Thunder
Blade by Alan Lewis
NOTE: I have sold this game so I no longer have it.
Although
I'm not a video game fan I am a sucker for video games hooked up to large
complicated mechanisms!
Well,
I found one on sale locally and I couldn't resist.........now what do I do?
This
is a 1987 Sega Thunder Blade sit down game. It was also offered as an economy
upright cabinet game. Same game, different cabinet. Here's how my brain works:
Upright cabinet game: No Interest
at all.
Sit down cabinet game: Wow, What
a Great Game!
BUT......always
a big but with used arcade machines: They are never in good shape by the time
you get them, years after they have been used and abused in arcades. This one
was no exception. Very dirty, scratched up, cracked monitor housing, extremely
sloppy control stick assembly, fuzzy monitor image, etc.
Here is my machine after being fixed
and cleaned:
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Here's the one rule of thumb for fixing old arcade game machines: You will not
find anyone who has the parts you need to fix it. You will actually discover
years later that the parts were out there on a shelf somewhere but the person
who has them doesn't know what they are, or they don't advertise so you can
find them. I always get a arcade machine that draws blank stares from the parts
supply experts..."Oh, those parts were gone years ago, sorry..." or
"Parts for What!?"
If
you want to be able to find repair parts then only buy the very popular arcade
games such as PacMan and Space Invaders. Other than that you are usually on
your own for repairing.
But that's one of the rewarding challenges of these old games!
FIRST
ITEM TO FIX:
Cracked plastic monitor housing. This one is pretty easy, remove all the screws
and separate the two halves of the housing. Clean the inside surfaces and use a
fiberglass repair kit from an auto parts store (the one with the glass matte
and the resin). Bond the repair matte over the cracks from the inside, after
flattening the cracks so they fit together tightly.
I
took the glass monitor protector off and cleaned it. Then I noticed that there
was a fluorescent lamp over the monitor for backlighting the gauges. I didn't
realize it was there when I bought the machine. I replaced the starter and lamp
to get it to work. I also had to add some self stick foam weatherstripping tape
along the top edge of the glass protector to stop the light from washing over
the monitor surface.
SECOND
ITEM:
Fuzzy monitor image. Since the housing is off might as well fool around with
the monitor adjustments. The image was very washed out and out of focus. It
seemed to me like it had the brightness cranked way up. But nothing is that
easy, is it? Well, sometimes it is that easy. I turned down the brightness and
bingo.....the monitor image was crisp and clear and had great color. I also
found a sticker inside that said the monitor had been rejuvinated in 1996. Good
to know.
THIRD
ITEM:
Appearance. I cleaned the entire machine. Then I removed the step and sanded it
down and painted it matte black. I painted the skids semi-gloss black. I used
auto rubbing compound on all the remaining painted surfaces to bring back the
color and smoothness. The decals were also very dirty and the rubbing compound
cleaned those up very well.
FOURTH
ITEM:
Sloppy control stick. This was the challenging one! I had to completely
disassemble the control stick mechanism both outside and inside the cabinet.
Here's what it looks like:
Here
are the wear items:
The plastic ball joint where the
control stick enters the cabinet.
The universal joints connecting
the stick to the fore/aft carriage
The carriage nylon guide strips
My
machine had about 1/2" of free play in all directions (1" total
movement in a dead zone). It was very difficult to play this game and this free
play caused a lot of damage to the mechanism and cabinet over the many years of
ignorance. You had to slam the control stick with a lot of force to get small
movements out of the helicopter. Time to fix this!
The
plastic ball joint was worn way down, it moved 1/4" back and forth in the
socket.
NOTE:
There is a new plastic ball joint from IGUS that could be pressed into a housing
and sleeved to fit the control stick. I decided to try the repair approach,
using the new piece as a backup plan.
The
repair of the outer ball joint housing consists of separating the housing (it's
two pieces), cutting a section out of the top piece and screwing it back on.
Then making a new spacer block to put underneath. This tightened up the ball
socket fit.
The
ball I.D. was completely worn away and rounded. I found that a 1" copper
plumbing pipe fit perfectly over the control stick metal tubing. I sanded the
plastic ball I.D. to be a press fit onto the copper pipe. I pressed the pipe
into the ball and filled in the gaps with JB Weld epoxy.
Remember
that the copper pipe must slide up and down on the control stick metal tubing,
not be a tight fit.
This is what it
looks like when done and slipped over the control stick.
Put some
lithium grease on the control stick so the copper pipe is lubricated. The
plastic ball must be able to slide up and down the control stick during game
play.
I made the
copper pipe long to take out some of the free play due to the clearance of the
pipe to control stick.
Next
is tightening up the fore/aft carriage that the control stick is connected to.
Mine was completely mangled and worn out. Someone had actually hammered one
side of the carriage to tighten it up! If it would have been fixed properly
years ago this game would have been still collecting good money in an arcade.
The
carriage side piece was bent back to be flat.
The
carriage uses nylon wear strips as guides for the back and forth motion of the
control stick. Sure would be easy to just buy the wear strips and replace them.
But as you know from the rule of thumb.........
I
figured out a way to get new flat surfaces back into contact with the carriage
sliding guide pins. Remove the nylon strips, cut them in half lengthwise, flip
them over and drill new mounting holes in the carriage and strips.
Worked
like a charm.
This shows the
nylon wear strips after being cut, flipped and screwed back on the carriage
sides.
After
assembly of the carriage I added two threaded rods across the side plates to
stiffen the assembly and allow minor free play adjustment as the nylon wears.
The
last item to fix on the carriage was the universal joint. The cross bolts that
fasten it to the control stick and the carriage were loose, lots of free play.
No matter what size bolt I put in the joint had a lot of free play.
I
decided to change how it was fastened. I changed to using set screws in the
universal joint contacting a flat on the shafts. I ground a flat area on each
shaft and drilled and tapped a 1/4-20 thread in the universal joint housing,
top and bottom of the joint.
After
slipping the u-joint onto the shafts the set screws are tightened. This took
care of the free play in the u-joint.
After the
carriage is installed the control stick is dropped into the ball joint housing.
Lithium grease lubricates the plastic ball joint.
The control
stick is slipped into the carriage u-joint and the set screw tightened.
The top ball
joint housing piece is screwed onto the bottom. Tighten the screws enough to
have a tight joint for free play but loose enough to rotate freely
Later
I added a thicker spacer underneath the ball joint. I wanted to raise the ball
as high on the stick as I could to reduce the amount of motion for the
helicopter to move. It makes the game respond quicker to control stick
movement.
I
use MDF for the spacers.
THINGS
LEFT TO DO:
Sand and paint more of the panels
and control stick.
Get the flashing lights working
in the seat back. There are two strobes inside that must be worn out. Nothing
flashes. I am thinking about replacing them with automotive turn signal bulbs
and a flasher unit running off the 12 volts on the game power supply.
Figure out what that little
circuit board inside of the housing (left/right potentiometer location) behind
the control stick does. It isn't connected.
Make a monitor housing
visor/shroud that is missing on my game.
Find a manual for the sit down
game. I have one for the upright, and it did help a lot with setting the input
pots for the control stick input signals, and for setting free play and game
difficulty. But a wiring diagram for the sit down game would be very helpful.