#arcaderestore

[superhangonrestore]

Done..for now. I’ve taken this project as far as I can. While I continue to work on some smaller bits, I’ll be spending some time working on the room this thing sits in and more importantly – actually playing it.  All in I am at approx. 130 hours of labor, and roughly $1600 into the machine, services (like powder coating) and spare NOS parts. Small price to pay for what what is likely one of the nicest Super Hang On Mini Sit Downs in the US if not the world.  My outstanding to-do list:

- Source dash plastics, sad they are still missing at this point.  - Still want to upholster the seat with a nice padding and some leather. That will come soon. - My Asahi Seiko 740-L coin mechs are still pretty beat up, need to source those.  - Need to install the de-suicided 68k and freeplay roms. Just a nice to have.  :)

[superhangonrestore]

Time for rivets, and the point of no return. I knew once this step was completed there is no easy way to go back into the sub frame or mess with any of the wiring that runs through it. Also if I have to remove the shell again, that means more damage to the plastic and a repaint. Needless to say I took my time with every single rivet. As mentioned before, I slightly increased the diameter of the rivets to 3/16″ to mask the damage caused by drilling the 1/8″ rivets out, and to give everything additional strength. The rivets got easier the further I went and I am thankful that none of them went wrong. 

[superhangonrestore]

Painting the final coat, blue, proved to be much more challenging than I had hoped. I kept running into issues where the paint wasn’t curing properly. It turns out that my previous issue of primer not curing properly wasn’t at all the problem. Whenever I sanded the previous paint and whatever else off with my orbital sander, I was essentially creating a ring of contamination around my sanding. Imagine old paint, new paint, reside and plastic all being spun together at high rpms and high heat.  Once I figured out what was actually going on two things came to mind: 1. I should have sanded the ENTIRE thing down. A little too late for that. 2. I need to clean and neutralize the contaminated areas before I paint again. First I cleaned the affected areas a good scrub down with a rag and some acetone. That cleaned up the contaminated area well. Next I did a light sanding, and then slowly applied very thin layers of paint. Eventually it all worked out. If I ever do this again I will no doubt take it to a paint shop. But for a DIY job I couldn’t be happier with the results. 

One thing to note: the line between the blue and the white will be covered with NOS red/white striped decals. Brilliant design on Sega’s part as this not only adds a cool detail to the bike, but masks any errors that would have occurred during painting. 

[superhangonrestore]

Painting is back on track. Spent most of last night and today sanding down the before mentioned error spots (where primer didn’t settle). After applying a layer of primer it occurred to me – so much of this bike actually isn’t white, so why am I obsessing over getting this white coat right...

Took a step back and thought more about the logistics of the masking and how this should painted. Looking at my reference photos from disassembly, a few things came to mind:

- White is the first layer painted - Blue and Silver are painted next - The line between Blue and White is masked with a white & red vinyl strip, so there is actually room for error (about 3/4″ to be exact) - The bottom “engine” portion that is silver is actually framed off by some pretty distinct lines

Pending a light brushing with steel wool, I consider white to be finished. 2 colors left to go.

[superhangonrestore]

Ran into a bit of a hiccup with the painting process today. When I had sanded the bike and primed it, some of the blue areas actually weren’t sanded quite enough. With a primer coat everything appeared fine. But once I painted with a gloss coat things started wrinkling and bubbling all over. 

Some quick research told me that this is from uncured primer. Meaning: since the base layer wasn’t sanded correctly the primer never adhered to it properly. This is quite a set back as I have to sand, prime and re-paint about 25% of the plastics.  If I can’t get this right on a second attempt the pieces will be going over to a body shop. 

[superhangonrestore]

With the base done I started tackling the rebuild of the controls. Admittedly this is all a bit over my head. The system of springs and gears and pinions and potentiometers that make acceleration and break work is pretty dense. I took my time, referenced my take apart images as well as the original manual and got considerably far. Unfortunately the coupler that connects the acceleration wire to the acceleration pot has a piece of a hex wrench broken off inside one of the set screws. Temporary setback as Arcade Fix It had some in stock.

Since the controls are on hold I went ahead and re-ran the original wiring loom. Nothing super complex here. Just adding some new zip ties and a new cable wrap to tidy it all up. Then I added some new wiring zip ties / clips to secure the harness to the frame like it was when I received it. 

It was getting late so the the next step of sanding and cleaning the shell more for paint prep will have to wait for another day. 

I sat the WIP shells back on the frame for no other reason than to remind me that the end is very near :)

[superhangonrestore]

Completed some light fiberglass repair on the shell. There were two small cracks on the underside of the base and a few holes that were damaged when drilling out the rivets. The resin was taking awhile to cure in this 50-60º weather and after sitting overnight it was still tacky. I tossed the pieces up on the roof the following day with direct sun hitting it and within a couple hours it was all cured. Fiberglass is way messier to work with than I anticipated. The work isn’t pretty but it’s structurally sound and in an area no one will ever see.

I also put some fiberglass patches behind the holes for the seat rivets. The original seat has some damage and a previous repair on it. So instead of riveting is back on, I am adding a snap lock system (thanks for the idea Thomas!) so the seat can be taken on and off as needed. I’m still working out some minor spacing issues but so far it seems to be working as intended. Once all spacing is sorted the seat will go to an auto upholstery shop in town to have some padding and a nice wrap of synthetic leather to give it both comfort and a more premium motorcycle-like feel. 

[superhangonrestore]

Removed the monitor shroud to begin prepping and uncovered some good and bad things about the original monitor inside.

The monitor is an original Sega part 200-5090 sporting a 20″ Toshiba Tube and a Sanwa chassis, cool!

Part of the framing that held the monitor in place had separated at some point (during all the years of transit no doubt) and had caused it to move back far enough to just NEARLY push the neck board into the rear of the housing. Close call because had it gone any further we’d likely have a necked tube on our hands. Other owners, take a second to open your housing up and make sure this hasn’t happened to you. 

Additionally the monitor has some serious burn but it’s all from this game so combined with the tinted monitor plastic cover I can live with it.  This thing needs a serious bath. Hoping one of my friends who are way better at monitors can help me with that in the future.