Red Nintendo Donkey Kong Cab

[morgym]

So finally got my red Donkey Kong cab off eBay, Martin delivered it and although he had a dodgy knee helped me and my mate lug it up to my first floor flat.

Its in pretty good shape, very dusty , strong wiff of shed (not too bad)

It powers up, the screen works but initially was flickering but few adjustments on the dials stabilised it.

Iv taken a some of pics of the screen after it was on for 10 mins the scrambled mess changed a bit, once the thick layer of grime was cleaned off the screen , it seemed to be in very good condiditon, no screen burn, the colours were strong and image is bright.

I'm in the process of dismantling to be able to give it a deep clean. When i can I'll keep this updated with my progress

 

[Equites]

Nice - I saw your cab on the back of a van, it was in very nice shape, proper plywood build too instead of chip board.

 

[virtvic]

Have you tried reseating the roms yet?

I've had 2 DKJr boards that just needed reseating to get them working 100%

If the legs on the chips seem blackened, give them a (careful) clean off with some fine wet n dry.

 

[saleem]

you can kinda make out a ape in there i think?

 

[Bods]

It is a shame you couldn't of picked it up from the original sale

But very pleased it's gone to a good home finally and is going to be restored

Not really sure why people were being so negative about what will happen to it when being restored

Good to see it on here and pics of it before work starts and also if you need to know anything or need help on restoring it, you have some great people that can advise on the best way to tackle parts of it, if your not sure

Look forward to seeing it progress

Chris

 

[virtvic]

This should help-

http://www.brasington.org/arcade/tech/dk/

 

[morgym]

Thanks for the link , the picture seems to be a mixture of those chip problems. I'm goin to take the game board out soon, it's covered in a layer of dirt there is a little rust on some of the chips. so hopefully after a good clean the screen might give me some hope it'll be working again!

 

[Nintendo Arcade]

It's a rare Nintendo alright but looks like you need a new marque , bezel and CPo all easy to find but looks like your need to sand it down too and re spray .
Love it give it to me your only play it 😃

 

[Alpha1]

cpo could do with replacing, don't think it needs sanding and you can novus the bezel and marquee
Alpha12012-07-28 00:31:41

 

[morgym]

Iv taken them all off and given them a clean soap, water and magic erasers. The marquee looks good as new rust marks and pen have come right off , the bezel is in great condition too apart from the metal support at the
Bottom, are these glued on? As I can't get it off.

The cpo is warped and there are a few fag marks but again after magic eraser treatment looks pretty good, I'm going to try a heat gun to gently push the player1+ 2 area back into shape.

There are a few dings and marks on he side but the old paint still has a nice shine to it and I want to try and keep it as original as possible so will look into touching up minor marks.

Took the pcb out yesterday , accessing the chips is a bit of a ball ache as the boards are fixed together with plastic plugs, cleaned a tiny bit then put it all back in , started making noise after bit like a spring bouncing.

 

[Paul_in_nottingham]

Have you checked your voltages? Make sure you're not frying your board.

 

[morgym]

It's a uk radarscope cab ( thats what's on the serial number plate 240v etc) , I know US imports need converters but these were made for uk market, is that what you mean?

 

[Alpha1]

check rgvac.com, has a great how to on using your oven to bake plastic cpo's flat again.

 

[Guests]

I like this alot!

I'd love to restore this!! You've got a nice rare cab there

Nice one!!

Cheers

Al

 

[morgym]

Here are a few more pictures of the cab before any cleaning up. Iv done quite a bit to the cab, and I'll post some new pics soon.

its been thoroughly cleaned, metal parts stripped and resprayed, , new marquee light and Iv had a few large boxes from mikes arcade

 

[Alpha1]

Really looking forward to how she's turned out!

 

[Guests]

Yeah me too....come on!!

 

[morgym]

I started with easy stuff , got a magic sponge on the marquee and it looked like new after.

The bezel has minor scuffs and is in a surprisingly good condition.

the buttons were damaged beyond repair from cigs being sat above them.

CPO wasnt too bad , magic sponge made a massive difference but still plenty of cig burns and that warping in the middle. tried rust remover on the screws and it improved them but we still very pitted.

I started compiling a list of things Id need to replace

1.) new buttons

2.) T-moulding

3.) new CPO ( and screws for it)

4.) new stickers

5.) side art

6.) 2 board PCB

wasnt too sure about getting side art for it as it would be "original" for a red cab, but they do look good so I added it to the list

Mikes arcade had everything Id need so ordered from there.

I have cleaned the 4 board set and it improved what was showing on the screen, but far from working. So I decided to order a 2 board set from mikes arcade too

didnt take long for a couple of large boxes to arrive

 

[Alpha1]

Cool - keep the 4 boardset with the cab if you use the 2 board version - that's pretty rare and is a nice keeper to stay with the machine.Alpha12012-09-25 18:35:37

 

[morgym]

I had to bend the coin door back into shape , and took off the bezel holder and marquee surround . Started with a wire brush, took ages. So got the power tools out

. Electric drill with sanding bits. very quick and gave a great finish. I then resprayed satin black, all done on a sunny saturday.

The T-moulding was very brittle and came off with ease , putting the new stuff one made a massive difference.

There are a lot of dings and dents on the cab , but overall the formica finish isnt bad. I wanted to retain this colour and finish so found a paint to fill in the gaps. Its not an "as new look " but I like the look , retains some character and history.