I purchased this machine as converted to a Choplifter machine. This page will document the restoration of the machine back to its original Tron glory!

PHOTOS (click on any thumbnail for a larger image)

This what the machine looked like when I first got it home.

A bunch of Choplifter junk I had to pull out.

Replacement monitor shroud that I bought. It's got a small piece of the artwork missing at the top, but not too bad. Should clean up nicely.

Now that some of the Choplifter parts were out of the way, I could test fit the monitor shroud. Just wanted to eyeball what it looked like with it. :-)

Another shot of test fitting the monitor shroud. Almost looks like a Tron!

Left inside surface, showing what was under the inner black vinyl covering that I removed.

Right inside surface, showing what was under the inner black vinyl covering that I removed.

This is the black vinyl I pulled off. If you look closely, you can also see the remains of the original "MCP cone" translite that went behind the monitor shroud (sob!). I'll have to locate a replacement translight.

This is a picture after the cabinet has been mostly stripped down. Ready to start sanding!

After an hour with the sander.

A shot of the other side after initial sanding.

The control panel as it looked after pulling it off the Choplifter. Except for missing the spinner assembly, it's salvagable. The joystick isn't even cracked!

The control panel after stripping off all the parts and the old overlay.

The control panel after installing a brand new Tron overlay. Sweet!

New spinner sticker, purchased from ArcadeShop, ready to install (once I locate a spinner assembly).

Brand new joystick pieces, ready to install. The old ones cleaned up really nicely, but I'd been saving this new set just for the occasion, so I figured I'd go ahead and use the new set.

Tron main wiring harness I purchased to replace the one that had been hacked up for the Choplifter conversion.

I took the shaft for the joystick and chucked it up in a hand drill, then held an abrasive pad against it (sort of a poor man's lathe - a little trick I taught myself while working on RC helicopter parts). You can see the difference between the cleaned and uncleaned parts.

This is the dual amplifier board needed for Tron's audio. It was missing from the Choplifter conversion so I picked up this one on eBay.

Brand new replacement T-Molding from www.t-molding.com.

New repro joystick insert purchased from www.arcadegrafix.com. Not perfect, but it'll work.

The MCP cone background artwork had been ripped out of the cabinet when it was converted. I found someone on the web with this one for trade and traded a couple Tempest monitor boards for it.

The rear corners of the cabinet were a little smashed, so I got some "Minwax Wood Hardener" to try to repair the damaged "wood" (it's more like compressed wood fiber).

The damage to the corners basically splayed out the wood. I used a Dremel tool to route out some of the T-molding channel to allow the corners to be compressed back to their original shape. Here I've got the smashed areas clamped down and I'm wicking wood hardener into the damaged areas to both strengthen it and harden it into the recompressed shape.

Closeup of the repair work. The repair work actually turned out really well.