Vintage Sophia, mysterious mechanism, help?

[Siouxzan]

Hi,

Greetings from a newbie that has been in love with these machines since he was a kid (when one of my recent acquisitions was a brand new machine-- enough said-- ahem) and finally got around to buying a couple. (Same story with slot machines, BTW)

I have circa early 70s Sophia that I've had to work on quite a bit. It's a beauty. It seems to be fully functional mechanically now, but there's a part broken off (that was conveniently, somehow, jammed deep into a ball run) and it led me to investigate what it's for. It supports a missing wire arm that opens a door on the side of the bell housing. Again, it seems to be working fine, so what is this thingy for? Should I fabricate one?

Picture attached with missing assembly highlighted.

Thanks for the help!

[Moparformances]

that is for overflow protection

when your top tray is full of winning balls the machine will auto dumb to the lower tray.. when the lower tay gets so full the balls start backing up inside the machine they will push out on a flap inside the win tub.. pushing tha flap will move the wire agenest the shooter arm and will no longer allow the machine to dispence balls into the shooter..

its a great feature but has a problem in home use...

Kids and adults dont relize what has happened and will start to bend and break it to get the machine working again...

let face it your machine has just stoped working no one thinks that there is a change of winning to much

my vintage machines are all to tight... i have never had to worry about it

hope that makes sense

[mudfud]

pls post pix of the front of the machine, too, as we love to see the whole machine.

I have that overflow wire on some of my machines, and I asked that same question about a sanyo almost a year ago. mopar's right that it's to stop play when you're winning too much, and I've never had my machines that lucky!

welcome to pachitalk!

once you're bitten by the pachi bug, you will find more and more of them to collect.

[Siouxzan]

Thanks guys!
Seems safe to leave it missing then, right? I'd rather be working on my ball lift than trying to weld that plastic part back on.
And, oh, I'm bitten!

[Moparformances]

Thanks guys!
Seems safe to leave it missing then, right? I'd rather be working on my ball lift than trying to weld that plastic part back on.
And, oh, I'm bitten!

i would skip it... its an item often broken...