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Thread: First full night working on the pin setters

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    Default First full night working on the pin setters

    For the first time I spent a full night in the back with the mechanic. Keep in mind I don't know all the technical lingo just yet and there is a ton of it. I have only retained a small bit so far so bare with me.

    We had someone knock a sweep off one side so I ended up replacing both of the shock bushings, easy fix, only 8 nuts on each side. One side was completely broke and the other was slightly damaged from the sweep hanging down so we replaced both. We did keep the other as an emergency spare even though we have extras.

    I'm not a guy who likes sitting around waiting for things to break, I'm rather high energy and can't sit still. So for busy work I cleaned all the large circular things I can't remember the name that brings the pins out of the pit to the distributor arm. Wiped down the distributor assemblies, bladders and all the supports. Amazing on all the little bits of belt from the distributor that pile up from them getting hard from being soaked with lane oil. He does this weekly and I couldn't believe how dirty they get in a week. I had to get a new rag for each machine, that's how bad they get.

    Then I got under all the machines and scraped out all the crud that builds up underneath from the pin deck all the way back. Amazing the things people chuck down the lanes and gutters that collects back there. Coins, lots of candy, marbles, cigarette lighters among other things. People are disrespectful jerks and slobs.

    I even found a pin that came out of a ball, it was orange and it matched perfectly. I didn't think those came out. Plus, various nuts and bolts that either the mechanic dropped or that had broken off the machines. I also found a pin cup that was broken and mangled from a jam in addition to chunks of a bowling pin that the plastic had cracked off of. It's something he does every 2 months and it was time. Enough crud was under 12 lanes to heap the dust pan three times.

    After that I replaced something that is similar to a coil over shock absorber on a car that attaches to the backboard in the pit because it leaked. I took another one off that came loose and we had to re-compress the spring on because it had come loose. Basically it keeps the ball from blasting through the back board and coming out the back of the machine.

    The last thing we did was we had to adjust the tension on the pin sweep on the ball return door. It was too tight so we kept getting ball calls on someone who was using a 6 lb ball because it wasn't able to push the flap for the ball to get through.

    It was a great learning experience doing all this stuff. There is sooooo much to learn. Although I don't think anything I did was anything major but I left with a good sense of accomplishment last night. I feel very comfortable working on the machines. He tells me to go do something I just grab what I need and go to it. He supervises as I do it of course but he seems pretty confident in my abilities as well.

    All these things I'm fixing I'm putting together a maintenance schedule to periodically inspect these things. He seems to know how long everything lasts. I also suggested putting dates on each part we replace with a black or silver Sharpie to help aid in keeping track of how old the parts are in addition to our work log. In a couple months I should have a nice organized preventative maintenance schedule to keep them oiled, cleaned and wear inspection. It's best to know ahead of time when you see signs of wear to order stuff prior to it breaking.

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    sounds like a real fun night. pretty soon you are going to be a seasoned mechanic.

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    I think that's the goal of the mechanic training me to get me up to speed asap. I don't know that scrapping 3" thick of crud out from underneath the pinsetters was "fun" but it was a learning experience and it had to be done. LOL He has some projects planned for me already specifically for learning. Next time he is going to have me build a distributor assembly from scratch starting with a pile of parts. I told him I learn by doing rather than being shown so he's gonna make use of that.

    He's got enough extras of everything to where he can pick any part of the machine and have me do this. I think that's great. It's the best way to teach and learn. Along the way I can learn what can go wrong and what preventative maintenance to do as well. Love the way this guy does things. It will be a little time before I'm "seasoned" but I have the best chance getting there properly with him doing the instruction. You couldn't pay for a class that would top his expertise. Well, I don't think AMF has a class anymore anyway but if they did.

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    you know I was thinking about it and I suppose it does not occur to most folks the workings of the back alley workings of a bowling center. all the moving parts multiplied by 12, 20 or however many lanes the house has. I can see why preventative maintenance is essential. if not things could go south in a real hurry on a busy night. plus the equipment is pretty specialized, its not like you can run to your local Home Depot and grab a needed part.

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    Quote Originally Posted by bdpeters View Post
    you know I was thinking about it and I suppose it does not occur to most folks the workings of the back alley workings of a bowling center. all the moving parts multiplied by 12, 20 or however many lanes the house has. I can see why preventative maintenance is essential. if not things could go south in a real hurry on a busy night. plus the equipment is pretty specialized, its not like you can run to your local Home Depot and grab a needed part.
    You're 100% right. However if everything works properly you as the bowler shouldn't have to think about it. Doing things like preventative maintenance keeps it that way. No, there aren't many parts you can get from the local hardware store besides maybe a few random nuts and bolts. Everything else is pretty specialized. A good mechanic like the guy training me has more than enough parts on hand to be able to handle even a catastrophic failure. He literally has at least 2 of everything and then some. He even takes it a step further. Say the distributor arm assembly has a catastrophic failure. That is what places the pins on the pinsetter, if that breaks then no pins. It can take a couple hours minimum to repair it if it's that bad. He already has a full assembly ready to bolt on and go if something like that should happen.

    During a league in such a small house if that were to happen we couldn't move them to another pair of lanes. We obviously couldn't let them sit two hours waiting either. In a case like this we'd remove the broken one and bolt on the one that's ready to go. Instead of 2 hours it may take 10-15 minutes. SOME things can even be done with the machine still going. We could have another person come to the back placing the pins in there by hand to keep things going while we do the repair. Then we would repair the broken one on the bench and have that one ready to go if another one fails. This house gives the mechanic free rain on getting whatever he needs to keep things going. Combine that with excellent preventative maintenance practices and you have happy bowlers and a successful business. Other centers that are pinching pennies may not be like this and it's sad because things like that are reasons they fail. Nobody wants to bowl on filthy lanes that break down all the time and constantly having their balls getting messed up.
    There are a ton of ways a alley can make money, leagues, tournaments, parties, cosmic, open bowling, the bar, food, selling equipment, events, whatever other gimmicks they have going. NONE of that will make any money if nobody comes because their lanes are all broken down all the time.

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