Star Trek Next Gen. part identification

[kungfucop]

Does anyone know the part number or size of the post or peg that supports the upper part of the ball lane guide? Or better yet, know where I can purchase one? It's the post under the metal portion of the ball lane guide close to the flippers. It is not a hex-post since it is round/smooth all around and has a threaded hole for a phillips screw. It is a much smaller and thinner post than most other's I've seen. For the life of me, I can't find anywhere in the manual that identifies this post.

Not my images but I've circled the part that I'm referring to:
laneguide_1.jpg

Here is the metal lane guide that sits under neath the plastic (close to the slingshot). The phillips screw goes into the thinner top portion of the lane guide. I believe the same post is used on both the left and right flipper sides.
laneguide_2.jpg

[drcrippen324]

come across these on other williams tables too is it the ones with the groove o mount a rubber or the smooth ones if it helps there is both on bride of pinbot but havent got a manual any more

[monkeyboy]

A bit hard to tell from the pic, it's pretty small.

Does it look like any of these Playfield Posts - Metal: pinballlife.com

You could try contacting them. I've found them to be very helpful.

[daverob]

The part is just a small round tubular metal spacer 1/2" long with a 1/8" clearance hole down the middle. It is mounted with a 1" long philips head #5 wood screw going through it, there should also be a small washer (about 1/4" outside diameter) between the spacer and the playfield.

As there's nothing in the manual, you need to look at the parts list for ST:TNG (which you can download from ipdb as a text file) these parts are not shown as part of either 'flipper return frame assy' (the plastics and spacers sandwich that the lane guide you've pictured is part of). So are most likely to not be part of a playfield sub-assembly and be a level 2 part of the playfield assembly itself.

Filtering the parts list to show only level 2 parts that are part of the playfield assembly, are metal parts (ie part number begins with 02-) and where a quantity of 2 are used on ST:TNG. I'd take an educated guess that the spacer is part no. 02-4020 post-spacer 1/2". Doing the same for the 4xxx- part numbers (WMS part numbering for standard screws and other hardware) the screw should be 4205-01016-16 (#5 x 1" wood screw pan head philips), and the washer looks like 4700-00122-00 (fw .126X.281X.032)

I've done a quick search of my favourite pinball parts suppliers and can't find this spacer listed on any of them, but you should be able to find a suitable spacer from a hardware store or an electronics parts suppliers.

[kungfucop]

Daverob, you are right on the money on this one. I took some more shots from my own machine last night and decided to take the part off. I originally thought this tubular spacer was a threaded post that went into the wood and would require me taking apart the entire ball lane assembly just to get at it. But as you have already stated, it is just a hollow metal tube about 1/2 inch in length with a wood screw holding it in place.

IMG_0521.jpgIMG_0525.jpgIMG_0530.jpgIMG_0531.jpgIMG_0532.jpg

Not only am I missing one of these tubes but the threaded screw was snapped off right at the base of the playfield. It was like that when I purchased the machine. Due to the size of this screw it is was not recommended to try to drill it out and risk damaging the playfield. I guess I can dremel or chisel the wood around the bottom side and try to twist it out with some vice grips then putty the wood back. Any other suggestions on getting out this screw out? I'll try to get some photos of the snapped screw tonight.

Thanks for all the advice.