New Pachinko Owner here 1976 Nishijin No More War 3 with a couple of questions

[jgeorge]

Hi folks,

I recently came across my first (for now!) pachinko machine. I collect and restore pinball and arcade cabinets, and my girlfriend and I have converted our garage to a small arcade. A friend of mine came over one day and brought me this pachinko machine for my arcade "since I know you like pinball machines, and this one's like a Japanese pinball machine" - I know, I know, but he gets points at least for trying. None of this stuff is his area of expertise.

I had to strip most of the machine apart to get out old rusted balls from every possible place they could be (and a couple places where I couldn't figure out how they got there in the first place). Bunch of cleaning, adjusted some tulips, and a new lower ball track cover (THANK YOU @mxfaiman!), some new balls, and it works great, and plays fine!

Plays though it does, it STILL needs more cleaning. The chromed pieces are all pitted, and the art work on the play field (whatever the right term is for it) has a ton of water damage from cleaning. One of these days I'll want to strip the front completely and replace that artwork and buff the rusty bits back to a proper color, but for now it works enough to play.

I do have a few questions though. Apologies for not knowing the right terminology for some of these parts.

1) I would like to get the large lower mechanism cover off to clean under it - it's the big translucent plastic cover that on mine says "Nishijin Sophia". I've found where most of the screws are to remove it, but along the lower right edge of that cover (behind the long straight ball drain chute) it looks like there are two screws going into that cover from the piece in front of it (the part that's stapled to the back of the play field). Looking at THAT piece, it looks like I'd have to remove the first cover to access all the staples that I'd have to remove to get it off, so I see a bit of a catch-22. I've found some manuals online for this machine but they're pretty all general user manuals - does anyone know of any actual remove/replace type service documentation out there, or how i can get this back cover off? I've managed to remove (and replace!) everything on the back of the machine *above* this cover.

2) Is an artwork replacement the giant pain in the behind that it looks like it is? pull all the nails, pull all the toys, frame, everything else, and replace artwork? I've done pinball play field swaps before so I'm not afraid of the work, but replacing all those nails, wow. I'm not even sure how I get the some of the front stuff off.

That's all for now, but I can see how addicting these machines can be. Not sure I can live with only the one for too long! :-)

Joe