Gottlieb SPIN WHEEL Pinball Sample Machine

1968 four player

Alan Lewis

I found this machine at a garage sale a couple of miles from my home. I usually don’t have much interest in four player games but it was so close to me that I took a look at it. It was in very good to excellent condition. Backglass like new, playfield almost like new. The cabinet was in good shape, legs and coin door rusty.

I still did not have much interest but I wrote down the s/n and looked it up. OK, now I’m interested. The s/n was

01023 S

A sample game! Not only that, when I went back to look at it closer I found this inside the cabinet:

A letter stating that this is a sample game and giving instructions of what Gottlieb expected from the operator receiving the game.

After cleaning with Magic Eraser and alcohol, then waxing with carnuba wax and replacing the rubber rings the playfield looked like the day it left the factory.

Rusty legs and coindoor

Naval Jelly and steel wool cleaned them right up!

The spinning wheel feature didn’t work when I bought the machine. I traced it to the stepper mechanism that activates the spinning wheel. First thing was the rubber grommet that suspends the solenoid bracket was rotted. I replaced that.

Second thing was the rotating c’weight wasn’t being activated by the cam lobe. I reset the stepper to the beginning position and loosened the cam lobe setscrews on the shaft. Then I rotated the cam lobe to just touch the weight then moved it a little bit past that and locked the set screws.

Another problem I had was an erratic ball/player advance. It would always play a one player game OK except that on ball 3 it would not advance to ball 4 but rather advance to player 4 ball 3, then it would go back to player 1 ball 4. After months of fiddling with the player/ball stepper in the backbox I finally figured out that the stepper advance spring was too weak and the stepper needed cleaning and lube. I tensioned the spring and cleaned the advance mechanism and all is well.

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