Astro City - Gold, Garbage, or non-existent? Let's Find out!

[TodoRojo]

A few small updates:

I'm thinking if restorations like this become a habit, I should get a sand-blaster... we'll see.

Removed the upper and lower headers and speaker grilles in preparation for cleaning and paint. Removing the Astro City header was bit of a pain, but a hairdryer and a sharp xacto knife got it out. I was trying to be as careful as possible as to not damage the header or the housing. The header took a few scuffs, but nothing that can't be repaired. The housing is in great shape; just peeled some paint was all.



I noticed quite a bit of rust in the grilles. I soaked them in vinegar for a bit and then I used a scuff-pad to remove the paint and leftover rust. I'll repaint these first with some rustoleum stop-rust and then a satin or gloss black. Whatever matches best.


Decided to cut the + terminal on the Logitech speakers so that I don't need to cut the original harness up. Worked out just fine.




I am de-pinning and replacing all the connectors on the harness. I still need to clean the wires; but I'll get there. The only crappy part is the yellow connectors are really hard to find because mouser and digi-key both require large MOQs. If anyone has a source for those, I'd love to know

I have replaced almost all of the connectors on this harness except for the black AMP-UPs that go into the PSU. I just ordered them, though.

 

[TodoRojo]

Hey again everyone,
Long day for me today as luck would have it and just past a year since my last job change, I was laid off again. The company I worked for is kinda bleeding cash and it hit a tipping point. But thanks to my surprise vacation, I had some time to work on the Astro!

I laid a layer of primer on the grilles yesterday and gave them 24 hours to cure. I now have two coats of semi-gloss on there; I’ll post that when they’re done tomorrow. For now, here’s how they looked with primer.


The last owner of our house built a dog run. We don’t have a dog (yet) and it’s cold as hell outside, so I used it to do a little cleaning and painting. It worked out great.
Here’s the front face of the Astro and what I did:
1. Sprayed (drenched) with simple green 4-1 diluted
2. Scrubbed lightly with a nylon brush
3. Hosed down
4. Compressed air to blow out the screw holes
5. Allowed to dry with a box fan
6. Removed all the adhesive from the header (holy crap that sucked, even with goo gone)
7. Washed with dawn power spray
8. Another layer of simple green
9. Rinsed
10. Dried with compressed air and box fan



It is lookin pretty dang clean. Tomorrow I think I’ll go at it with some sandpaper and get it ready to take a layer of paint.

That’s about it for today. I think I’ll tackle the doors and probably remove the CRT to start work on the back half of the body. I also ordered all new AMP-UP connectors to finish replacing all the connectors.

 

[TodoRojo]

Welcome back, everyone. Being jobless sure gives a lot of time to hobbies! Here are some updates with a bunch of photos.


First, the speaker grilles. At first I did them semi-gloss and it was just way too shiny compared to the originals. I grabbed satin and it's pretty dang close. So if anyone is curious I used automotive primer from Rustoleum and then followed up with Home Depot brand BEHR satin black. Give 24 hours between primer and top-coat for the best results.





I disassembled the entire cab and started cleaning everything. I still need to sand the parts that will need paint, but I'm just happy to have everything clean.
Cashbox was kind of a pain since there are rivets holding the coin counter in. I cleaned this one by hand and sanded the corrosion off the top.


The frame for the cashbox door was rough. Super rusty from I'm sure many neglected spilled drinks. I did this one with rust remover which stripped a bunch of paint; which prompted me to sand any remaining rust.


The classic skateboard wheel 'mod.'


The kick plate or whatever this thing is called. This was pretty nasty as well, I tried plastic polish, dawn power wash, simple green, stainless steel cleaner, magic eraser, and heavy cutting polish... unfortunately the real secret was elbow grease. Scrubbed the hell out off it with the heavy cutting compound and after 30 minutes or so it looked much better. There are still deep scratches which I'd like to address later, but at least it's looking better.


The harness. I am replacing every AMP-UP connector except of the yellow ones since they're impossible to find unless you're willing to buy 2000 at a time or something, as I said in a previous post. I just need to order a few more to finish that. Today I drenched the entire harness in simple green and then scrubbed it with a nylon bush. After that, I rinsed with a hose, and then dunked it in a bucket of IPA to displace the water. Then I used the air compressor to blow out all the connectors. It is looking so much better and it feels nice 'n clean.


Continued in the next post

 

[TodoRojo]

Every nut, bolt, screw, or metal part has been ultrasonically cleaned (if it fits), degreased, and then given an alcohol bath. I'm starting a list of things to get re-plated as quite a few parts have some rust.



This back panel was filthy. Simple green was all that was needed though.



Here are some before and afters of the main pieces






Drying the machine with compressed air was blowing paint errrywhere. I'm glad the plan is to paint it because I would be sad if not.


Of course there are way more photos but given the file limits I don't want to go past two posts tonight. At this point I think it just needs a touch of sanding and it's ready for paint! I'm not sure the timeline on that anymore since the whole no job thing; but I think I can swing it regardless.

 

[JohnRambo'sKnife]

Hey again everyone,
Long day for me today as luck would have it and just past a year since my last job change, I was laid off again. The company I worked for is kinda bleeding cash and it hit a tipping point. But thanks to my surprise vacation, I had some time to work on the Astro!

I laid a layer of primer on the grilles yesterday and gave them 24 hours to cure. I now have two coats of semi-gloss on there; I’ll post that when they’re done tomorrow. For now, here’s how they looked with primer.


The last owner of our house built a dog run. We don’t have a dog (yet) and it’s cold as hell outside, so I used it to do a little cleaning and painting. It worked out great.
Here’s the front face of the Astro and what I did:
1. Sprayed (drenched) with simple green 4-1 diluted
2. Scrubbed lightly with a nylon brush
3. Hosed down
4. Compressed air to blow out the screw holes
5. Allowed to dry with a box fan
6. Removed all the adhesive from the header (holy crap that sucked, even with goo gone)
7. Washed with dawn power spray
8. Another layer of simple green
9. Rinsed
10. Dried with compressed air and box fan



It is lookin pretty dang clean. Tomorrow I think I’ll go at it with some sandpaper and get it ready to take a layer of paint.

That’s about it for today. I think I’ll tackle the doors and probably remove the CRT to start work on the back half of the body. I also ordered all new AMP-UP connectors to finish replacing all the connectors.

For future adhesive removal, consider a can of WD-40 dry lube. It's a Teflon based spray that has worked on just about everything including butyl, which is the nastiest shit next to mastic and tar. I discovered it works on adhesives by accident and I never looked back. It's also excellent for removing this shit (and grease) from clothes.

 

[TodoRojo]

For future adhesive removal, consider a can of WD-40 dry lube. It's a Teflon based spray that has worked on just about everything including butyl, which is the nastiest shit next to mastic and tar. I discovered it works on adhesives by accident and I never looked back. It's also excellent for removing this shit (and grease) from clothes.

Great tip! I’ll give that a shot. Thank you because this adhesive sucks

 

[GeekMan1222]

Glad it arrived and you are happy with the arrival!

Super cool seeing one of my sales getting a full overhaul documentation and your doing that cab a great service and a second lease on life!

 

[TodoRojo]

Glad it arrived and you are happy with the arrival!

Super cool seeing one of my sales getting a full overhaul documentation and your doing that cab a great service and a second lease on life!

Hopefully this thread can bring you even more business, man. Thanks so much. Let’s hope I gain favor in the eyes of the Sega gods

 

[TodoRojo]

Hey again everyone,

Just got back from a little vacation in California. Visited some family and went by ArcadeShock to get some buttons and sticks for the cab! The shop was really cool; highly recommend stopping by if you're in the area. We also ate a bunch of fantastic food while we were there


Yesterday and today I cleaned up the remote board cable, the tube, and sanded the doors.









I'm not necessarily stripping every bit of paint off of these. The goal is to make sure I uncover and clean any rust before painting. I also removed the hinge pin from the coin mech door which should help with painting that part. I have to remove loose paint and sand the rest of the body a bit which I plan to do tomorrow. Once that's done, I'm hoping to get paint quotes.

 

[TodoRojo]

Hey everyone, here are some new updates to the restore:

First a little vid removing the Astro City sticker. I was sad to remove this sticker, but it was pretty beat up and with repainting, it had to go. I will be ordering a pair from TR Fighstick to replace it. I found that using a heat-gun (or haridryer) at low settings and from a distance made this really easy. Besides the gash that cut the sticker, it all came off in a solid piece.

Monday and Tuesday were comprised of a metric shit-ton of sanding! I already had a respirator, but for something like this I wanted to make sure I had fresh gear so I ran to Home Depot and grabbed a new P100 respirator. I also grabbed some bondo, a 180 grit block, 220 sandpaper, 400 sandpaper, and some more isopropyl alcohol. After I was geared up, I proceeded piece by piece sanding out loose paint with the block, moving to 220, then 400 to prep for paint. It took a day and a half, but everything is prepped now aside from maybe a few hard-to-reach areas which I'll leave to the professionals. I also filled gashes (like the one that cut through the Astro City sticker) with bonds to make sure they're nice and smooth once paint is on. It was a lot of work...

Spoiler: Purists, close your eyes :D

Did I mention that it was a lot of work? I am glad to be done with this stage of the process. I reached out to a couple of auto-body shops and so far I have received one quote.... for $2800 LMAOOOOOO. That dude obviously doesn't want to do the job or has some of the most bomb weed in existence. I'm aiming to spend around $400-700, so I'll keep looking.

I got a couple new billboards from ArcadeArtRepro this week.

I have these in my other Astro. I do think they're a bit over-saturated, but they definitely look better than the faded ones I have and they are well-made. Plus they'll match


I sanded the metal parts down a bit... I got bored of it and decided to reach out to get quote for sandblasting since I don't have a blaster (yet). I got a quote for $150 so I'll have these blasted. The same place can powder coat them for $180. If they can match the Honda Frost White, I'll probably go for it.


Finally, I am getting these pieces (plus some others which are mostly tangs and screws) re-plated. I found a local place that does commercial plating and they said the'd strip and coat these parts for $150 so I'm going to drop those off tomorrow. I'm really excited to see how they look when they get back



That's all for today! I'm getting close. Once the plating and paint is done, I'm 90% the way there.

 

[JohnRambo'sKnife]

$700 seems about right given the size and being two panels.

 

[TodoRojo]

$700 seems about right given the size and being two panels.

Yeah I have heard anywhere from 400-600, but being in Utah there’s not as much competition as somewhere like CA so I expect to pay a bit more. But $2800? Wooooo buddy, hahaha. I’ll be happy south of $1k

 

[JohnRambo'sKnife]

Oh, I thought you were in Socal for some reason, should have checked. $400-$600 out there sounds more in line then as we all know labor isn't rising as fast as everything else. Two stage I assume?

Great job btw. Big fan of doing all the prep you can, always comes out better.

 

[kikaso]

Such a fantastic job so far! Your hard work is paying off

 

[TodoRojo]

Such a fantastic job so far! Your hard work is paying off

Thanks so much! I’d never have gotten this far without all the help from A-P!

Small update today:

I dropped all of these off this AM with the zinc plating guy. So far I’m super impressed. The guy doing the work has been really communicative and even pointed out some things I wasn’t aware of. For example: the large jam nuts for the 5380 locks is a diecast zinc. They’ll straight up melt if they aren’t watched closely while being stripped!

 

[TodoRojo]

Hey again everyone,

Well some good news on the job front; I found new work! What's better is they weren't using SVB so I should be good, lol.

Nothing huge for the last little bit. I'm still waiting to get the parts back from the zinc plating place. Should be sometime next week. I also am having a hell of a time finding someone to paint. Getting ghosted a lot, unfortunately. My gut tells me that auto body shops are too busy right now due to the winter to even consider something like a cabinet since they are probably getting insurance-backed claims like crazy right now. Hopefully it'll get better in the spring.

PSU Work:
@Lemony Vengeance clued me in on the Sega amplifier a while back and I purchased an amp + PSU from YAJ. So, technically I didn't need to do any work to this PSU; but, the Astro City 2 PSU that I have in my currently up-and-running astro is huge when sitting on top of the amp. To the point that the cables are really getting strained. Because of this, I decided to turn the AC2 PSU into a "bench psu" and this PSU will replace the AC2 one. As expected, it was a lil dirty and needed some lovin'. Disassembled it, cleaned it, recapped it, and it will be going in tomorrow.

The fun part of this is that the AC2 PSU doesn't use the black AMP-UP connectors. I'll be de-pinning the connectors on the harness and populating new connectors that should be here tomorrow that will work with this PSU.





Coin Reject Button:
This was kinda fun. I took this piece apart and put the sleeve and the ejector into the chuck of my drill. I sanded with 400, 600, 2000, and 4000, and finally some finishing polish. Looks a lot cleaner, I'd say. I also soaked the spring in vinegar for a bit to remove rust and put a little bit of grease on it to help keep it safe from any future moisture.



Cash Box:
I may have mentioned earlier that I wasn't going to take this apart, but I decided to go ahead and do it. (I'll be honest, since I haven't been working and I'm waiting to get the body painted, I've been itching for projects to do). I drilled out the rivets, cleaned the cashbox and coin counter, then added some new rivets with a rivet gun. The rivets are 1/8" head, 6mm (1/4") long. I spent only about $30 at Lowes on a rivet gun and rivets.




Stools:
As I said, I've been antsy. The stools I got had some indentations from just sitting stacked for a while. Over time I'm certain these marks will come out, but I was bored and I have done this before on my car leather. I grabbed the heat gun and some leather cleaner and slowly warmed up the material as I sprayed cleaner and gently massaged it. Honestly, it looks even better in person vs the photos!


That's all for today. I'll probably add some details on re-pinning the PSU tomorrow once the parts arrive. I am also really excited to get the parts back from the zinc plater, so I hope to share those soon!

 

[Anselmo]

Try to find a shop that specializes in custom work. I don't know if you have some in your neck of the woods, but in SoCal your "collision centers" focus on insurance work exclusively and won't care for custom work like restoring classic cars / hot rods etc. Seeking out a shop that specializes in hot rods/classics might be better for you

 

[TodoRojo]

Try to find a shop that specializes in custom work. I don't know if you have some in your neck of the woods, but in SoCal your "collision centers" focus on insurance work exclusively and won't care for custom work like restoring classic cars / hot rods etc. Seeking out a shop that specializes in hot rods/classics might be better for you

Actually one of the places I contacted is just that! I’m really hoping she gets back. Her work looks way good. https://instagram.com/stripe_cult_painting?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

 

[kikaso]

Well some good news on the job front; I found new work!

Hey now that’s some great news. Congratulations on the new job!

also, I love how the coin reject button came out.

 

[TodoRojo]

Hey now that’s some great news. Congratulations on the new job!

also, I love how the coin reject button came out.

Thanks dude! I’m relieved, that’s for sure haha.