Today is back door day for the New G. Someone had mounted a C backdoor and it rattled. I hate rattles of any sort whether the jukebox is a $500 juke or a $5000 juke. I have the Old G backdoor and actually a C in the garage so I pulled all the doors and stacked them together to see what the difference was. The difference is about 5/16″ thickness. Wandering down the wood aisle at Lowe’s I found a piece of two foot long wood the perfect thickness. Even a blind hog finds an acorn now and then. I had been sweating just how I was going to be able to get a piece of wood just right on the thickness. Using a jigsaw I carefully cut a 3/8″ wide piece from the plank and trimmed to length. After sanding the paint away I glued and clamped the piece in place.
I went through the electrical selector cleaning the slides and their followers. Very straightforward. I was glad I pulled it apart after seeing how dirty it was. No sign of any wires amiss or burns to account for the contact block contact being burned. How that contact got burned may remain a mystery. After wrapping it up I re-installed it in the New G. I unsoldered the five wires from the selection reciever to the credit unit and removed it. The unsoldering only takes a couple minutes and it is a lot easier to work with on the bench rather than in place. It was somewhat sticky so I lubricated the moving parts, took the cancel coil off and cleaned the coil bore and the plunger. They were filthy. I think oil or lubricant gets added here by people mistakenly thinking they are helping. It is a temporary fix at best as any oil attracts and holds dust. Get enough dust and you have dirt. I keep them clean and dry. The coil sleeves are brass which is self lubricating. Cleaning these two pieces freed up the credit unit action considerably.
Someone had put this unit on free play the quick and dirty way by bending the reset ramp out of the way and flipping all the credit switches up. This would be OK except for the fact that the latch bar solenoid stays energized. They can buzz annoyingly or actually catch fire from the heat.There is a chintzy workaround for that too. Cut one wire to the latch solenoid but then you have to press the letter/number buttons down at the same time to make a selection. I am putting one of Vern Schmitt’s fine free play units in this box. It is selectable Free Play or Coin Play. It also has a really cool feature in that if a button is pressed down energizing the latch bar solenoid, after 10 seconds it will release rather than stay down and do bad stuff. ie: buzzing, flaming etc. I finished the credit unit by filing the points as needed and made sure they were correctly adjusted. Operating the credit unit by hand showed all points hitting and the action light and smooth. I re-installed it and re-soldered the wires. It will get an electrical check out when the time comes.
My Seeburg Life 