My Tommy was really clean, and played fairly well, but I have noticed a few things.
The first and most glaring is the damn autoplunger. I hadn’t remembered that this one is different from the ones on my Simpsons Pinball Party, Star Trek, and WPT. (The Star Trek one is different from the other two.) I have the later model, according to the manual.
The problem with this is that the shooter rod goes right through the kicker. Since my mechanism is a little worn, it’s not consistent. I have made some adjustments, but I’m not satisfied with it. I have read that the new mechanism can be installed, and I’m going to do that at some point.
I put in a weaker spring (but one grade stronger than what the manual says) to make the skill shot easier.
I put in a long barrel spring to keep the plunger out of the kicker’s way, but this doesn’t work that well.
I put a little rubber bumpon as an extra stop in the mechanism so that the kicker would remain vertical, and the shooter rod would more easily clear it.
On my autoplunger, one of the tabs is broken off the coil. This is probably because the coil was installed with the lugs to the right, and it got scraped several times by raising and lowering the playfield. The cabinet is damaged. I changed the lugs to point downwards, and move them away from the coil stop, but ultimately I’ll replace the coil when I replace the mechanism.
I had some random multiball problems. Specifically, in situations where the game should have kicked a ball into play (in particular the Encore ball saver) it would release a ball to the trough upkicker, but not fire. No big deal, the actuator on the switch next to the trough ball release (upkicker) needed some adjustment.
Pop bumpers needed their switches cleaned. I also re-gapped them and put in new spoons. The DE brackets are easy to work with, but they just don’t kick as well as a Williams mechanism.
Lubricated the spinners. Much better.
Software upgraded to 4.0. I will try the unofficial 5.0 ROMs soon. I got these from Matt’s Basement Arcade because I don’t have my own burner here.
NVRAM installed. I used an anyPin RAM, but I didn’t put in a new socket. Seems OK so far.
Skill shot didn’t work right. Sometimes it worked, usually it didn’t. A broken diode on the rollover switch in the subway meant that sometimes it saw a skill shot, and sometimes it saw a Tommy hole shot. Solder fixes this nicely.
Prop rod had been removed and left in the bottom of the cabinet. I took a guess as to how to mount this and mounted it.
One of the playfield stands was missing, and the hole was damaged. I never thought I’d wish for the newfangled rods on a Stern game, but here we are. I got some of the ones from Mantis Amusement that have more attachment points. I promptly bent one, but they’re still better than the factory.
I have been playing this a fair amount and it’s kicking my ass. The slingshots, in particular, are especially cruel. They fire the bar into the 3-banks, and the 3-banks fire the ball into the outlanes. I guess I need more practice.