January 1994
1..."'rAR TECH JOURNAL
GAME TRUCK
CARGO
Box T1E-DowNs
Todd Erickson
Summit Amusement
St. Paul, Minnesota
PROBLEM
I currently use a 18' enclosed box
for moving games. My truck has
E tracks on the inside of the box
for attaching cargo tie downs.
When I first acquired this truck a
little over 5 years ago, I pur-
chased a few over-the-counter tie
down straps. I then found that the
way these were assembled that
the cam assembly was too far
from the wall and games could be
damaged by the cam assembly.
The cam assembly would in time
loosen up so that the game can
fall over.
SOLUTION
About a year and a half ago I was
at a car show and found a tie-
.. . c_ontinued from page 17.
fire, thus trying to clear the
shooter lane switch and melting
the coil. This problem requires
the correct part to fix (535-6385-
00). No borrowing on this one -
you must wait until the part is
available.
down vendor, Specialty Truck
Equipment. I liked the looks of
his straps. They are all custom
made. I ordered two of them with
short (l ') tails on the ratchet side
of the strap. I purchased the
straps with a heavy duty ratchet
instead of the old cam. The big
ratchets are a 5-ton assembly and
the webbing is also rated at 5-ton.
After using these for about a year
I purchased 4 more for my truck.
BoTioM LINE
A few of my friends had straps
like my old ones. I cautioned
them that they would end up los-
ing a game with those straps. All
of them stated that they already
down the coil. This problem has
occurred at least 10 times or so -
on three different pinballs. The
remedy requires borrowing the
coil retaining bracket from the
knocker assembly. (part #535-
5203-01). This gets the pinball
running and avoids lost revenues.
CONCLUSION
PROBLEM4
his problem is similar to prob-
lem 3 except it's the coil retaining
bracket that breaks, but I have
never had this problem melt
I think the last two ball launch
assembly problems are related.
Maybe the supplier of those
brackets are bonding the metal
such, that it creates a stress point
have. A good strap may cost a
little more but repairing a game
costs even more. The cost is
about .SO/foot for webbing,
$14.00 for the ratchet, $3.00 for
the E-end plus stitching.
NOTE
I also use Span Loe cargo bars in
the truck. These bars will lock
your cargo in place. I have 2 cargo
bars and six straps for my 18'
cargo truck box. I feel this is the
right amount to tie down most
any load.
SOURCE
Specialty Truck Equipment
Phone: 800/446-9566.
at the bend, thus making it brittle.
But, even so, the burden of repair
is up to us and it is the responsibil-
ity of Data East to fix problems
with suppliers of parts for their
pinballs.
Data East, in my opinion, is the
top manufacturer of pinballs, but
they too have some problems to
fix. They have been good in the
past about promptly fixing ser-
vice problems, let's hope they'll
do the same with these problems.
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