head pin

[mekanic]

im having a problem with the head pin falling over every so often. i would say a few times a day. i sit and watch it and i see nothing wrong. then i get a call for a re rack. and the head pin is layin on the deck. any suggestions????

[KountryLanes]

Re: head pin

Take out all the pins and run the table down to bottom dead center and check the cup shaft tie rods. See how the bushings are. Also you might check the measurment of the cup and make sure its 4 1/8 inch wide. Maybe the darn thing is just bent a little. Replace it if it is. Hope this helps

[Kat]

Re: head pin

Originally posted by mekanic:
im having a problem with the head pin falling over every so often. i would say a few times a day. i sit and watch it and i see nothing wrong. then i get a call for a re rack. and the head pin is layin on the deck. any suggestions????

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Go thru the entire Yoke Adjustment procedure in the pinsetter manual. Also check for slop in the rod ends on the stabilizer rods which keep the table level. With table all the way up (355) grap hold of the front of the table casting; see if it rocks up and down. If it does, it will cause greif and sporadic falling pins.
Also ensure that you're cup gaps are adjusted properly.
Is El Dorado still without a FM?

[Rep]

Re: head pin

I always start as simple as I can. Check the cup, look for cracks (obviously), check the gap, and also check to see if the cup is warped at all (that will cause this and it may not appear to have anything wrong with it), just lay it on a flat surface or lay something flat on it and make sure it's straight. Also, check the liners (if you have them installed in the cup) they sometimes get sticky and when theres a doublefeed in the bins it'll stick to the liner and just throw it forward as it never seats itself in the bottom of the cup. If it's an older cup, try changing it out first and see what happens, I've had older cups that weren't warped or cracked drop pins every now and again for no apparent reason. If ya still have problems, go through all your table and spotting adjustments. Good luck!

[pulse-tech]

Re: head pin

Good call rep first things first
check the gap

[Dutch]

Re: head pin

I’ve had similar problems that turned out to be that the bowlers &amp; desk people weren’t paying attention &amp; what they really wanted was a full rack ON 2ND BALL CYCLE. It turned out that the sweep would coast occasionally &amp; clip the bottom of the head pin.

It drove me nuts for about 2 weeks until 1 of the scorekeepers spotted it &amp; let me know what was really happening.

[DavidC]

Re: head pin

I recently had this problem and I was to stubborn to just take the cup out and put a new one in. It also was the head pin. I checked all adjustments with table and cup width everything fine no cracks or breaks with the cup. After going through all this and still having the head pin fall over I finally took cup out to check it more closely but I still saw nothing that would make pin fall over untill I set it down on a flat surface. Cup was warped could not tell untill it was sitting flat. Switched it with a new one no more problems. Now when I change broken cups I lay the new one on a flat surface before putting it on.

[mekanic]

Re: head pin

thanks for the help guys, come to find out it was a warped cup. i replaced it and no more fallin head pin so far.

[JimDorsin]

Re: head pin

Originally posted by David Cliffe:
I recently had this problem and I was to stubborn to just take the cup out and put a new one in. It also was the head pin. I checked all adjustments with table and cup width everything fine no cracks or breaks with the cup. After going through all this and still having the head pin fall over I finally took cup out to check it more closely but I still saw nothing that would make pin fall over untill I set it down on a flat surface. Cup was warped could not tell untill it was sitting flat. Switched it with a new one no more problems. Now when I change broken cups I lay the new one on a flat surface before putting it on.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I have had this problem many times....turned out to be a bad batch of pin cups from JCP (go figure)

[TheGMan143]

Re: head pin

Originally posted by David Cliffe:
Now when I change broken cups I lay the new one on a flat surface before putting it on.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I mentioned this tip a while back... I'll repost it for some of the new readers:

Do yourself a favor... make yourself a new "gauge" to use when doing machine PM and adjustments:

Have a flat piece of stainless steel or aluminum hardplate (the thicker aluminum diamondplate works good too) cut at a local welding/metal supply... make it about 1.5" longer and wider than a spotting cup. It should be no thinner than 1/8"... if you go for the aluminum, you can even go to 1/4" thick. Let them know that it's important that it's FLAT and not warped at all.

When you're doing cell/table adjustments, run the table down to respot, then climb into the pit and check the cups by laying the plate on top of a cup, putting your hand flat on it, and 'rocking' it around. If it tilts or pivots noticeably, the cup is warped or bent. Do this on all the cups. Takes about 2 minutes to check them all, and it's a lot faster and easier than finding out about a messed up cup when it starts tipping pins over.

[Rep]

Re: head pin

Excellent tip once again "G". It's my favorite specialty tool now that I got one [img]/content/btubb/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif[/img]