1977 Gottlieb Jungle Queen EM Pinball Machine Resurrection

[adventurco]

I’ve been keeping my eyes out for an old EM pinball machine for a while. My FIL has a dozen or so and used to let us keep a few at the house when we lived nearby, so I learned to love them. We had a Jungle Queen at our house for over a year, and used to play after work to unwind.

I drove an hour or so with the kiddo after school one day to buy this working Jungle Queen machine. I got a video of it playing, which was great.

On my way there I recalled that the seller mentioned he didn’t have a key, and of course I didn’t have my lockpicking kit on me. The coin door lock has been drilled, so I was able to get in there, but the back box door would be an issue, as the bolts to detach it from the cabinet are accessed through there.

When we got there, the seller turned on the machine and the boy started testing while I grabbed my Swiss Army knife and picked up a random spring off the ground and started messing with the lock. It took me about an hour but I finally got it open.

And in case you were wondering, a pinball machine does fit in a Honda CRV.

Got it back to the house and gave it a once over. The cabinet was pretty damn filthy and the paint was starting to flake pretty badly in some areas.

Found Jerry H’s high score from 1980

The front panel of the cabinet is pretty rough.

Overall it’s in ok shape. There is some flaking on the back glass which is pretty normal due to the heat from bulbs and being in a non climate controlled space. The playfield is overall really nice with a little bit of wear in a couple spots. Legs rusty as usual. And of course it stopped playing after about 20 minutes, which doesn’t surprise me.

 

[adventurco]

First things first clean off the years of dust. It was filthy, so this made a big difference.

The legs were crusty, as usual. They are chromed originally and it is thin especially on the inside, so they are always rusty. The adjusting feet came off and went in the trash, those will be replaced with new ones. The legs were blasted, prepped and painted with stainless steel appliance epoxy.

Next up was to address the flaking paint. I don’t have the time or bandwidth the repaint the entire cabinet, and the patina gives it a lot of its charm. But I certainly don’t want flaking (probably lead based) paint all over the house especially with young kids. I decided to clean everything up as best I could, remove all the loose and chipping paint, scuff with a scotchbrite and put a heavy coating of satin clear over the entire cabinet

Before clearing the back box, I wanted to repair a badly chipped portion on the bottom corner.

I filled it with bondo, let it cure, then carved into it a bit to make it look “old”. I found some off white rattle can and grey/black paint to speckle on there. The paint match could be better, but not bad for a 30 minute repair with an off the shelf color.

Then I addressed the nasty and rotting bottom of the cabinet. I’m guessing this was just soaked with old beers being spilled and never properly cleaned up. A soft area behind the coin door had been “repaired” with a piece of sheet metal. I cut the piece in two and threw it in the trash, and cut a new piece of 1/4” that I had in the garage. It took some finagling and bending but I was able to get it back in place without disassembling the box thankfully.

This should make a big difference especially with the old musty smell.

 

[ridesolo]

I'm sure glad you got this! I was just talking w/ @Hurco550 the other day and said, "Poor Nick, he's got nothing to do!"



My late father-in-law worked w/ pinball machines and juke boxes. That can be quite am interesting hobby. (He also messed w/ Lionel trains, Indian motorcycles, and airplanes.)

 

[Rider52]

A friend in Cleveland restored pinballs. Always fun to visit his workshop.

 

[adventurco]

The back glass was flaking pretty severely in some areas and deteriorated in most of the translucent areas that light shines through. These machines would run bayonet #44 bulbs originally but everyone swaps them to #47 now because they run cooler and protect plastics and the glass.

I bought an airbrush and experimented with some thinning techniques. First, you use a hot x-acto to score the original ink, then chip out the damaged areas. Clean the glass, draw in any key lines with a black paint pen, and then airbrush or paint the colors.

Here you can see where I’ve started to remove the failing ink.

And here are some after pics

Once the repairs are complete, I do two wet coats of Krylon Triple Thick clear to seal everything in. New #47 bulbs installed in the back box and the glass is in.

Sent from my iPhone using DO THE TON

 

[Maritime]

Nice!. DTT has the best of people doing the coolest of things. Hope this place bever goes away.

 

[Luugo86]

Very cool side project. Nice job on the air-brushing man, have you done much of that type of painting in the past? I imagine the removal of the damaged paint areas was the most crucial stage of the job, I'd be worried about botching the good paint... Cool you found that dudes high score from 1980.. you have to clear over that high score, it's part of the machines story now!

 

[adventurco]

Very cool side project. Nice job on the air-brushing man, have you done much of that type of painting in the past? I imagine the removal of the damaged paint areas was the most crucial stage of the job, I'd be worried about botching the good paint... Cool you found that dudes high score from 1980.. you have to clear over that high score, it's part of the machines story now!

Thanks man, I have never touched an airbrush until this project but its pretty easy to learn, I guess if you're familiar with painting.

And yeah, removing the old ink was sketchy, it chips very easily, so you need to use a hot knife to cut through it to avoid chipping away more than you want.

Definitely cleared over Jerry's high score. I've racked up about 140k, so he's still got the high score so far lol.