If I only knew what I was getting into...


         I bought this Bally 'Airway of 1937' pinball machine from Ebay last summer, because I
    always wanted to restore a pinball machine. This model has some sentimental value to me,
    so when this machine appeared, I bought it without seeing it firsthand.  Well, I wanted a
    'real' restoration, and now I had one, that's for sure.

          When I picked it up in California, I looked at it as closely as I could while loading it into
    my van. The electrical system seemed to be all there with not too much damage, but the
    playfield glass was too small for the machine, the lockdown bar was missing, and so was
    the backbox door and lock. The photo at left didn't do it justice at all, as you can see from
    the photos below...





       

           You can see from the photo above that the front right leg isn't touching the ground.
    That is because all four legs had termite damage - in fact, the leg at far left in the photo is
    the only one still the original size. The second leg from the left was about 3 inches shorter
    than the others, and there was no leg levelers left at all. So, I ordered a new set of legs
    when I got the machine home.



        
           There was signs of water damage all over this machine. For example, the sides of
    this machine's backbox was split where the sides of the box was nailed to the top and
    bottom, and the top of the backbox was warped in a 'U' shape. Luckily, the black
    backglass removal molding at the upper left of the photo was errr... salvageable,
    as well as the rest of the cabinet.

        The original playfield's medium sky blue color had aged to a flat olive color, and the
    original red paint on the left side of the machine had faded almost invisibly in spots too.

        But, nothing that age, neglect and weather could ever do to this poor Airway could ever
    equal to what the prior owners had done to it...



 

        The weirdest part was inside... The box under the left side of the front of this Airway is a homemade payout cup,
    and the Masonite board screwed to the right side of the game is a control panel - the left switch turned the Airway's
    main power on, and the switch on the right powered up the homemade(!) payout assembly's electronics in the
    backboard. The two added relays on the bent piece of metal halfway up on the right side of the backbox turned on
    when the Airway reached either 1700 or 1800 points. Then, the big solenoid in the photo on the right pulled in,
    unlatching the payout. When the player put in another nickel in the slide and pushed it in, the mechanical payout
    paid out a nickel into the cup.











     

         When I had my son Adam clean and vacuum out this machine before I could start the restoration, he found a
    mousenest in the payout assembly, lots of screws, two original scorecards, some Tinkertoy rods (?), and a very
    tarnished 1943-S silver 'wartime' nickel.

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