Arcade Talk 24/7/365

Finally got a chance to make a start stripping the outrun cabaret I picked up a while back on adverts, good news is it still had an outrun pcb in there which is powering up but cant tell beyond that. Bad news is everything else! The cab is in a pretty bad state, lots of rung screws, rusted bolts, fag burns, lumps of plastic missing, chunks of wood missing, dirt, muck, piss, the full works!!. Soldered back on the video connector on the chassis as it had fallen off but no neck glow, checked voltages/fuses and all seems good so pulled the chassis out and its with Grant at the moment.

Also sent the PCB to mark at retroclinic for a once over and the enhanced roms installed providing the board is good/repairable. I noticed when I picked it up that the wheel seemed to be upside down, after drilling out the ridiculously huge bolts someone had deemed an appropriate manner of mounting the dash I discovered the entire steering mech had been replaced at some stage with one from a taito cab, solonoid from the original was still in place but nothing for it to hit so no thumper. On the plus side the steering itself seems fine and springs back as it should so it'll probably be left as is only turned around the correct way.

Gear stick was also missing the spring so that and a start button and a few other parts have been ordered from arcadefixit. In the meantime I've stripped and bleached the cab, and began reassembling the power tray and cleaning as I go along. This one is going to take some serious work and time but i'am almost finished my current project and have a shed going up soon so hopefully will get some work done on it. Cant touch the paint on the side without it coming off and its pretty bad so will have to be sorted. Contacted a guy in the states who reproduces vinyl sideart but at $250 that wont be happening, muddy says his working on it at the moment though so for now I've ordered matte black vinyl from thisoldgame and will overlay vinyl sideart when he gets it done or maybe try vector it myself.

Currently it almost stripped and I'll be getting the metalwork sandblasted and powdercoated in a few weeks, in the meantime ill be filling and sanding the cabinet. Will try fiberglass and p-38/dolphin glaze to repair the dash plastics as much as possible, ive gotten the color code from a guy on J+ and will get a paint sorted for it. The marquee was just a supersprint one that had been chopped in half to replace the original... oh the marquee light works too

Some pics as it currently stands:







Held in place with these...



Cigarette burns



But hey its Outrun

Super jealous of that project.
I'm going to express my interest if you ever want to sell it or loan it to me.......!!!!

whats that hiding behind the outrun Mozie

Get ready....

Spent the last few weeks with the outrun mini, lots of screws and bolt deliveries because not one bolt or screw taken out will be going back in. Metal plates at the bottom of the cab were horrendous, while some screws fell out others wouldn't budge, i ended up getting a set of screw extractors for these and finally the bottom plates popped off only to reveal that both corners didn't exist anymore and one of the side had broken off completely and was only being held in by the screws of the metal side piece. The wood here and at the bottom of the rear of the cab was in pretty poor shape overall and it was obvious it had stood in water at some stage. I grinded out and treated the rotted wood and used a combination of epoxy, gorilla glue and a recessed metal strap to reattach the broken piece and filled it out with p38/dolphin glaze.




The corners were also rebuilt using epoxy/p38 and knifing putty combo along with a multitude of other holes and missing chunks throughout the cab. Then came the sanding, as the weather hasnt been great it took a few days getting it done whenever a dry spell hit, I took the opportunity to sand and spray the power supply plate, the speaker and fan grills, the metal pcb holder on the back door and the service panel as I could do these in the house, these were caked in rust but eventually I got through them with the sander. I also repainted the rear of the cab and a few times with a matte black and cleaned the rear monitor cover.







The stenciled art is really nice of these but this one was pretty dinged up and beyond repair so I decided to apply a thick matte vinyl to the outside rather than spraying as I've used this before with success and it will make applying sideart easy should it turn up in future. The major problem with vinyl is it will pick up any tiny spec of dust underneath though so after extensive sanding I henried the cab, wiped it off with alcohol a few times, microfibre cloth and applied the vinyl. The finish turned out really well once the prep work is done, I could never have gotten a similar finish with paint without the proper tools and workspace, after cutting the grooves in the corners with a dremel, a little more sanding and some spraying the cab was ready for t-moulding. After the last cab I restored I swore I'd never be without a rubber mallet again and thought I'd finally get to use but as is always the case I didn't need to at all this time. The slot was a nice tight fit for the moulding and it went on with minimal fuss. I fitted the moulding first checking out any problem areas and nicked the tight corners where necessary and widened the slot in some parts before using the glue gun on areas where it was a bit loose.







Also noticed this months retrogamer was an outrun speacial so decided to pick it up, not sure the last time I bought a magazine?


I also cut rubber matting I sourced locally for the footwell, I opted for the grey ribbed matting to match the flyer as I think it adds some color to the bottom of the cab, I used contact adhesive to stick it down and let it cure over night. The little wood block for the accelerator pedal was hanging off and held on with a long staple so I removed it and counter sunk a bolt and washer, filled, sanded, painted it. I used a holesaw on the bottom of the cab so I could put a nut and washer on the underside and this should prevent it from moving again. This will be covered with the bottom plate when it returns from powdercoating. I replaced the fan on the back which was no longer working but its probably not necessary, I also put a new led lighting strip in to replace the old fluorescent one.







In the meantime the chassis had come back from repair as had the game board. Grant had replaced a load of caps, load resistor and bridge rectifier, Mark at retroclinic had repaired the audio on the board, fixed a math error in the road and installed the enhanced roms for me. These allow for attract mode to run in freeplay and music to be previewed in the music select screen, high scores to be saved to backup ram and a few other fixes. In the meantime I had pulled out a spare 19" monitor and done some work on it myself in case a spare was ever needed and I'd been putting it off for a while, I had the picture looking pretty good but couldn't get the screen to stop wobbling, I thought the problem was probably beyond me so I put it to one side and put the chassis I had repaired back on the tube. Picture was lovely here but again it was still wobbling? seemed to be a sync issue but I couldn't have the same issue with 2 monitors surely, one of which had just been repaired?!? After a few hours of hairpulling I finally determined it was down to a dodgy transformer on the power tray. I don;t know why but this transformer made the screen wobble even from a distance, I replaced the transformer with another sega one and the wobble was thankfully gone on both monitors! Least I now have a spare if ever needed.

After replacing the transformer and cleaning the power tray I hooked up the pcb for test spin on the floor and was delighted to see the game boot up, but there was no sound, speakers were completely dead so I guessed the amp was at fault. The amp requires 12v so after checking voltages at the amp I discovered it was only getting a couple of volts from the big 22000uf capacitor. I cleaned the connections but still nothing, after poking around with the multimeter I discovered the connections of the cap were bad so I cleaned it off, resoldered the wires and bang the audio was back. I then played a couple of games on the floor and had a listen to magical sound shower!! unfortunately the problem reappeared the next day and the capacitor again only seemed to be received a couple of volts from the transformer. At this stage I decided to get rid of the worn old power supply and replace it with a new switcher, this had the added benefit of being able to wire up the 12v required by the amp directly from the switcher and bypass the capacitor entirely. The original power supply only outputs 5v. Sound was back! I replaced the speakers with ones suggested over on J+




Next up was the Shifter, it was in a pretty bad state, spring had gone so it was loose and hung in high gear, lots of rust on the stick and artwork damaged beyond repair. I dissasembled it entirely, dealing with a roll pin that would not shift and cleaned it up. I sanded the shaft and the metal shifter plate and drew up replacement artwork and got it printed and applied. The springs and ball bearings for the shifter had arrived in the meantime and made the stick snap back into place as it should and another job is done. Getting there now...



Next up I'am going to start reassembling the cab while waiting for the metal work, accelerator pedal is also off being welded as the hinge was snapped off and I'am still on the lookout for a monitor shroud and an outrun wheel. I also need to start repairing the control panel cover and fill the holes.

Still waiting on bits back from coating should be early next week, in the meantime I sanded, cleaned and sprayed the coin inserts metallic silver, keeping in line with the flyer. One of the inserts was silver but the rest were black strangely. Also sanded and painted the bolts for the pedal assembly as I couldnt find a suitable replacement online.



Then I moved onto the bottom section rubber retainer and the brake pedal, some people have gone as far as to get these chromed but its pretty expensive and unnecessary im my opinion. Once I got most of the powdercoating coating off (paintstripper is great for this!) I began sanding at 80 to get rid of any pitting and worked by way up to 2500 and finished it off with a polishing pad and autosol. Very time consuming but worth it to get it right. Other pedal will get the same treatment when I get it back from welder.

BrownFinger wrote: »

Nice!
This deserves its own thread.

Thanks, coming along now. Most of innards back in the cab too, heres a quick video of it running.

Star Lord wrote: »

Dat ratchetting...

Lol true. Thumper motor not hooked up yet but I may leave it disconnected, it's very loud...

o1s1n wrote: »

Sega R360 for sale on AO :eek:

http://forum.arcadeotaku.com/viewtopic.php?p=454938#p454938

I think Dr Qurkies has one bitd

Steve X2 wrote: »

No

I have the plans for the new cases, but finding it hard to get someone to laser cut the acrylic for me.

http://run-dmd.com/product/svg-files-for-the-updated-j_m_-frame

Remind me tomorrow I'll do it for you.
I've got 3mm clear acrylic