Blast City Cleanup/Restore - Stringbean

[stringbean]

First thing I did today was drop by my local Home Depot which is fortunately for me only a 10 minute drive and get some of the Krud Kutter @ekorz recommended. This stuff is no joke. I spent so much time trying to scrub the grime off those panels yesterday without a ton of luck and only seconds after spraying the Krud Kutter on you could see it broke down the tar/nicotine and it was just falling off.

After a quick wipe with the sponge and a rinse, the separator panel was looking very clean.

This allowed me to quickly move on and start cleaning the back side of the marquee display plastic which was also very dirty.

Again, I just used the Krud Kutter since it worked so well earlier. And then, used Simple Green to clean it off as it is a pretty strong chemical.

Next up, I cleaned the mount that holds the fluorescent bulb and remounted that to the back panel for the marquee.

As a reminder, this thing was looking pretty nasty the day before.

Next, I moved on to cleaning the arcade doors which were all developing rust on the bottom.

A quick bath in the vinegar tub for 20 minutes followed up with a scrub down removed most of the rust. And then, I cleaned it with the hose.

While they sat in the vinegar I removed the back panel to the arcade covering the monitor and cleaned that with the degreaser spray as well.

I forgot to take an after picture of the panel, but the degreaser did a pretty great job on this as well.

Here, you can see the vinegar bath and a scrub brush removed most of the rust. The Krud Kutter removed most of the stains on the paint after that. And the Simple Green just cleaned the Krudd Kutter off. Things are starting to look pretty good.

These really gross brown stains on the panels I thought for sure would be impossibly difficult to remove yesterday, but weren't too bad.

I had to come back afterwards and remove the door containing the coin mech. At first, I thought I would just wait to remove it when the monitor was out since that would make it much easier. However, I changed my mind and instead managed to crawl in the big door and reach around to unscrew the screws so I could clean that along with the other doors now.

You can see the original color of the inside of the door after I removed the actual coin mechanism.

Not sure I'll be able to attain that color everywhere else, but ya never know!

The coin mech door was worse then the others since it also had a ton of sticker residue on it. It took some real elbow grease, scrubbing and slowly using a plastic prying tool I had laying around for opening cell phones to scrape off the stickers and get rid of the leftover sticky goo. Still, I think there is a stain leftover from the sticker.

When I eventually start reassembling some of the cabinet, I will be using an oxidation paste on my buffer that I've seen do great things with some of the remaining stains on my Astro City when I restored that so I'm hoping it might also be able to get some of the leftover stains on these panels. Next up tomorrow, I'll be removing the monitor and probably give it a good wash. Since the weather up in Seattle is so rainy, I think my best method is going to be to use an air compressor to blow out all the water and then place a heat lamp next to it while rotating periodically over the next day or so.

 

[stringbean]

Tonight my paint pens arrived. The plan for this was mainly to fix the glass that the instruction strip goes in since the original border paint had been pretty badly scratched off.

Since I knew there was never any light that goes behind the glass I figured a paint pen would do just perfect. And it really did a nice job. I taped off the lines with painters tape to get it straight but there was a little bleed over in areas I didn't perfectly push the tape down. Still, I was pretty happy with the result.

 

[Softdrink]

Whoa, I didn't know that vinegar would work on painted surfaces - I figured it would damage the paint. I'll definitely need to try + Krud Kutter that on my coin and cashbox doors, they have a fair bit of rust buildup. Great stuff!

For the white lithium grease - does this leave any kind of residual greasy or oily sensation when handling the surface? Never heard of using it to polish plastics before, quite interesting...

One thing I noticed that helped work through cig tar and other nastiness is just plain isopropyl alcohol - I keep big bottles of the stuff around for soldering, but it takes care of a lot of gunk too. It can be a bit harsh on some surfaces (I've heard you should use it sparingly on fiberglass/gelcoat, for example), but it's still quite handy to have around.

 

[Marvabetic]

Great write up so far! I just did a Blast City restore as well a couple of months ago. I never had the time to post but you pretty much covered everything I did on mine as well. Except I didn’t touch up my CP glass trim yet and Foam surround. All that nicotine and rust builds up in the same places I guess on these cabs. As far as PSU fans go, I also went with a Noctua. Amazon didn’t have the ULN in stock so I went with the NF-A8 FLX. I just cut the stock wiring off the fan side and used my own connectors. Running at full power it’s still way silent then ridiculous loud stock jet fan. As for the marquee light, mine was falling apart with no bulb and starter so I just decided to put an LED upgrade in there. I had a leftover one from the 2 pack I bought from my Sega Lindy and it also fit perfectly. Installed it the same way too. Good luck on the rest of your project, your doing great!

 

[ita123]

@stringbean That Krud kutter stuff really worked well.
Nice progress

 

[stringbean]

Whoa, I didn't know that vinegar would work on painted surfaces - I figured it would damage the paint. I'll definitely need to try + Krud Kutter that on my coin and cashbox doors, they have a fair bit of rust buildup. Great stuff!

For the white lithium grease - does this leave any kind of residual greasy or oily sensation when handling the surface? Never heard of using it to polish plastics before, quite interesting...

One thing I noticed that helped work through cig tar and other nastiness is just plain isopropyl alcohol - I keep big bottles of the stuff around for soldering, but it takes care of a lot of gunk too. It can be a bit harsh on some surfaces (I've heard you should use it sparingly on fiberglass/gelcoat, for example), but it's still quite handy to have around.

I think the white lithium grease somehow reacts with the plastic to restore it. @hoagtech probably could explain it better. He was the one that told me about it. I definitely use isopropyl to clean stuff as well, but I guess this time I just ended up using alternatives.

Great write up so far! I just did a Blast City restore as well a couple of months ago. I never had the time to post but you pretty much covered everything I did on mine as well. Except I didn’t touch up my CP glass trim yet and Foam surround. All that nicotine and rust builds up in the same places I guess on these cabs. As far as PSU fans go, I also went with a Noctua. Amazon didn’t have the ULN in stock so I went with the NF-A8 FLX. I just cut the stock wiring off the fan side and used my own connectors. Running at full power it’s still way silent then ridiculous loud stock jet fan. As for the marquee light, mine was falling apart with no bulb and starter so I just decided to put an LED upgrade in there. I had a leftover one from the 2 pack I bought from my Sega Lindy and it also fit perfectly. Installed it the same way too. Good luck on the rest of your project, your doing great!

Thanks! I'm excited to get it up and running in my house. One reason I decided to do the fully disassembly for cleaning is actually because I have to disassemble it to get it through a narrow doorway to get in the house so I figured might as well go crazy and clean it all too. lol

 

[stringbean]

Today, my main goal was to get that monitor out and clean it. I'm uncertain if these monitors have the bleeder that slowly drains any charge so I just decided to be safe and discharge it before doing anything.

Just clamped some alligator clips to a gardening tool my wife didn't mind me wrapping in electrical tape. and touched the inside of the hole where the anode cable goes. I didn't hear any clicks or pops so I assume it must have already been drained.

Out with the monitor! This thing is pretty gross. Alllllthough, looking closer at the control board for the monitor it actually looked fairly clean. My suspicion is that this control board has already been recapped and cleaned at some point.

The monitor neck components have a thick film of tobaccy dust and dirt on them. I'm hoping a spray down with some Simple Green and a hosing will clean most of this up.

I also noticed someone disconnected the automatic switch that disallows powering up the arcade if the main door is open. Thankfully, because that would have been annoying to deal with.

Another positive surprise was finding the play odometer just sitting in the cab. I wonder why it wasn't in its original place. Maybe someone removed it for some reason. Either way, it still appeared to be connected so I assume it was continuing to track plays.

Here is a closer look at the monitor control board after removing it. The monitor is absolutely filthy and yet somehow this thing is pretty clean. I can't say for 100% that the board has been recapped or not, but when I was looking at the Blasts KC had to offer he told me one of the two had been recapped. And, I told him I wanted the one that had the nicer exterior which is the one he said had not been recapped.

Even the 750 A1 chip is looking pretty nice. I know a common issue with these monitors is the compound leaking from this component and making a mess of the board.

I had to spray it twice because there was so much dirt that didn't come off the first time. Each time, I waited about a minute before washing off the Simple Green so as to be careful not to leave it on too long. Once all rinsed and I was satisfied I took the monitor back in the shop and prepped the air compressor to blow out any water collecting in little crevices and nooks.

I flipped it a few times and blew it out again from all sorts of different angles. While doing this, I noticed the chassis tray where the monitor control board normally sits was missing a screw and had probably been removed in the past because the other screws were pretty loose. This also goes for the bolts holding the metal cage arms on the frame. I tightened what I could and continued blowing everything out until it looked pretty dry and I wasn't seeing any water get blown loose any longer. It's pretty cold in Seattle right now so it isn't ideal for drying a wet monitor.

A perfect job for the rotating space heater. I turned it on the low setting and set it to blow heat at the back of the monitor neck for a few hours until I was happy. Then, I continued rotating the monitor and blowing it some more just to make sure there was no more captured water. Until tomorrow I'm going to keep it nice and toasty in the shop so as to help any leftover bits of moisture get dried up.

All in all I think I'm happy with the result. I don't think I'll wash the control board and neck board since those actually look pretty nice. But, tomorrow, I'll put the monitor control board back in and reattach the 150 wires and plugs to it. Then, it's on to the power supply and maybe the speakers. At this point I have to be very careful and take lots of photos because I don't want to forget where each wire goes. The wiring although filthy is pretty neatly organized in the cab still.

 

[friedpotatoz]

Great job on this restore! Lots of useful tips!

 

[stringbean]

Supplies incoming! The weekend deliveries came in hot with most of the things I need for the new wheels (including the wheels which arrived), new buffer pads, the PSU fan, foam roll, and double sided tape to reattach the instruction glass to it's metal mounting brackets. Also, the dog insisted to be in the photo.

 

[stringbean]

Today I focused on finishing disassembling the arcade and putting the monitor back together. While it doesn't feel like I did a whole lot of cleaning/restoration, this was an important step in the process. Since some foam stripping arrived over the weekend, I just went ahead and applied that to the control panel which turned out really nice.

After this, I replaced a broken plastic wire holder in the bottom of the monitor chassis and routed the wires through it. Whoever worked on the monitor before clearly broke the connector and when I took the monitor out these wires were just flailing.

Then, I reconnected all the cables to the monitor control board. I later realized I had forgotten to clean and reattach the metal shield that sites behind the neck board so I'll have to do that tomorrow.

On to the rest of the arcade. At this point, I began a painstaking process of marking all bunches of wires with numbers and taking pics to avoid a game of guess where the wire goes later. For some people this is overkill, but It gives me piece of mind.

After I was happy with the labeled wiring, I removed the PSU. There are 4 screws holding it in in the back. Once those are removed, it slides right out without any issues.

Then, I disconnected all the cabling that I could and removed it all from all the plastic routing mounts around the inside of the cab. Fully unplugged every cable from the plug IO board that is mounted to the side of the coin box enclosure and took that out as well. Next, I removed the metal part that supports the monitor bottom and has all the controls. Mine seemed to be stuck so after I removed the 4 screws from the inside that appeared to hold it in place I was surprised to find it was still solidly stuck. This made me think I had somehow missed something. Eventually, I figured out that those 4 screws were the only screws holding that in place and I was able to tap it loose with a little help courtesy of my rubber mallet.

There was still one connector that went into the coin box that I couldn't remove preventing me from actually being able to pull out the monitor support and remove the entire wire harness so I pressed it back in and decided to separate the cab first.

There are a lot of screws holding the fiberglass front to the back and both pieces to the bottom. 5 up each side and then another 20 on the bottom of the cab. Two are easy to miss because they sit behind the round feet in this picture.

Once this was done and the wheel mounts were unscrewed with a ratchet the cabinet can be separated, but the metal kick panel will still hold the bottom to the fiberglass front.

I read horror stories online of people stripping these screws while disassembling the cab and spending hours trying to get out a single screw. I will say, if anyone plans to fully separate the bottom, front and back of a Blast City, having an impact drill with some #2 JIS impact bits will significantly lower the chances of spending hours trying to remove a single screw because it got stripped.

Following this, I achieved separation.

A closer look at the speakers at this point shows there are 4 screws holding the support brackets to the cab. Before separating the cab into front and back pieces, the screws on the far outside aren't even visible and I didn't know they were there. Good thing I waited to remove the speakers.

I didn't photo this, but once the cab was separated, I was able to get down and take two small flathead screwdrivers and pinch the sides of the coinbox connector at the back of the coinbox which allowed me to pull it out without damaging it and disconnect the cable. Now that all the cabling was floating, I could pull out the monitor support piece along with the wiring harness and set that aside.

Then, I removed 3 screws holding the foot kick panel metal in. These 3 screws along with the round feet used to raise and lower the front of the cab were the only things left holding the metal floor panel to the fiberglass front.

Floor separated!

I also noticed that the nut had come disconnected from the flooring that the adjustment foot was screwed into. You can see in the above pic that it was only tack welded on each corner, so lifting and dropping the front of the cab at some point probably broke that weld. My neighbor has a welding setup and I've spoken with him already about fixing this for me. Everyone needs a neighbor like him. I decided to call it quits for the day here even though I really wanted to pressure wash the inside of the cab. Tomorrow, I'll remove the speakers from the front of the cab and start cleaning things up.

 

[codecrank]

lots of nice pics here I'm too lazy for all that, but it's enjoyable to see.

> coin counter
is that the P1 or P2 counter ? the blast supports 2 counters ( the vs kit comes with an extra counter as a matter of fact ). Some games refuse to start without the 2nd one ( like some naomi titles ). I juts have 100ohm resistor faking the 2nd counter hahaa

> raiser nuts
I've never had a blast where the raiser's nuts actually were still welded on. It's one of the design flaws, so while you're at it, you might as well weld them on the bottom of the base

> paint pen
woaaa, nice idea does the paint actually stick good ?

 

[aimbuster]

I'm enjoying your journey and seeing all of the photos. Thanks for sharing your adventure!

I just finished beautifying my Vewlix Diamond Orange and will start on my Blast City "soonish" when I'm not feeling lazy. It's a lot of work and I'll be dismantling mine as well. Helpful to see what you're going through so I can plan ahead with my Blast City.

 

[stringbean]

lots of nice pics here I'm too lazy for all that, but it's enjoyable to see.

> coin counter
is that the P1 or P2 counter ? the blast supports 2 counters ( the vs kit comes with an extra counter as a matter of fact ). Some games refuse to start without the 2nd one ( like some naomi titles ). I juts have 100ohm resistor faking the 2nd counter hahaa

> raiser nuts
I've never had a blast where the raiser's nuts actually were still welded on. It's one of the design flaws, so while you're at it, you might as well weld them on the bottom of the base

> paint pen
woaaa, nice idea does the paint actually stick good ?

I believe it is the P1 coin counter that's still connected. I traced a wire back into the coin box and the second counter has a connector that goes all the way to the front where the play odometer would be displayed, but there is a black cover over it instead and the actual coin counter appears to be missing. I'll re-install the P1 coin counter in the correct spot when re-assembling. I might have to look into using a resistor for the second coin counter since my plan was to install a Naomi in the cab when finished. Thanks for that tip.

Great idea with installing the raiser nut on the bottom. That seems like a no brainer and as you mentioned pitfall of the design of this cab. As for the paint pen, it worked really well. When I was looking for a paint pen, I specifically looked for one with paint that would adhere to glass which is how they are marketed - for glass and rocks apparently. lol

I'm enjoying your journey and seeing all of the photos. Thanks for sharing your adventure!

I just finished beautifying my Vewlix Diamond Orange and will start on my Blast City "soonish" when I'm not feeling lazy. It's a lot of work and I'll be dismantling mine as well. Helpful to see what you're going through so I can plan ahead with my Blast City.

It really is a journey! I've been doing a lot of learning and documenting the whole process has been fun. Viewlix Diamond Orange sounds very nice to have.

 

[stringbean]

This morning I finished cleaning up the kick panel plate and riser feet that had been sitting in the Vinegar / water solution overnight. The plate had lots of extra stains and glue like residue stuck to it so I hit it with the Krud Kutter and that did a good job.

Next up, I removed the speakers from the front of the arcade and soaked the brackets plus wheels and screws in the vinegar bath. The speakers themselves didn't appear to be torn or blown but the rubber ring was clearly dry as a bone and there was a thick layer of smoke/dirt on the front.

I would like to replace the speakers with these ones I obtained and then test them before reassembling the machine to hopefully avoid any unnecessary teardowns later.

Following this, I carried the front, back, and bottom of the shell out to the yard and connected up the pressure washer. First, I cleaned the inside by spraying the Krud Kutter and then powerwashing it off after it had a chance to eat through some of the really bad smoke stains.

I was able to get most of the worst stains out using this method. After finished rinsing clean I brought everything back in the shop and set it up to dry.

Then, I finished cleaning the wheels and speaker brackets fully and brought those back inside.

I was trying to think what is remaining to be done and here is the list I've come up with:
1. Fix riser nut
2. Upgrade wheels
3. Buff all painted parts with oxidizer, and wax
4. Swap PSU fan and clean PSU
5. Replace speakers and add foam in speaker box
6. Clean wiring harness
7. Clean bottom monitor/control mount
8. Re-assemble!

I'm starting to get pretty antsy to get this all finished and ready to play on.

 

[hidaniel]

Man, that Crud Cutter works a treat. The nicotine coming off looks like the ghosts of a thousand salarymen fleeing the machine.

 

[stringbean]

Man, that Crud Cutter works a treat. The nicotine coming off looks like the ghosts of a thousand salarymen fleeing the machine.

I had a good laugh reading that.

 

[aimbuster]

I need to get that Krud Kutter from Home Depot. What kind of cleaning Vinegar are you using? Do you have a specific brand label photo?

 

[stringbean]

I need to get that Krud Kutter from Home Depot. What kind of cleaning Vinegar are you using? Do you have a specific brand label photo?

In the past I had bought several large bottles of white vinegar for cleaning from my local grocery store (QFC). They are usually in the aisle with cleaning products and are super cheap. I’ll take some pics tomorrow. I mixed it 50/50 ratio with water since it is recommended not to use full strength for cleaning.

 

[war3zlod3r]

Can you even get the speakers out with out taking off the side panels? Asking for a friend

 

[Softdrink]

... I replaced a broken plastic wire holder in the bottom of the monitor chassis and routed the wires through it. Whoever worked on the monitor before clearly broke the connector and when I took the monitor out these wires were just flailing.

Where did you find the replacement cable clamp? A couple of the ones in my New Astro City were so brittle that they broke apart while I was trying to loosen them. I've been struggling to find a replacement in the same style, but it looks like you have a nearly perfect match here.