Well yesterday evening was the "road-trip".
Well what can I say. First I was delayed because my wife had some other appointments arranged. At least I had arranged a strong helper, a nice van and the seller to be in his new house for the pick-up.
We went down the "basement" to pick up the machine. Folded the backbox on the front, tied it down and brought it towards the stairs. Just by looking we already concluded that there was NO way that the backbox would fit through the staircase !!!! There was no other exit so we already wondered how that thing had ever come down there !
So....after some time we concluded that there was only one solution: The backbox had to be removed. Easy enough to say but if you've ever seen all the wiring going between the main- and the backbox you know what this means: removing LOADS and LOADS of connectors.
While I was looking what the best way to do this I found that the former owners probably had the same conclusion because there were a number of connectors already disconnected in the mainbox. However, one wire set cannot be disconnected there so I had to do it in the backbox. (The good news of course was that this meant it probably didn't work because of those loose connectors !!!)
Dind't have time/means to mark everything. I didn't want to postpone either because I had the van borrowed that night.
So, I removed all the connectors from the backbox. Then we removed the backbox.
This all went without problem.
So it was time to lift the mainbox up the extremely narrow stairs that also had a turn near the top !
Step by step, myself under the box, my friend guiding it upstairs we lifted it up in almost complete vertical position.
It took about 15 minutes to come up there, but we managed it !
However, time had passed quickly and I didn't want to have it in my gameroom like this so I decided to put it in Erik's storage for a little while.
I also forgot to bring my camera and even my phone so I am sorry to have to say I have 0 pictures....
Anyway, the playfield looks very good indeed. It looks everything is complete. The cover of the right sling has a small break. The artwork all around is undamaged. Not sure if it is discolored, was hard to see with the available light but it can't be much. The coin door shows very little wear.
I have the feeling that this machine has not been in operational service for long. The seller didn't know how long the former owners used to have it though.
Anyway, now I am left with an electronic puzzle: re-connect all those connectors ! regretfully there was no service manual with the machine, but I can of course download it, but I will probably buy an original one.
BUT, the good thing is that the guy who built my gameroom actually also owns a Judge Dredd !!! Soooooo, I can take lots of pictures, or maybe I can even put my machine next to his to wire it all up !!
No time this weekend though
