Age of Bally 809

[dave91169]

After much testing and cleaning, I think I finally got my newly-acquired Bally 809 to pay out correctly.  On occasion, any payout hit by the reels would result in emptying of the coin hopper (or timeout, whichever happened first).  Great thing for the player; not a great thing for the owner!

Apparently had an ornery set of contacts in the step-up unit in the Feature unit in the top of the machine.  After folding down the front panel and taking note of what is NOT involved in a payout, it finally came down to the contacts on that unit.  After violating all the posts on this forum about not using abrasive materials to clean contacts (used some VERY fine emery paper on these contacts), the critter finally appears to pay out correctly.  Need a bit more testing to make sure, but initial results look good.

Question for this topic - is there a good way to determine the age of this machine?  Numbers on side plate are model 809-ZH, serial # MT-2019.  I know it's 1967 or later.  Did Bally put markings on the cabinet or on internal components to note the date of manufacture?  Not that important of an issue, but would like to know.  Thanks for any help.

Dave E

[slotsteve]

date is stamped on same plaste