Bally Double Eagle 5000+ Clearing the Ram

[beer4u]

Howdy all,
  New to slot machine ownership. Just bought my first one. I've spent
a quite a bit of time reading through 25 pages of Q's that looked like
it might pertained to my machine, but still can't get it to run properly.

Here are the particulars:
Bally Double Eagle 5000plus
S/N: S911102751
Mod# S62M34T-00
1616 / DCM-22
Backplane: AS-3356-12
MPU brd:?? two daughter boards
Relay board?: M-2045-5, AS-3356-5
Comparator: CC-620 "B" "STD" Coin Mechanism Inc

The previous owner said it never worked for him. He said he
sent the MPU card in to have it repaired and they replaced the
battery and said that the card worked in their test system.
He said the machine still didn't work after installing it.

What I have seen is the quarters drop straight to the tray.
I ran most of the diagnostics and they seem to exercise everything correctly.
I never see the "Game Over" light on except during the light test.
The power supply has the correct outputs of 5.15v, 23.3v, 12.08v, 11.85, & 5.15v
The onboard battery does look new and reads 4.04v.
The "WIN" area has two decimal points and then a "20" code, most of the time.
I can put up 3 credits using the switch on the pcb on the door and the reels spin.

I tried clearing the Ram using several of the methods I read in posts I read.
I couldn't make it come up with the "CH" or "CL" codes.
I tried the method of pulling out the buffer card and holding the pseudo coin button
  and also the jumpering the J14 pin pins on the MPU and holding the pseudo button.

My questions are:
  1. Does the hopper have to have a certain amount of coins in it to work?
  2. When do I have to activate the key switch on the side of the panel?
  3. Am I missing another Ram clear method?
  4. Do I need a keypad plugin to set options at this point or do they default to a usable set of options?
  5. How long does it take to clear the Ram? (Felt like my fingers were starting to bleed, but maybe it wasn't long enough?)

Would like to note that a few times with various combinations of hitting buttons and clearing
the ram, the machine would give me like 10 max spins and payoff accordingly.

Anybody still reading at this point and would like to give any hints of what I should
do next? I am having fun troubleshooting it.

Thank you much for any help anyone can provide.