sound stuffy, it's cuz I'm still wearing a mask cuz it's nasty. Uh check this out. This bottom board is completely covered in a printed paper with all the diagrams on it. and stapled to the actual wood. And the mouse didn't eat at all. So, you can read basically everything. It's fully intact. So, that's pretty cool. All right. Well, it's probably a bit of a short and sweet episode. Maybe I could continue on tomorrow. So, I'm either gonna end it now or extend it and come back tomorrow and do some more stuff. But stick around either way. Have some more getaway fun.