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This page will list details of what I have done during the Fathom Restoration
Project to the
Along with textual descriptions, I will show pictures of the items before and
after the procedures.
Cabinet Items
 | Tilt Mechanisms - This has been removed, cleaned and reinstalled |
| Power Supply & Rectifier - This has been removed, cleaned,
fixed and reinstalled. There is a separate section on the PCBs which
has the details about this item. |
| Lockdown Bar - has been cleaned and polished. |
| Coin Door - The Coin Door was totally removed from the
cabinet. This was necessary in order to repaint the cabinet. The
entire coin door was disassembled, cleaned and put back together. |
| Flipper Buttons - were removed, cleaned and reinstalled. |
| Wiring Harness - all wires and ground lines were cleaned.
While they won't be mistaken for brand new, its close. |
| Inside of Cabinet - The entire inside of the cabinet was cleaned. It was
filthy. The area exposed above the playfield and underneath the lock-down
bar were repainted Blue. |
Playfield
| Cleaning - the field was filthy. I wiped it down and then
went over it with with Novus #2. |
| Metal Parts - were removed and cleaned with a Parts
Polisher/Buffer. They sparkle now. |
| Rollover Lanes - the game was missing 2 of them and a third one was
broken. Chris Munson supplied me with 4 beautiful translucent blue
rollover lanes. |
| Rubber Kit - a new kit was installed. The clean, white rubber
really looks good against the clean, shiny dark colors of the PF and
plastics. Yellow Flipper rubber was installed. |
| Post Caps - new white post caps were installed. They look
great. This really makes a difference when finishing off a game. |
| Pop Bumper Caps - the original ones were still with the game
however the tabs were broken off. I purchased new ones from Steve
Young @PBR. |
| Playfield Touchups - Not done yet
 | A-B-C Lanes |
| "Thousands" Area - 3 spots |
| Insert in center of Playfield |
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| Varathane Sealing - Not done yet. |
Great site showing the location of the 13 smaller (1 1/8") blue posts
and the 22 larger (1 1/4") blue posts --> Fathom
Blue Post Locations
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This is a picture of my Playfield PRIOR to any work being performed. |
| (PICTURE HAS BEEN REMOVED) |
This is a picture of my Playfield AFTER the work was performed. |
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Here's a close up of the wear on the A-B-C Rollover
Lanes. Not good, but not too bad. We'll fix that up like new.
Notice those non-original white lane rollovers - Chris
Munson supplied me with a few he pulled off of a "shot" Fathom
he found sitting out back of a wharehouse. |
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Here's a picture of the Upper PF AFTER the work was
performed.
NOTE: The PF Touchups have not been performed yet (11/01/02). |
| (PICTURE HAS BEEN REMOVED) |
Here's a close up of the center of the playfield before
"I" did any touchups.
There is one worn spot by the
right-Yellow-insert beside the word "Triple".
There is wear in the word
"Thousands" that needs to be fixed.
There are TWO areas
the previous owners touched up with Black paint that needs to be redone - can
you find them? |
| (PICTURE HAS BEEN REMOVED) |
Here's a picture of the Lower PF AFTER the work was done.
NOTE: The PF Touchups have not been performed yet (11/01/02). |
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This is a close up of the lower Playfield.
Notice the broken
plastic in the lower left-hand corner.
You can barely see the chips in the
little plastics by both flippers.
All other plastics are in good shape. Some warping, but a little
heat will straighten them out. |
Playfield Plastics
| Cleaning - I used Novus #2 on them. They shined up real
well. The only issues are with the clear spots that have turned yellow
on the bigger plastics. |
| Flatten warped plastics - this was performed with a Heat Gun.
It worked great. They were pretty warped when I got them and now they
are as straight as if they were brand new.
| Upper Left (Scuba Diver) Plastic |
| Upper Right (Lagoon) Plastic |
| Right (Cave) Plastic |
| Right (Upper Flipper) Plastic |
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| Broken Plastics - The 2 little plastics by the Flippers have the
tips broken off (which is typical). I have replaced the lower
left-hand plastic (by the Apron) - 1/2 of that plastic was broken off and missing. |
| Repros - These have NOT been made yet
| Little Flippers |
| Bottom Left |
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| PinballRescue.com
| Instead of making Repros I may just opt to purchase like-new Repros
from PinabllRescue. They were created during the Spring of 2003.
Here is a link
to the process PinballRescue is making on the project. |
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NOTE: Fathom was produced with two different colors of "blue"
on some of their plastics. The plastics being referred to are:
| M-1330-187-1 - "Scuba Diver" plastic located in upper left-hand
corner |
| M-1330-187-5 - "Triangle" plastic located next to the Spinner
Target |
| M-1330-187-7 - "1-2-3" Drop Target plastic |
Through communications with other Fathom owners, especially Mike
Mahaffey, it has been determined that games for Serial Numbers in the 1000s, the
color is different than on games for Serial Numbers between the 2000-5000
range. It will be interesting to see which color the PinballRescue
repro plastics use.
PinballRescue.com, a company in Australia that made the repro plastics
went out of business. Everyone who ordered their repro plastics received
them. THEY ARE SPECTACULAR!!! The website will be updated in the
Spring of 2004 with more info on these repros (compared to the oringals).
Maybe PinballRescue.com will sell the silk-screens to someone who will continue
to reproduce them...
Playfield Mechanisms
| Rebuilding Flippers (3)
| This is the first time I had worked on these type of flipper
mechanisms. They were still straight forward to remove, clean
& reinstall. |
| I spent about 2 hours on them. |
| The Coil Stops originally on Bally pinball games form this era did not
contain copper insulators around the core slug. This made the
Bally flippers feel "spongy" when the ball hit a flipper in
the UP/HOLD position. The Coil Stops I purchased from Steve Young
contained the copper insulator, however, this caused the flippers to
"stick" in the UP/HOLD position even though I didn't have the
flipper buttons pressed. The coil stops were being "magnetized".
I ended up putting one of the old coil stops back in and this preventing
the flipper from being stuck in the UP/HOLD position - fortunately for
me there wasn't much wear on that coil stop. |
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| Rebuilding Slingshots (2)
| These are straight forward and simple to remove, clean &
reinstall. |
| I spent about 1 hour on them. |
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| Rebuilding Pop Bumpers (3)
| The tabs on the Caps were broken off. |
| I had to replace the Caps with Repros from PBR. The repros use
screws to hold the Caps onto the Ring. I left the screws off and
I'm just using the tabs to hold the caps to the rings. I figure
since its for home use I should be OK. |
| This is the first time I have worked on this type of Pop Bumper.
I spent about 2 hours on them. This design is really easy to work
on - I like it a lot. I was able to rebuild the entire pop bumper
assembly without unsoldering the light bulb socket wires. |
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| Rebuilding Multi-ball Saucers (2)
| These are straight forward and simple to remove, clean &
reinstall. |
| I spent about 1 hour on them. |
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| Rebuilding the Drop Target Banks (4)
| For each Drop Target Bank, I removed it from the game and completely
disassembled all parts. I cleaned every part and then reinstalled
the parts and assembly. |
| Lagoon - Blue Targets
 | The "2X" target was missing so I replaced it with a new
one from PBR. |
| This is a 3 bank target with "remote firing" built into
it. It is a complex mechanical. |
| It took about 2 hours to completely remove, clean & reinstall. |
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| Cave - Green Targets
| The "2X" target was in bad shape so I replaced it with a
new one from PBR. |
| This is a 3 bank target with "remote firing" built into
it. It is a complex mechanical. |
| It took about 2 hours to completely remove, clean & reinstall. |
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| Left Side - Green & Blue Targets
| All 6 of these targets were still intact |
| It took about 1 hour to completely remove, clean & reinstall. |
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| Center - "1-2-3" White Targets
| Brand new "1", "2" & "3" targets
were ordered from PBR and installed. |
| It took about 1 hour to completely remove, clean & reinstall. |
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| Rebuilding Outhole Kicker Assembly
| Pretty generic. Same mechanism that is on every other game. |
| I spent about 1 hour to completely remove, clean and reinstall. |
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| Rebuilding Plunger
| Pretty generic. Same mechanism that is on every other game. |
| I spent about 1 hour to completely remove, clean and reinstall. |
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Lamps, Lamps & more Lamps
All of the lamps have been removed and replaced by new #555 bulbs. Some
of the #555 sockets broke (they get brittle with age and heat). These can
be purchased from Steve Young @PBR (10 for $1.50).
| Backbox |
| Playfield |
| Under Playfield |
| Coin Door |
This page was last updated on 09/04/04
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