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Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure


Playfield

Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure

What a pinball machine!  This was my first pinball machine, and it's hard to imagine a better pinball machine to own.  It's a great combination of shots, speed, modes and playfield toys.  This game has it all.


Ball's Point of View

 

Did you ever shop Indiana Jones?

As mentioned earlier, IJ was my first pin.  It was exceptionally dirty.  For my experience level at the time, I did a great job "shopping" it.  I cleaned and replaced everything I could get at.  This included rubbers, star posts, etc.  However, I was afraid to take off either of the ramps.  After several years, I've returned to shopping IJ.  I removed the right ramp and worked on the upper right portion of the playfield.  These following 2 pictures show how grubby it was under the right ramp.

As can be seen by the following picture, the captive ball rubbers were in pretty sad shape.  I expect they had not been replaced in a long time (if ever).

Before and after pictures of the right ramp are shown below.  I was really surprised how dirty it was.  This was especially true for the area below the decal.  The "before" picture doesn't do a very good job of showing the dirt.  Now that it's clean, it lights up much brighter.

Finally, here are two pictures that show the playfield cleaned up quite a bit.

 

Various comments and well as problems & solutions for Indiana Jones
   
COMMENT: My Indiana Jones has the lost plastic.  The "lost plastic" is artwork that is at the back of the pinball machine's playfield.  It is perpendicular to the playfield, so it "sits up" sort of like a movie screen.  It has nice complimentary artwork with rays of light, an airplane, and some trees. Because reproduction "lost plastic" is available, you may not find this very interesting.  However, I believe I have an original "lost plastic".  I don't know how to tell for sure, so if someone does then please let me know.  See the "lost plastic" below.

I also believe my Indiana Jones has prototype in its lineage.  The "lost plastic" was included in the prototypes and removed from production units.  My Indiana Jones has 3 additional lights behind the lost plastic, which is also typical of a prototype.  See the image below.

Prototype Indiana Jones machines also have a Path of Adventure with stainless steel side bars.  My Path of Adventure does not have this feature.
   
PROBLEM: The "Path of Adventure" flasher would never flash
SOLUTION: One of the first issues I found with my Indiana Jones was that the Path of Adventure (PoA)  flasher would never flash.  This flasher is underneath the right ramp.  After various troubleshooting, I eventually used the service manual and followed the flasher circuit into the Driver board.  I was surprised to find that a transistor was missing, and this was the transistor needed for the "Path of Adventure" flasher. 

The Driver board was removed, and a transistor was soldered in place.  The PoA flasher has worked like a charm ever since.
   
PROBLEM: Path of Adventure did not tilt reliably
SOLUTION:

The Path of Adventure (PoA) was impossible to use for the first 6 months of ownership.  At the time I did not know whether it was difficult by design or because of a problem.  I played around with getting it to work better, but had no success.  I was not expecting much because the PoA is one of those parts that appears to frequently go flaky.  One night, while tinkering around, I realized something that I wish I had realized sooner.

The PoA mini-playfield is attached to motor by a rod and a cup.  The rod protrudes from the motor and gearbox while the cup is attached to the PoA mini-playfield.  The cup goes around the outside of the rod, and a small hex nut holds the two together tightly.  The hex nut was loose!  Because of this, when the motor turned, the rod would turn but the PoA mini-playfield would only move a little bit.  Sometimes the rod/cup would move in synchronicity while most of the time the mini-playfield was unresponsive while the rod turned within the cup.  This unresponsiveness made it very difficult to quickly tilt the mini-playfield from on side to the other.

Simply tightening the hex nut made a strong connection between the cup and the rod.

   
PROBLEM: Path of Adventure would stutter when tilting to the right
SOLUTION: On Sunday the Path of Adventure was working great, and then on Monday it was stuttering.  The Path of Adventure is controlled by the second set of flipper optos.  Each flipper opto board can control two flippers.  Indiana Jones has 2 flippers, so the other two optos are used to control the Path of Adventure. 

When the second flipper optos start to go bad, the Path of Adventure misbehaves.  After examining the right flipper opto board, I decided it would be worth the $29.95 for a completely new board.  The image below shows the old opto board.

The board is easy to remove.  I simply removed two screws and disconnected the cable.  I installed the new opto board and the Path of Adventure no longer stuttered.  It also moves much smoother than previously.  Because I didn't have a comparison, I didn't realize it was always stuttering just a little.  The image below shows the newly installed opto board.

 The mini-playfield worked great for several months but then the stuttering problem started again. I found the following.

  • 99.9% of the time the problem only occurs while playing a game (not from diagnostics)
  • Only once was I able to see the stutter using the diagnostics mode
  • I swapped the left and right flipper opto boards and the symptom changed!
  • Now it didn't stutter (rotating either way) but sometimes it would rotate too far and stop working
  • It appeared that the upper opto that limits the rotation of the POA was failing sometimes
  • I replaced fuse F115 and now it works 100%
    •

    Strange? Well... I read on RPG someone fixed their POA by replacing fuses. I also read on marvin3m that "...if the unregulated +12 volts is below about 11 volts, the optic switches can work intermittently!"  I haven't dug up the schematic, but is it possible the fuse was getting flaky and intermittently not letting the 12V through?

    I'm keeping my fingers crossed the problem doesn't "just come back."
       
    PROBLEM: The "random multi-ball" problem
    SOLUTION: My Indiana Jones experienced one of the problems common with the "new" trough design used by Williams when Indiana Jones was made.  The constant vibration from the balls dropping into the trough caused one of the resistors on the trough PCB to develop a cracked lead.  I replaced this resistor and have had no problems since.  The image below shows the new resistor.  It is the on at the top left.  The two resistors to its right, which are blue, are originals.
       
    PROBLEM: The "machine gun" lights on fighter plane do not flash consistently
    SOLUTION: I believe the solder connections on the PCB board containing the fighter's LEDs need to be re-flowed.  I can get the fighter LEDs to operate correctly by wiggling the PCB board.  I have not built up the courage to fix this problem because the solder connections are not exposed and the PCB board is riveted to the fighter.
       
    PROBLEM: Idol stopped releasing balls
    SOLUTION: This was one of those problems that showed up when I was showing off my pinball machine!  I cannot remember the specific details of the problem.  Either the plastic door that drops down would no longer drop down or it would no longer pop back up.  I fixed this problem by disconnecting the door mechanism from under the playfield and reconnecting it.  I believe something got slightly out of alignment. Taking off the mechanism and putting it back on fixed the alignment.
       
    PROBLEM: Drop target decals were nasty
    SOLUTION: I thank the kind pinball community on the internet for this fix.  There are high quality scans of the drop target decals available at http://www.ballsofsteel.net.  You can see the replacement stickers below.
       
    PROBLEM: Aprons and artwork at the bottom of the playfield were nasty
    SOLUTION: As with above, the internet pinball community helped out.  High quality scans are available.  I scraped off the old decals, printed replacements and attached them.  The results are great, as can be seen below.
       
    PROBLEM: Missing Bi-Plane
    SOLUTION: I purchased a reproduction.  I had to paint the red on the plane's body, but it turned out well.

    .
       
    PROBLEM: Playfield wear
    SOLUTION: Yes, my Indiana Jones has some playfield wear.  It appears that some time back an operator let the right flipper get into bad shape, and it repeatedly hit the playfield.  You can see below how some of the artwork has been removed.

    The rest of the playfield is in excellent condition.  This wear spot does not affect game play at all.
       
    COMMENT: Want to see the cabinet artwork?  Look below....

     

    Any comments?

    Have any comments, questions, or just want to say "Hi"?  Drop me a note using pinball@aaarpinball.com.  I look forward to hearing from you!  If you drop me a note, I would appreciate it if you let me know how you ran across my web site.