A mouse f****** my Cyber Lead. Time for a restoration.

[Ziggy Cheetos Dust]

Piecing together the front panel. I tumble “polished” the lock components in my home made glass jar tumbler with 3mm stainless steel balls from TEMU. They didn’t come up shiny but they were smooth without corrosion. I gave them a spray with lithium grease for protection. The coin chute is powdercoated and the screws have been polished.

 

[Ziggy Cheetos Dust]

I got a few more jobs done today. I’m prepping and cleaning the white plastic parts for painting. I wasn’t going to bother but @Offsider inspired me to do it after I saw how good his looked. I’m only going to get the outside face painted, and don’t think it’s necessary to mask off the entire back part - just a few areas . A bit of overspray won’t hurt. I noticed the foam seal around the bezel is perishing so that’s become a bit of a battle to remove completely. Cheers @Offsider for the tip to remove the Namco badge. I didn’t have fishing line but thin wire worked.

 

[Ziggy Cheetos Dust]

I pulled apart the LED display assembly and gave that a clean. I also decided to paint the metal part that holds the boards as it could do with a bit of moisture protection. I’ll likely give it another coat of grey or silver. I painted the speaker grilles as well. They were showing signs of very light rust. I was a bit heavy going on the paint and a few holes covered over which I “popped” with a pin. It looks decent but the original was a bit of a darker gray. I’ve gotta use up some of the rattle cans I’ve got lying around somehow.

 

[vaughan14]

I noticed you powdercoated some of the electroplated parts, it's probably too late now but electroplating isn't expensive and keeps things original.
These are some parts I got done recently.

 

[Ziggy Cheetos Dust]

Very nice @vaughan14. I would have definitely gone down that path but there’s no electro plater in town. I would have had to find someone in Sydney so powder coating it was. What machine are you restoring there?

 

[Offsider]

I got a few more jobs done today. I’m prepping and cleaning the white plastic parts for painting. I wasn’t going to bother but @Offsider inspired me to do it after I saw how good his looked. I’m only going to get the outside face painted, and don’t think it’s necessary to mask off the entire back part - just a few areas . A bit of overspray won’t hurt. I noticed the foam seal around the bezel is perishing so that’s become a bit of a battle to remove completely. Cheers @Offsider for the tip to remove the Namco badge. I didn’t have fishing line but thin wire worked.

The amount of work your putting into the cabinet mate, it was a given to get the plastics done. I’m glad you decided to do them!! These are going to look really nice legend.

From the powdercoat, reproduced stickers and the overall thorough restoration of this thing , it’s going to look like it’s just rolled off the factory line.
In awe mate well done and have loved relating about it with you so far

On ya legend!!

Tom

 

[DRAGONKZ]

Very nice @vaughan14. I would have definitely gone down that path but there’s no electro plater in town. I would have had to find someone in Sydney so powder coating it was. What machine are you restoring there?

I’ll have a whole set of all the brackets that will effectively be tossed

You’re in SYD right?

 

[killer7]

Hi, this is a beautiful restoration. Really appreciate all the work you are putting in and not cutting corners. I am in NZ and am wanting to do some fix ups to my Cyberlead cab. Do you have a link to getting a set of reproduction stickers. Dam this brittle plastic!

 

[Ziggy Cheetos Dust]

I’ll have a whole set of all the brackets that will effectively be tossed

You’re in SYD right?

I am in Orange but work in Sydney a lot. I appreciate the offer but I don’t have a need for any of those parts now I don’t think. There may be someone else that’s keen to take them for someday one day?

 

[Ziggy Cheetos Dust]

Thanks @killer7

Hi, this is a beautiful restoration. Really appreciate all the work you are putting in and not cutting corners. I am in NZ and am wanting to do some fix ups to my Cyberlead cab. Do you have a link to getting a set of reproduction stickers. Dam this brittle plastic!

I’m doing my best and learning as I go. It’s quite fiddly in my situation. Like all of us I really need a large work area with plenty of table space - all my tools and parts to hand etc. I have a big garden but the workspace is challenging when you need garage for the car. When I get time I’ll make a pdf of the stickers I made and message you.

 

[Ziggy Cheetos Dust]

The amount of work your putting into the cabinet mate, it was a given to get the plastics done. I’m glad you decided to do them!! These are going to look really nice legend.

From the powdercoat, reproduced stickers and the overall thorough restoration of this thing , it’s going to look like it’s just rolled off the factory line.
In awe mate well done and have loved relating about it with you so far

On ya legend!!

Tom

Thanks for the kind words. I’ve hit a bit of hurdle with the painting. Two shops said they were too busy and said everyone in town is flat-out. I found a third place that does caravan repairs and has experience in painting various materials. They quoted $700 or $400 if I do the prep.

He gave me lots of tips on how to paint it myself so I’ll think about that for a couple of days.

 

[Ziggy Cheetos Dust]

In the mean time I’ve matched up some new hardware and nylon washers with the brackets that hold on the back panel. One of them was stripped so I’ve tried using Araldite to hold a nut in place. Hopefully it’s strong enough that I can just nip up the screw. If I’d known earlier I would have had a nut tack-welded to the bracket and powdercoated over that. The other option is to cut an M6 thread in it (was M5) but that would mean drilling a bigger hole in the nicley coated back panel and using an odd-one-out screw.

 

[Ziggy Cheetos Dust]

I’ve had the side art vector traced as well. Matching the colours exactly is proving challenging but I think will be good enough. I provided A3 scans of the original art to a graphic designer who stitched them together and proceeded to vector trace the images and maintain the halftone effect of the green to yellow to green transition. Both my iPhone and scanner didn’t reproduce the colours as seen on the original artwork. Through several revisions the colours were close but not close enough. I resorted to going to Bunnings hardware and asking the paint shop to use their colour checker to give me the RGB values. They obliged and the graphic designer updated art with the new info. It’s now with the printers. I won’t know if the colours are right until I see a test print. Here’s a photo I took with my phone in sunlight and the “final” artwork. Note that the top photo is not how the art looks to the naked eye. The top does pop more though.

 

[Ziggy Cheetos Dust]

Well after some soul searching and research I’ve compromised and painted the white plastics with VHT Vinyl Dye. It’s 98% easy to work with but a few drips here and there have challenged me. Even a rookie error of bumping the bezel with the can as I was spraying it left a scrape that was hard to spray over. Ultimately though it looks very nice. Not glossy but a nice sheen that I’m content with. Thanks to @twistedsymphony who alerted me to this method.

 

[Gehirn]

Such a good write up as always, and the detail!

I have tried to seal my cabs up out of the same fear.

 

[Ziggy Cheetos Dust]

T

Such a good write up as always, and the detail!

I have tried to seal my cabs up out of the same fear.

Thanks @Gehirn I’m glad you’re enjoying it. Had a potential near miss this morning but cat security worked this time - although I suspect it’s the cat that brings them in alive to play with them and one got away last time.

 

[Ziggy Cheetos Dust]

Here’re the wheels cleaned up and powder coated from the original raw metal. I wouldn’t mind some softer skateboard style wheels as these ones are really hard on hard floors, but they’ll have to do for now.

 

[Ziggy Cheetos Dust]

I’ve cleaned all the wires for the power supply and remounted the board in the enclosure. Also added a repro decal.

 

[PASTBLASTER]

CLEAN AF

 

[Ziggy Cheetos Dust]

I’ve continued to work on repairing the chewed wires from the chassis, but realised the connector I got was the wrong type. I have now ordered the right type and matching pins. This was an expensive exercise but the bits I have may come in handy one day. This pic is of the old yellow connector that I could still use and the wrong pins I just crimped - although I can’t tell the difference when holding them next to the originals. I’m concerned though that when the time comes to solder them to the board that I’ll have trouble not bridging the connections. The board pic is of a spare parts donor MS9 I got from JoMac.