Groetchen Pike’s Peak

[geofflove]

I’ve recently been lucky enough to grab one of these. Someone had done a great job in restoring it (possibly a member here?) so all that’s for me to do is play. I’m actually not very good at it but it’s a fun little thing trying to get all five balls (or any!) to the top.
Anyone had one?

[JC]

I've always wanted one of these - how does the scoring work?

[geofflove]

You get 5 balls. 4 silver and one gold which counts double. The higher you get the ball before losing it off the edge the higher the score. Balls drain to different channels and you add the scores to get a total. Simple but clever.

[aznhbob]

So...I'm on a quest for Pike's Peak restoration hints, as I rediscovered the one I'd ignored for the past decades (ummm, about 7, as I was probably 10 when friends of the family cleared out the back room of their penny arcade, and gave it to me. Found another site with some old posts showing restorations, but not the specific info I need at this point, which is where is the spring that returns the sliding ball supports when the penny is inserted? In mine, the supports retract (dropping the balls, which allows for new play) but it stays retracted. So somewhere a spring is lost or misplaced. Maybe you can pop the back cover and observe that return spring in action and tell me (or photo) where it is, because I just can't find a logical place where there's something missing. Much appreciated if you can!

[geordy55]

I restored the machine that the op has shown. I have loads of internal photos and I also have the drawings for the artwork which I recreated. Unfortunately at the moment I’m in the US, but will be back on 8th Jan. Drop me a private message to remind me and I’ll send what I have.

[pennymachines]

Hi geordy55,
Can I suggest you also post the essentials here so that other visitors may benefit in the future.

[aznhbob]

So after deeper disassembly, and careful look at one of the slideplate levers, I see that one of the spring-loaded arms has two strange rough spots along one edge of the arm. More careful examination and comparison with the great photos posted by several here showed that the rough spots were actually the remnants of another part of the arm that had broken off. That revelation led me to understand why the slideplates were returning. It was not a missing spring, rather it was another part of the lever that forced another lever to return the slideplates. One restoration had a #8 or #10 machine screw in place of the broken part, and another showed what looked like a factory revision, instead of a bent lever there was a thicker lever riveted to the arm... so I build myself a replica and riveted it in place and voila' the Pikes Peak, she be working again! Noe to finish the Evaporust treatment, and refinish the cabinet. Thanks guys.