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Part 6: 1997 Sega Jurassic Park The Lost World. Cleaning ramps!

Pinball Shenanigans·video·32m 30s·analyzed·Dec 23, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.022

TL;DR

Jurassic Park Lost World restoration: rubber rings, playfield LEDs, and ramp cleaning.

Summary

Mike Dimus continues restoration of his 1997 Sega Jurassic Park: The Lost World pinball machine, focusing on playfield cleaning and ramp refurbishment. He strips and inventories rubber rings, researches factory variations, converts lighting to LEDs, and thoroughly cleans and restores both playfield ramps. The episode documents detailed restoration techniques including rubber ring sourcing from other collectors, playfield illumination upgrades, and ramp cleaning protocols.

Key Claims

  • A Jurassic Park Lost World machine sold at Captain's Warehouse auction for $5,200 USD

    high confidence · Mike discovered this while researching pricing on Pinside forums

  • Sega was the first and possibly only pinball manufacturer to include a small decal on the top of the drop target in addition to the face decal

    medium confidence · Mike's observation while examining drop target decals provided by Anthony Steel

  • The lane guide posts on Jurassic Park Lost World use two different sized rubbers: 5/16 inch on bottom, 3/16 inch on top

    high confidence · Mike verified this in the machine manual during restoration

  • A switch slot on the playfield was never populated in production despite being tooled into the playfield

    high confidence · Mike confirmed with Anthony Steel that his machine also lacks the switch, indicating this was an incomplete feature

  • Sega produced Jurassic Park Lost World with multiple dinosaur mold variations

    medium confidence · Mike observed different T-Rex plastics in photos from different machines

  • Kevin is ordering $800 worth of transparent rubber rings from Titan to replenish his stock

    high confidence · Mike reported this during his visit to Kevin's workshop

Notable Quotes

  • “I don't have any of the bigger sizes. So this might be good enough to do the lane guides up top. Although these are technically different sizes, so we'll see.”

    Mike Dimus @ ~2:00 — Illustrates the challenge of sourcing correct rubber ring sizes for restoration projects

  • “I have never seen a little top decal on any drop target in the history of pinball. So is Sega the first and only company to do this?”

    Mike Dimus @ ~7:30 — Highlights a unique manufacturing detail discovered during restoration research

  • “This is Pinball Shenanigans here. We leave things up. We don't flame polish.”

    Mike Dimus @ ~38:00 — Establishes the channel's philosophy of practical restoration over cosmetic perfection

  • “I'm very impressed with the quality of the ramp. It's very well made. It's thick. None of these tabs are broken.”

    Mike Dimus @ ~45:00 — Positive assessment of Sega's manufacturing quality on ramp components

  • “Godzilla by Sega. Only 510 made. I had that one many years ago and it was actually a really cool game.”

    Mike Dimus @ ~51:00 — Reference to rare Sega pinball title from his collection experience

Entities

Mike DimuspersonPinball ShenanigansorganizationAnthony SteelpersonKevinpersonJurassic Park: The Lost WorldgamePinball LifecompanyTitancompanyPinball LEDscompanyEddie DazziopersonCaptain's Warehousecompany

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Active pinball restoration community sharing knowledge through direct communication (Anthony Steel sending scans, Kevin providing rubber inventory)

    high · Anthony Steel reached out via message to provide drop target decal scans; Mike asked Pinball Club for information and received direct response from community member

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Pinball Shenanigans establishes restoration philosophy prioritizing functionality and learning over cosmetic perfection (no flame polishing, accepting minor scratches)

    high · Mike states: 'This is Pinball Shenanigans here. We leave things up. We don't flame polish. And you know, who knows? Maybe one day, but I don't think today is that day.'

  • $

    market_signal: Secondary market valuation of Jurassic Park Lost World at $5,200 USD via Captain's Warehouse auction suggests mid-range pricing for this Sega title

    medium · Mike found auction result and noted: 'that's the price that I thought this thing might have been, you know, closer to rather than Pinside's guesstimation'

  • ?

    product_concern: Mike identifies brittle post sleeves on Jurassic Park Lost World that failed during removal, suggesting aging plastic degradation common in 25+ year old machines

    high · Mike removed two post sleeves from Baby T-Rex Zone and noted: 'these old posts are brittle... I kind of did more damage trying to remove them than maybe the next 20 years of playing would have'

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: Transparent rubber ring sourcing is bottlenecked; Kevin depleting stock and placing large reorder ($800) with Titan indicating strong demand or limited availability

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

0:04
I'm Mike Dus [music] and this is Pinball Shenanigans. [music]
0:13
Okay, back for another episode of Jurassic Park Lost World. I don't have a whole lot of time and my objective is to um get this back area stripped down so that I can see exactly what rubbers I need. and see what transparent ones I have. I've got couple variety packs, but I've used up all the most common sizes. Like, that's not going to be helpful. There's basically nothing in this bin that's going to be useful. I've got 1,000 3/4 in rubbers. These, see, I don't have any of the bigger sizes. So, this might be good enough to do the lane guides up top. Although, these are technically different sizes. So, we'll see. Oh, very loose. But if I can get this all stripped down and then see exactly what rubbers that are left that I need. I'm gonna be heading over to Kevin's, I believe, and maybe he happens to have what I don't have in stock. And then I can continue on keeping the entire playfield transparent rubbers rather than kind of leing it up and doing uh half transparent and half black. So, that's the goal. I have um limited time. I've got freaking Rogers cable coming here any minute to deal with some crap. So, that's going to slow me down. But, I was doing a little bit of research. Now, I was looking at this truck here in a photo somewhere on the internet. I saw that there was a piece here on a different truck. So, I thought maybe this was broken off. But this is so clean that I was skeptical of whether that was true or not. This, you know, quote unquote break. So, I was looking around on pin side a lot of photos and let's see. Look at this. So, I'm happy to say that um pretty sure that this piece is not a brokenoff piece. But maybe, just maybe, I don't know, maybe someone added a part of a decal here, or maybe they produced this in two different pieces. One that was, you know, had a leg on this side and not just on this side. Anyway, my piece, I'm pretty sure, is not broken. So, happy to report that. Also, I did find that Jurassic Lost World sold at Captain's Warehouse auction. I don't know when. 5200 US. See, that's the price that I thought this thing might have been more um you know, close to rather than pin size guesstimation. Oh, and I mustered up a couple photos of my single drop target unit. Not mine, but of the unit. and I can compare it to mine because mine has some crazy welds going on here, some repairs. I'm not sure what is going on with that, but I'm probably going to remove my entire single drop target mech when I get my drop target and uh I haven't placed my order yet, but that'll be coming eventually when I get the drop target. I'll remove this whole thing. I'll address it, see what issues there are with it, if there are any. I mean, the thing's working, so can't really fix something that's working, but I'll inspect. Install the drop target. But I've got a couple photos here that I found that'll be good for reference. Also, someone added this giant T-Rex onto theirs, and I thought that looked pretty good. And green post rubber here, and green rubber there. I'll be probably doing green if I have it on this post. And um also you can't just find these drop target decals. So I made a post in the pinball club for Jurassic Park owners and no one replied on the thread, but I did get a message from uh dude named Anthony Steel that I've chatted with and done some wheelings and dealings over the years. He just bought my Deadpool topper not that long ago. He reached out to me and sent me the scans for the drop target decal, which is kind of cool cuz there's actually the drop target decal here on the face and then there's a little tiny piece on the top of the drop target. I have never seen a little top decal on any drop target in the history of pinball. So, is Sega the first and only company to do this? Anyway, Anthony, thank you for sending me the scans. And uh now I can whip up a drop target decal for that. And look here, another This is a factory dinosaur, I believe, coming out of the truck here. But mine is different. So, uh, looks like Sega used a couple different dinosaurs there. So, I'm just learning little things along the way. I think that is about it. So, I'm going to um start uh tearing the rest of this playfield apart. Quick shout out to Kulk's Pinball who sent me this. He is also a top 01% of viewers. Look at this. Watched 149 videos in uh this year, which is like one every other day. It's crazy a that I'm posting that many videos and especially crazy that you guys are watching them all. So, go check out Kulk's Pinball on YouTube. He provides uh pinball content and uh check this out. 149 videos here. Dave Johnson aka Pez Johnson watched 147 videos. I thought that was crazy hard hardcore, which it is, but Cole has two up to you, brother. You guys got to freaking uh compete for next year. See who is the top shenanigander of all time. Anyway, check out Pez Johnson on Twitch as well. He provides all kinds of pinball content as well. Thanks, boys. appreciate the action. Okay, this is just for future me. See these two posts here are short compared to these two guys here which are longer. So remember that, Michael. Okay, I think I removed everything that needs to be removed. Oh, except the lane guides. I got to do those. There quite a few bulbs back here. So, that's good. That'll help to light everything up. When I switch these over to LEDs, they're all filthy.
Pinside
organization
Pinball Cluborganization
Pez Johnsonperson
Kulk's Pinballperson
Mark Velucciperson
Ellieperson
Segacompany
Godzilla (Sega)game

high · Kevin 'is down to the bottom of the barrel on his transparent rubbers. He's literally doing a Titan order today' and ordering '$800 worth of more Titan transparent rubber rings'

7:45
not very clear. these red condom bulbs that are just kind of flopping over.
7:58
You know, it would be ideal to stick in just LEDs uh and hard wire them like I've done in other machines, but we'll see about that. And here are all the parts and pieces in order.
8:16
My egg was repaired and it's not horrible. It's definitely like [snorts] spays out a little further on the right edge here because just the way they repaired it. So, it's should be more like that. But it's not that bad. So, I think it's livable. Anyway, let's see. One, two, three, four. rubber, big rubber rings. And then uh got a little small post rubber here. And then one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight of those guys. So, I'm going to see what I have in stock. See what I need. And um then hopefully Kevin has what I don't have. Not sure if you all know this, but uh these are actually two different size posts on these lane guides and two different sized rubbers. It's very very subtle, but look at this. 516 and
9:25
316, I think. Uh let's just look at the manual. So you can see here these bottom ones are 10 and the top ones are 11. So 10 is 516, 11 is 316. So I don't know how why they did that and how important it is to make sure they're oriented correctly. You would just think they would be the same, but they are not. So, it's the bigger one that goes at the bottom like so. The thinner one goes at the top. Now, I don't have both those sizes. What do I got? 3/16. So, I've got the smaller size. So, these are pretty flexible. So, I'm just going to put the same size on both. But, just make sure I orient it correctly. But, yeah, there there's your uh tip for the day. All right. Here are some of the old rubbers. And this is what's left in my stash. So, this is a pinball life sample kit. I've bought a couple of these. They're great. Can't remember where I got that. These are 2 and 1/2 in slingshot rubbers that I bought like eight years ago or something. I bought like a 10 pack of these and over the years they turned pink or orange. So I don't really want to use these on anything unless somehow pale tobacco matches somehow. So this is a kit that I got a sample kit that I got from Titan. You can see the logo there. So that's why these are separate. And this bag is from Pinball LEDs. Eddie Dazzio. These are a little bit more opaque than transparent. So, they don't quite have the same look. That's why I've got all these separated. But anyway, I am down to well, having used two black rubbers on these posts, that freed up the two that I needed for the lane guides. So, they're ready to go. So, I don't know. Kevin said he's down to the uh bottom of the barrel on his transparent rubbers. He's literally doing a Titan order today. So, I'm going to bring these three rubbers over and see if he happens to have them. If not, I'll have to figure something out. Maybe I will just tack onto his order. But then I might have to wait 2 weeks before I can start reassembly, which I was kind of hoping to do sooner than later. So, we'll see about that. But from the stash that I had, at least I was able to get 95%
12:30
of the playfield rubbers done. So, now it is time to clean up the dirt and grime. from 30 years of playing. So, that's next. Okay, I think I am done cleaning. Um, I think it was Mark Valuch that suggested I get one of these on Amazon, and I do find it very handy.
13:14
I use it often and uh it sure beats buying compressed air over and over again. It's good to get your little bits of dust and debris out of all these lamp sockets before you uh LED them. So, here is the after.
13:37
It's looking much better. Oh, also I've got a switch slot here and no switch. So, I have to uh investigate what is going on there. I imagine there's supposed to be a switch there, but you never know. Could have been a thought in production or in pre-production and never made it to production. So, I will uh investigate that and Pop in some LEDs next. Okay, let's have a look at this uh switch slot here.
14:20
See any spot where a switch looks like it was located?
14:29
I'm thinking there's a couple dimples right there. I'm thinking that's something that never made production, but I'll pull up some photos, ask some questions, and uh find out for sure. I didn't even notice Ellie came down. She was just chilling out in her little bed for who knows how long, sleeping on the job as usual. All right, Ellie, you're a good kitty. Okay, I've got all my LEDs and lane guides installed. Move this rubber from over here to here. And absolute worst case scenario, I'm going to leap up these three rubbers in black. I do have three black post rubbers as well. Gosh forbid. That may just be how it ends up. So, let's just turn it on and see how things are looking.
15:36
My pop bumper lights are not [music] working cuz it has to go into a track mode, but it doesn't want to do that when it's missing three balls.
15:51
Hello. This will come back. There we go. And hey, only two of my bulbs work. I went with natural white for the pop bumpers since uh they have clear. Whoa. What is going on here? Did I mesh the contacts? No, they look fine. Maybe we got a broken wire situation here. Oh, wait. Hold on. No, just had to do a better job of inserting. Okay, there we go. Yeah, since the pop bumper caps are clear.
16:39
Going to do that. H I don't know. Don't really love it. I got to say, just the whole bulb being at the very top and not really illuminating very well, it would be nice if I just went with the the hardwire LED and had it right at the very bottom so it illuminates everything a little more evenly, but oh well. I think I'm just going to live with that cuz uh I don't really want to do all that, especially with this playfield not being very accessible. That would be a back and neck breaker. I can just insert a few bulbs and call it a day. So, I think that's uh it for that. Maybe I can reinstall a couple things actually. So, I'll do what I can. Okay, I made a change. I just didn't love those uh natural white LEDs with a tinge of blue. And I thought, well, the game was designed with red in mind. So, I started with the frosted dome style reds and then I got into the other goodie bin. I managed to find three flat tops so that the profile is not as long and tall and I can center the light. That's much better. All right, the Amir skiing one aka gold balls has showed up and uh we're going to take off now. Going to head over to Kevin's, drop off a couple things, see if he's got any rubbers for me and uh this will just go on pause. So, I'll be back later. Okay, I'm back. I raided Kevin's dwindling stash of transparent rubber rings and uh he just ordered $800 worth of more Titan transparent rubber rings. So uh the stash will be replenished, but I grabbed five. I've got three different sizes and hopefully they will fit the last three rubber rings and then the only black rings left on the game will be this guy and then these two which you can't even see. I did start reassembling what I could I've got this plastic on top bumper caps the egg this plastic and now with these um rubbers I should be able to uh reassemble everything basically. So, let me just see if these rubbers fit for starters. Okay, so they do fit very nicely, these two. This one is a little bit loose. Could afford to be one/4 in smaller, but that's not really going to affect anything in the grand scheme of life. It's going to be just fine. And also, I did get confirmation from Anthony Steel. He checked his machine and there's in fact no switch in his. So, that is something that they were thinking about. and never add it in during production. So, I don't need to worry about uh finding a switch for that. But now I can start uh reassembling. I actually just found another rubber ring in my own stash that fit that even better. And now I can see that the uh opakqueness is a little bit different between the two brands, but uh that don't bother me none. So there we go. I can return three of the five rubber rings I stole off Kevin, who is also back watching me closely as I wash my pinball plastics. Did you catch that? I almost made little boo boo. That would have sucked cuz uh to unb boo it after I installed the ramps would have been a royal pain in the nuts. So, this is not the right rubber. This one should be though. We need to triangulate. Oh,
20:50
easier said than done. And now that is how that's supposed to go. All right, the back is done. Everything's reassembled. Looking good. I did install a green cliffy post here. Good thing, too, cuz this post that I removed fell apart. Which reminds me that I really should replace that post and that post right there cuz those are probably also very brittle. So, I'm going to have to um remove this plastic, remove the back of the egg, and then I can access that. No biggie. But that's all I've got time for for the moment. Uh I got to do some Christmy stuff and then uh it'll be cleaning the ramps and installing those, but that will still be part of this episode. I think that would be a good way to finish this episode. There goes Ellie. Okay, I'm back again. I removed the uh two post sleeves from baby T-Rex zone. I only have one transparent green rubber left out of all these posts. So, I went with yellow and I think it looks pretty good. But again, you will probably never really ever see these. I just wanted to um change them because these old posts are brittle and uh they might have been fine. Who knows? But I kind of did more damage trying to remove them than uh maybe the next 20 years of playing would have. But whatever, they're changed and they should be good for uh the next 50 years. So, now I'm going to um get into uh cleaning these ramps up. This will take a little bit of time. Have a look at the before. I'll remove that top plastic so I can get in there. Get these ball trails and really see how dirty it is. The entrance and this guy too. So, I'll just pull up a chair. Maybe right here. I don't know. This almost be better to like do in the bathtub cuz these ramps are so long. They're not going to fit in the laundry tub. P.S. My plumber was here and he fixed my drippy tap today. I was going to do it myself, but eh, my plumber is pretty awesome and very reasonable, so charged me 30 bucks and no more drip. I said no more drip. Trust me, we're good. Anyway, yeah, these won't really fit too well in there, but I'm not exactly sure. I'm going to go take a bath with these things, so I'll figure it out. All right, now that I did this post and these posts, this black post kind of just stands out. And I went digging and I found a clear post. And I went digging deeper and I found a green 316 rubber. So, I think that I'm gonna add that and uh then get to these ramps. All right. It's pretty subtle and it's um I don't know, may or may not look better, but I'm going to leave it. Okay, let's have one look at this ramp before I clean it up. I got off the ramp protectors, this switch, this switch with the plastic, and I'm probably just going to leave on the flashers. And I am going to just douse this thing in the laundry tub. That is my plan.
24:54
I expect it to look a lot better. May not be perfect cuz I'm not going to flame polish this thing. This is uh pinball shenanigans here. We leapt things up. We don't flame polish. And um you know, who knows? Maybe one day, but I don't think today is that day. But I'll tell you that this will definitely look a lot better in about 20 minutes. Okay, first ramp is done. I may have put on some fine scratches using a magic eraser. So, on the next ramp, I'm going to maybe not use magic eraser. I did go over it with uh Novvice to uh to help remove fine scratches. And all in all, it turned out great. But, uh you got to be careful with the magic eraser. It is abrasive. So, I am also very impressed with the quality of um the ramp. It's very well made. It's thick. None of these tabs are broken. I like that they use the metal ramp protectors on either side. The ramp flap still perfect. The ramp entrance has no cracks. I mean, it also helps that it's the same owner for most of its life. But everything did really clean up nicely. And uh now I got to check these bulbs, don't forget. But yeah, I mean, if you look real close, you might be able to see some fine scratches, but uh and here's actually some pretty good scratches here, but that's it's kind of hard to show. That's just probably because it was rubbing on some metal post or something. But anyway, one ramp done. Moving on. Okay, so both those flasher bulbs did test fine. But these are very inaccessible. You have to pretty much remove the ramp and then remove the screw and the nut. You can't really bend those out. So, both of these got brand new flashers. And I was just thinking of all the different Sega games I've had. And I thought of another machine, a DMD that I have had that is actually rare. Godzilla by Sega. Only 510 made. I had that one many years ago and it was actually a really cool game. I enjoyed it. Okay, time for ramp number two. And now that these ramps are side by side. Can really tell. Wow, that is uh quite the before and after. Okay, ramp number two is disassembled. I didn't realize it actually came in two pieces. So, that makes life a little bit easier. I've got the cover removed. This switch. This switch. And uh this is nice and portable. Now that'll fit in the laundry tub no problem. It is definitely super filthy. And the other half here is not as bad,
28:28
but it will uh also clean up nicely. I'll go a little less hard with the magic eraser. Maybe I will try to not even use it at all. We'll see how that goes. I look like I'm a thousand years old. Oh my god, so dry. All right, ramp number two is done. And boy oh boy, does it ever look good. I didn't really use the magic eraser on it, but um still the tiniest fine scratches. I think it's kind of inevitable if you're rubbing anything on this surface, even my microfiber cloth, but I did notice it and the thing just glistens now. I changed both the bulbs, flasher bulbs. One was actually burnt out, so I got brand new flasher bulbs in there. And I like use steel wool on all the ramp guards. Oh, I forgot to check these switches just to make sure they're activating when they should. I did that on this ramp. I got to do that next. But uh two switches, clean this plastic. And then it is uh installation time. All right, listen for the click.
30:04
click. Some switches just click louder than others. This one's so subtle.
30:20
That's good. Okay, I'm done installing the ramps. took a little while. A lot of feeding of wires and awkward screwing. So, I've got rid of my table that is officially folded up and I thought together we would turn on the machine, kind of see what it looks like illuminated. Here it is with no lights. They look beautiful. just crystal clear compared to before. So, let's turn on the machine
31:06
and have a look. The darn near finished product here. That is looking good. Very well illuminated. a lot of um they didn't really skimp out on the general illumination, so that's good.
31:32
Let's see what happens if I turn off the overhead light. Looks good. Looking forward to LED the underside of the playfield. That'll really bring this fully into life. Next episode, I shall repair my T-Rex egg, install that. Got to place an order sooner than later. I got apron cards underway,
32:09
so things are starting to come together. Oh, another thing I got to do, deal with that uh backbox light. So I think that is a wrap. This has probably turned out to be longer episode than I was anticipating, but it was a very productive one. So thanks for watching.