Introduction
Oh boy, where to start with this game. The game appeared on Marketplace for a decent price and wasn’t too far of a drive. The price was right and up for a new project. Owner said it was complete with 2 displays missing. I have had a Road Kings in the past, and enjoyed the game and wanted to repair it. I picked up the machine in a motorcycle repair shop.
It seemed only fitting to have this game in motorcycle shop. I imagine this game has sat there for a LONG time without working. The first problem (of many) was the CPU board had extensive battery corrosion on it.
CPU Board
The CPU board was just dripping corrosion when I picked it up. I tried to find a expiration date on the batteries, but there wasn’t any on them. My guess would have been from the late 80’s. I realized that this board was beyond repairing and ended up selling it to someone on Pinside. I kept my eyes open for a used System 11 board. An Alley Cat (System 11 board used in shuffle alley games) showed up on eBay, so I purchased that one. Upon getting the board, it was missing some parts (or simply didn’t use for the shuffle alley game).
Old battery corrosion board System 11 Alley Cat board
I had to do a few things to the board to get it up and running. I ended up using Leon’s test ROM on the game for the final checks. Here is a short breakdown of the repairs.
Checked all voltages to ROMS, RAMs, and PIAs.
1. Added missing components (K1 relay, resistors, and transistors)
2. Replaced U26, U27 and verified the other 2 ROMs.
3. Installed a NVRAM
I put the CPU back into the game and was not expecting too much; however, the game booted to attract mode. I was thrilled that to see this and decided that I can go all in and get this game up and running again.
Additional Repairs
At this point, I noticed that I couldn’t start a game. I had two balls in the trough, but the game would not start. It would just make the engine sound when the start button was pressed. I switched over to the testing (switch levels) and found that one row was not working on the switch matrix. I unplugged connectors IJ8 and IJ10 and the problem went away. This indicated that the problem was on the playfield and not on the CPU board. I traced the wires back and found that the high score reset button was damaged and wires were disconnected from it. Replacing the switch then allowed me to start a game for the first time in probably two decades or more!
The game had two rows of lamps not working and this was due to a board problem. I have a nice tester to help me figure out if the problem is on the board or playfield and this time it was on the CPU board. I ended up replacing a couple diodes along with the TIP122 transistors and the two rows came back.
I shopped the whole game starting with the top side and ending underneath the playfield. This led me to rebuilding the four pop bumpers along with the two flippers. I went through every mech and replaced all the coil sleeves and made sure everything was moving smoothly.
At the very end of the repairs, I added the two recommended fuses off of the bridge rectifiers. This is similar to what I did back on my Black Knight post.
Wolffpac Displays
I ended up ordering new displays for the game and wanted to try Wolffpac Displays. This comes as a kit and ended up doing a review for this. The price was very affordable and seemed like a perfect fit for this game. I am glad that I ended up purchasing them.
Conclusion
This game ended up being a ton of work and surprisingly quite rewarding to get it up and running again. This game has been one of my more challenging repairs that I have done.
I moved it into my game room and is getting constant playing time. The rules and the scoring is still escaping me and really can’t find any information on it. I will probably do a review video of the game down the road.
