This pictorial is demonstrated on a 1995 Bally Indianapolis 500 and 1992 Creature From The Black Lagoon pinball machines.

However, this technique and replacement procedure is common to all of them made in the last 30 years or longer, with some non crucial and unimportant differences. We'll demonstrate how to replace old parts, rebuild with new parts, fine tune them and so on.

IMPORTANT! Please use due care and precaution while following this pictorial. Use at your own risk. If you do not have any repair or refurbishing experience and/or knowledge, do not work on pinball machine circuit boards, power supply, transformer, connectors or anything inside at all and step away from the machine!

This webpage is for informational purposes only. TXPinball will not be held liable or responsible for any damage that occurs to your pinball machine or any bodily injury or any kind of damage by use or misuse of this technique. If you have no idea what you're doing, step away from the pinball machine! Drop that soldering iron in its holder! This advice is worth EXACTLY what you paid for it. Now, onto the pictorial...

Guess there are many ways to go about this and many ways to do these things. This is ours.

There is NOTHING lamer (save crappy/weak/broken flipper assemblies) when playing a supposedly refurbished or "shopped" pinball machine than weak, crappy pop bumpers, doing 1 or 2 bumps while the ball lazily snakes around them. Totaly lame! TXPinball rebuilds and fine-tunes EVERY pop bumper on EVERY machine we sell.

Closeup picture of the bottom part of the pop bumper assembly with the coil mechanism taken out for inspection.

On this picture, Number 1 Arrow is pointing to the pop bumper leaf switch (characteristically, this switch has a "spoon" that pop bumper pushes down initiating the contact, then the coil fires). Number 2 arrow is pointing to the bottom of pop bumper skirt. Numbers 3 and 4 are pointing to Ring and Rod assembly at the bottom.

Pinball life.com, (click here to go to their website main page) sells all these parts VERY reasonably.
Ring and Rod Assembly
Pop Bumper Skirt
Bumper leaf switch (these barely ever need replacing, though, just clean them thoroughly and you'll be fine.

Let's concentrate on the switch. This is the most important part in the whole thing.

The most crucial part to successful bumping in a detail shot. What we have circled here is the metal blades of the switch.

Even more detail on the blades. The points of the blades that are touching each other are circled. Actualy, THESE 2 points are the most important part to successful and plentiful bumping.

Now, the meat and potatoes of importance here. Why some pop bumpers do only a few bumps and then quit? Because these 2 circled contacts barely make contact. That is the whole secret. See the gap circled here? It needs to be smaller and it needs to be fine tuned and adjusted.

Let's unscrew the spoon switch and examine it more closely.

It's off now, put screws aside and clean it up. You can see black dust on the spoon here from years of neglect. On top side of the pop bumper there is nothing to fine tune and fix, we simply replace everything with brand new parts.

Now, see the smallest, sturdiest blade on the spoon switch that is circled? THAT'S how you adjust the gap between the blades. Do it only with this small blade, do not bend the other 2 with contact points, JUST the small one.

Up close and personal, still not cleaned.

Let's see real fast, how this whole pop bumper thing works... Here is a new bumper skirt. Note a small, skinny cone going all the way at the bottom.

Here we see the bottom of OLD & dirty bumper skirt still installed on the top of playfield. The only thing from this plastic going underneath the playfield is the cone.

Here we see the wires coming from the light bulb housed inside the pop bumper body at the top.

So, in a nutshell this is how it works. The ball rolls over the skirt.

Because the ball is heavy, the skirt slides down and the cone (housed on the switch spoon) bends down, then it's bent up again by the small spring. Those 2 points on the switch blades close thus making contact. As soon as contact is made the coil fires. That's the whole theory here. Simple, huh? This assembly haven't changed in many, many years, because it's simple, superbly engineered and designed and it works wonderfully.

Finaly we cleaned that spoon! Whew, that was dirty. Now, why are we holding a piece of 220 grit sandpaper here?

We are going to use sandpaper and lightly sand the spoon leaf blade contacts. Besides the gap between them that needs adjusting, these points get oxidized over time, and sanding is going to help them be super conductive, shiny and working right again.

Look at the circle and the arrow. You are going to sand ONLY those 2 small contact points lightly, DO NOT sand the whole damn leaf! Just the contacts. As soon as they are shiny, smooth and not oxidized anymore, you're done sanding, so don't get carried away. We want contacts to close and the whole assembly to be responsive and bumping away. That's where fine-tuning will come in the picture.

Again, you can see clearly the gap here between the contact leaves (too wide, needs adjustment). The arrow is poiting again which blade to use for adjustment (the smallest, strongest one).

Now, we see the closeup shot of the cone, blade and the adjustment. THE POP BUMPER WILL NOT POP AND FIRE OF THE GAP IS TOO WIDE AND THE SWITCH DOES NOT HAVE A CHANCE TO CLOSE! That's the whole philosophy, dude. Easy.

Adjusting the gap some more.

OK, now we should have it adjusted and we should be done on the bottom part of this pop bumper for now. Let's move to the top and see what's up there.

Click here to go to Part 2 of this article.

Back to top.

If you have any questions, please email us and we'll try to help you. Remember to do all these steps safely and frequently check and recheck your work.

© TXPinball.com
Back 2 top of page
Back 2 Refurbishing tips