Zaccaria Magic Castle Refurbishing project - Part I!

MAGIC CASTLE (SS) 1984 - PLAYFIELD REFURBISHING

Zaccaria Magic Castle is in my opinion a very nice pinball machine with a fun ghost theme which is amplified by the different sounds and phrases that occur when playing, for example the tilt warning, it's a voice that says - Ajajaj! No advanced ramp shot or multi-ball is present, but it is enough fun to succeed Mr Zaccula to appear right behind the door in the backbox or to save the ball in a fraction of a second with the extra flipper on the right outlane. I think this machine will fortify the collection for many years.

Below, a variety of pictures show the playfield before the refurbishing.

LOWER AREA OF PLAYFIELD

The area at left slingshot.

Area around flippers.

Flipper rubber looks very tired.

The area at right slingshot.

Zaccaria uses a ramp as ball shooter lane which saves space and provides the opportunity to make use of the full width of the playfield.

MIDDLE AREA OF PLAYFIELD

"MFN ZZZ" and "COPYRIGHT 1984"!

The Magic Castle!

UPPER AREA OF PLAYFIELD

CLEANING PLAYFIELD

I start by removing the playfield plastics and then unscrew all plastic posts.

A lot of dirt to be find on the playfield underneath the playfield plastics.

On the inside of the cabinet I found a serial number #132964.

The playfield plastic over the right slingshot is the only playfield plastic that is broken, and luckily I found the missing piece so I can repair it.

The rubber ring around the slingshot was barely held together when I removed it, after many years of storage of a pinball machine the rubber rings is usually dried and worn.

The rubber tip on the ball shooter will usually take a lot of beating.

The ramp up to the drawbridge, when the ball comes up there Mr. Zaccula can be seen behind the doors in the backbox.

More dirt underneath the playfield plastics.

Tired rubber rings, to be changed for new ones.

Drawbridge with pivoting wire forms to get the ball to run down to the playfield again, a little different solution.

There are points to collect on the drawbridge, dr. ZEKYLL 300,000 points.

Zankenstein scores 500,000 points.

Zaccula scores a special.

Here is the drawbridge dismounted from the playfield and it is connected with one connector.

Lamps underneath the drawbridge.

The ball arch underneath the drawbridge has roll-over buttons in the playfield, the roll-over buttons switches needs to be adjusted since no points are recorded when the ball rolls over them.

Here is the entry where the ball comes down to the playfield from the ball shooter, it is possible to let the ball rest on the top flipper if you not shoot away the ball too hard with the ball shooter and then make shoots for the orange drop targets.

Upper right flipper with pop bumpers.

The ball shooter lane is above the playfield plastics and consists of three brackets and three metal rods, really neat when they are polished with Autosol.

Zaccaria Magic Castle has a react flipper on the right outlane, when the ball runs out on the right outlane you can save the ball, it can be a bit difficult to coordinate when to press the right flipper button to save the ball into play again.

This is how the rubber rings looks after many years in the pinball machine.

Underneath Apron a lot of dirt is gathered and this area deserves a proper cleaning.

Lower part of the playfield.

Each flippers consist of two parts a bat and a cap, on Zaccaria Magic Castle the flippers is originally red, so they will be replaced from blue to red flippers.

MYLAR REMOVAL

Mylar at pop bumpers had come off so they were just to lift off and then clean the playfield from dried glue residues.

The big mylar who covering the playfield from pop bumpers and down had begun to fall off at different places and it was dirty and scratched, and it had come loose around the insert "6". Insert "6" had fallen down underneath the playfield surface and made the mylar to crack around the insert edge. All this together made me to decide to remove all mylar and I hoped that no paint would come off from the playfield during the removal. There is always a risk and a lot of work to remove an entire mylar from the playfield, last time I did this at Earthshaker I had to work much to remove sticky glue residue from the playfield and there is always a risk that the paint around inserts will come loose.

I use Label Off from Biltema a Swedish auto parts store, it is used to remove stickers, a very good product that does not damage the playfield but solves only the glue underneath the mylar. I first used a small amount of Label Off and the mylar came off pretty easy. Then I noticed that if I use plenty of Label off the glue completely dissolve and almost no adhesive remained on the board. This saves a lot of work to clean glue residue after mylar is removed.

Note: Label off - is a special solvent which solves glue and it smells lemon.

If you let the Label Off flow underneath the mylar at the same time when you pull the mylar extremely slow the glue will be almost dissolved and the mylar comes off from the playfield pretty easy. The best method I found was to have the playfield a bit tilted so that the Label Off flows toward the mylar while you pull it off.

Here we see the sunken insert "6" and the only paint lift off was at insert "7" when removing the mylar, thanks the lord for that.

POLISH PLAYFIELD

The playfield is cleaned with Novus #2 and then furniture polish and finally polished with Carnauba wax.

Cleaning the playfield with Novus #2.

Wire forms polished with Autosol and a Scotch Brite pad.

To protect the playfield when I polish metal rods beneath flippers I put a piece of paper between the playfield and rod.

TEAR DOWN ASSEMBLIES

The playfield taken out of the cabinet and now it is time to disassemble all the devices on the underside of the playfield for review and cleaning, drop target banks, pop bumpers, stand up targets.

All details on the underside of the playfield will be cleaned and all diodes on the solenoids (coils) and contacts (Switches) will be replaced, Coil diode = 1N4004, Switch diode = 1N4148.

The playfield is put on and restrained at two bucks so now it's easy to work with all units.

There are some units to go through and also all lamps are replaced from #44 to #47.

Cleaning of switches for inlane/outlane.

Roll-over switch on inlane / outlane consists of two parts in plastic, a plastic strip that sticks up through a hole in the playfield, a bit different from what you're used to see, where the traditional is that a bent metal wire goes up through the playfield.

On the underside of the playfield are two fuse 3.15 A situated for the solenoids.

Right flipper unit with extra switches to activate the upper flipper.

Single moving target which is located on the middle of the playfield.

Drop target bank disassembled for cleaning.

Many screws are there to keep track of, have you gone through a unit earlier you know how they are constructed but take as much photos as you can so you remember how to put it together again.

All parts are cleaned in the ultrasonic cleaner, then rinse parts under running water.

UPPER DECK - THE DRAWBRIDGE

This is how the drawbridge looks before cleaning.

The plastic that sits on the upper deck was cracked so I repaired it with two component glue (Araldite) and to strengthen the repair, I glued a piece of plastic as a reinforcement on the back.

Drawbridge cleaned.

PLAYFIELD PARTS REBUILD

Final polishing of the playfield before reassembly of playfield parts.

Now the playfield again has a look that kills after all the polishing.

Area at the ball arch.

Upper playfield after the drawbridge and the rubber rings are fitted.

The ceiling above the drawbridge had split into three parts. Luckily I came across a used ceiling on E-bay and I think that it had become difficult to repair the existing ceiling. Thanks to Peter in Germany for offering me the ceiling.

The attachment holes in the replacement ceiling had broken down. I had to create new attachments holes to the ceiling with help of plastic pieces with drilled holes and then mount to the ceiling towards this plastic pieces.

Here we see the plastic piece with the drilled hole attached to the ceiling with hot melt glue.

It is not visible that the ceiling is glued to the plastic pieces since the attachment holes is below the upper surface of the ceiling.

The ceiling fitted and it went out quite well.

Rubber ring #1" that appears at the bottom of the picture became too thick so drop targets jam against it and never drop. I had to replace this rubber ring to two 5/16" rubber rings.

Pop bumpers and upper flipper, I thought for a long time whether I would have red or black flipper rubbers installed, original according to the Flyer is white flipper rubbers installed, but the choice fell on black flipper rubbers when it might give better feeling during play.

React flipper use a #1" rubber ring as flipper rubber.

Area underneath Apron cleaned.

Apron on mine Zaccaria Magic Castle belonged to a Soccer Kings pinball machine, but on E-bay I found a correct Apron which belongs to Zaccaria Magic Castle and the happiness was overwhelming, thanks to Peter in Germany.

Note: The upper Apron in the picture is the correct one for Zaccaria Magic Castle.

As I mentioned earlier, blue flipper bats was installed on mine Zaccaria Magic Castle and original red flipper bats is used so Peter could also offer me red ones.

Red flippers installed.

Also here the drop targets jams in the rubber ring #1" that appears most left in the picture so I replaced it with two 5/16" rubber rings.

Playfield plastic above right slingshot repaired.

As luck was, the broken part was found when the children played with a ball on the playfield.

Plastic parts is glued together with two component glue, Araldite.

Right slingshot re-mounted and switches adjusted.

Here we see the red plastic fins come out of holes in inlane/outlane, really neat.

Now it only remains to install all playfield plastics after the complete playfield is thoroughly gone through and cleaned on both sides, see page Finished project for the final result.

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