BF74

Under reel is... NUMBERS ON REELS LIGHT WORD NUDGE EACH REEL CAN BE NUDGED ONE POSITION <-----------------LEFT OR RIGHT----------------> Under nudges..... Patent Application Number 2639307 Under bank...… ONLY HIGHEST WINNER PAID

Nice find Rich, Advert from 1983....

An interview with ACE at the 1982 ATE show..

Yes that's the U.K. version. Would be interesting to know sales figures on how many actually were sold and worked out on site, comparing to the sales figures for the original Sidewinder. Where are they all now?

Found it Rich, 15 months after Sidewinder but only a couple of adverts in July 1982 for the machine but not on it's own...

You would think so Rich but I can't find any press info on the super version around the time of the original Sidewinder.

Looks like ACE were trying to break into the German market with that machine Rich, Any manufacturing dates on it?

Yes advertised earlier this year,Both Ace club machines, The High Climber is electro mechanical and believe The big Bandit is electro too, If it is then possibly the last Ace club electro as this style of tall cabinet was the recipient of the next games from ACE featuring the Sys 100 mpu. Interesting to see their condition under all that dirt.

A 70s Bell Fruit club electro reel mech, it still has the solid reel drums. On later machines they changed to the spoked style to save weight so the leather clutches could operate more efficient which made the reel spins much better. The reel bands are from ADMC, A company that built conversions on BF machines. probably out of a machine like this one.

Everything now cleaned and ready to reassemble the reel mech. Without dragging the thread on too long, Basically this is done exactly in the reverse of the above, The spacers (3 between each reel board and end plates) consist of three largest are for the motor end plate and reel board 4, Nine which go between the three reel boards and three small between the opposite end plate and reel board . No other parts to add or remove will see the mech rebuilt as it should look.

The Reel motor/Gearbox This important part is often forgotten but needs a service just as much as the rest of the machine.A good point when buying an electro and have no record of it's past owner doing any work on the machine would be to service these parts as soon as possible as may result in the following gearbox strip down.. Very easy to strip down, remove the four bolts (marked) the two longer bolts hold the back mounting plate with the rear motor bearing. Now the motor along with two spacers will come apart from the gearbox , take note of the way round the coil and it's mounting is fixed to the gearbox, if replaced the other way around the motor will run in reverse. When all the parts are removed they should look like pic ( 2 ) With the rotor removed it has a large spacer sleeve at the front normally red in colour and smaller white with three washers at the back. ( pic 3 ) The gearbox, held by four bolts and once removed the gearbox housing will split in two parts. Inside the gearbox are just three main gears, One attached to the main drive shaft and two reduction gears. Take note of their positions but not so complicated to refit once cleaned. Although this gearbox looks like it still has good lubrication the old grease has turned to a jelly and once removed you can see by the lumps that it's well past it's use. Pic (7) Because of lack of lubrication this gearbox has been running hot and caused some damage to the inner bearings and even allowed the gears to rub the casing. ( arrowed in red on pic 8 & 9). Although it still runs and a testament to the engineering of these units, this gearbox now has a limited life with the bearing damage but still enough for home use rather than commercial. Notice I left the main drive shaft and gear in situ because the main bearing it runs through is made up of small needle rollers which usually fall out when the shaft is withdrawn, this can be a fiddly job to get them back in so if you are not confident then leave this shaft in place. Again the bearing housing for the opposite end of the drive shaft has even smaller needle rollers but usually stay in place when the gearbox is split but still take care when cleaning the old grease from around that bearing that any rollers fall out. ( Arrowed in yellow pic 8 & 9) Once you have removed all the old grease and cleaned the parts, Place fresh grease in and around all the gear shaft bearings, Replace the gears into their running positions then cover the gears in a good amount of extra fresh grease around the teeth and reassemble the two gearbox sections. I use high melt value such as wheel bearing grease which seems to do a good job. Clean the outer gearbox case and all the motor casing parts and reassemble . Before replacing the back rotor mounting plate and bearing, add a small dab of grease to the bearing or onto the end of the rotor shaft..

Good Question.. In BF workshops we had to complete a full machine service in a day but the machines were either brand new or nearly new and no rust to clean off, any replacement parts were at hand in the stores so any faulty or damaged components were just thrown away. Reel bands with any marks were removed and replaced with new, the old reel clutch washers were removed thrown away and again replaced with new. Even brand new machines delivered from Nottingham although did not need stripping down still had to have a full workshop test before going out on site. Mainly coin mech acceptance, payouts and making sure everything in the game was working to spec but even the odd new machine arrived faulty but we could still test a few of those in a shift. Today I work a lot slower and have to take my time so it's done when it gets done😁 With very little new parts I have to make do with what there is and now much of the metal brightwork is rusted and pitted making it more time consuming to clean. When finished though you can see the difference from when you first started and being able to strip them down to so many components is all part of the experience of owning an electro machine.

The reel mech was designed and built by Bell Fruit Manufacturing Nottingham in the 70s and originally used in mainly their electro mechanical club machines but some were found in AWP pub machines too. ADMC was a company that built conversions to fit mainly onto Bell Fruit machines with a glass and reel band change. Your mech would have come out of a machine similar to this.

All the metal bright work and solenoids are amongst the components to clean up to make the reels look great when finished. I find the Autosol the best but you might want to use your own preference of any other cleaning product which is just as good. Apart from the metal housing,Reel solenoids have a sleeve on the inside which gets very dirty so is on the list of cleaning jobs, the solenoid has small a vent hole in the top so make sure this is kept clear. The reel solenoid plunger can get rusted and pitted in worse case examples but need to be clean and smooth for maximum operation, no lubrication is needed for this part to help it operate, oils or grease will only inhibit rather than help it operate. On every workshop service the leather reel clutch washers were replaced with new but as this is not possible in most cases the old clutches have to be put back into the reels. Old clutch washers will be dry and hard which results in reel slips or slow starting reel spins. In Bell Fruit workshops all the new replacement leather washers were left to soak in Neatsfoot oil which is designed especially for leather to keep it supple. Put the washers in the oil as soon as they are removed so this gives them maximum time to absorb the oil while work is carried out on the rest of the mech. I tend to let washers soak for at least overnight in the oil to soften them up again but may take longer for some washers. The washers don't need to be dripping with oil when refitting them, I soak off the surplus with kitchen towel and just leaving them damp.

Down to cleaning all the parts now and starting with the reel boards and reel drums/wipers. Typical over a period of time they pick up any dirt/grease particles and end up with a thin covering of not just the studs but the wipers on the reel drums too. This insulates the contacts making possible payout failure due to the lack of contact allowing the circuits to be made through the reels. When polished up no oil or grease is required. when re assembled the wipers should just lightly glide over the studs as the reel drum turns. The reel solenoid/reel stop arm mounting plates are locked in situ with two bolts and the setup for the positioning of each reels wipers over the studs when the reel stops so unless you want to have to manually adjust the wiper settings I just leave and clean them still secured to the reel boards.. The red reel drums are just plastic and easily cleaned with a damp cloth but not the reel strips which are paper and very old now so keep any cleaning fluids away from the strips to avoid damaging marks. You can split the reel stop/wiper board from the reel drum by removing the three screws and the board is loose but first Make sure you picture or mark it's original position as it can fit in any of three positions and in the wrong place will cause many payout problems.