Mizuho sticky payout linkage??

[lotsoballs]

Hey everybody, I finally got to disassembling/cleaning the internals of this cool Mizuho machine I picked up on craigslist; when I bought it payouts were rarely working unless manually fiddling around with the payout linkage arm on the right side; I assumed because it appeared at one point in time some fool tried either putting some sort of oil or grease on several of the linkages; and there was obviously some sticky stuff (20+ year old grease?) all over the linkage that activates the center piece payout mechanism. It was obviously taking more effort than it should to move freely. Luckily this machine allows the entire mechanics and chutes to be removed with just a few "clips" that hold it to the background. I went about cleaning all the chutes, center piece mechanics, and tried cleaning the sticky linkage as best I could, first just wiped off most of the sticky stuff with a wet rag, then some CLR, and finally gave it a small shot of WD-40 (I know, not advised but figured it might help since already gummed up) in hopes of dissolving any remaining stickiness and to make sure no water found it's way in the joint.....afterwards it felt much better, freer moving for sure. Now the payouts "work" 90% of the time, however there's a big delay in getting a winning ball in a pocket and getting the payout.....like 10-15 seconds. A winning ball falls on the long payout activating arm/lever and VERY SLOOOOWWWLLYYY drops (I know from looking at my Nishjin and Sankyo vintages that arm should drop like a rock when a ball falls on it) so I pretty much have narrowed it down the joint in this linkage is still too sticky to move as freely as it should; the issue was much more pronounced before I attempted to clean the linkage joint; (before it would just get stuck and would have to manually move the linkage arm to the payout mech to induce payout). Any tips to for products for cleaning metal linkages like this? Do I need to take the linkages apart completely to clean?

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