Road Kings

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.

Road Kings
Photo from the original ad on Marketplace

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).

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

Missing relay
Missing relay, resistor, and diode

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!

Switch damage
Service Switch missing lug and loose wire

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.

Row problem
Two rows not working

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.

Added fuses
Added fuses

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.

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