The Reversed Reversed Engineered Wacky Racer
Written by MAGIK

You may remember that back in June I posted on the mecca about my WACKY RACER. well, while going through my harddrive in preperation for a reformat (its gonna take weeks to sift through it all)  I found a bunch of photos that turned out to be the piccys of the project that I thought I had lost. Now that ive found them, I thought I would follow up the Steppa thread with the wacky racer antics. The pictures dont show a great deal of what Ive done tho, so bear with me as some of this may well be handrawn diagrams, but Im sure youll find it interesting just the same. I know few people reply to this or my confessions thread btw (and Ill be updating that one soon too!) But I can understand that because there isnt much in here you can reply to. its a bit like a diary of what Ive did with all these projects, the confessions page is a bit of a blog too.
Still, moving on, in june I recieved a parcel from a mecca mate, MPU3ISTHEBEST:
I had been chatting to him about it for a while about getting a couple of machines from him, And It had been decided that I would take the bits of the ones he had broken up through either condition or lack of space. Opening up the box, heres what It contained:





Oh and more importantly there was the roms too:


Now to the layman or untrained eyes it just looks like a collection of spares. Not to me. I had an ambitious plan for this, especially as I had come to the sad conclusion that my other mpu3 machine, Special circles, had reached the end of its life and there was going to be an mpu3 board and power supply to salvage and add with those parts. I had been after a wacky racer machine for a few months and twice missed out on one on ebay (last minute bidders grrrr) So I was determined I was gonna get meself one together out all these bits. Obviously though one major part was missing- I had all the parts handy, I didnt have a cabinet to put them in. And thats where I took the crazy decision that started it all of.
I dont know if any of you had seen a special circle in the flesh so to speak, but I have a few piccys of mine so I can show you the diffrence between the two machines. Top is the sadly expired special circle, which was scrapped due to cabinet condtion ( front panels that is). Bottom is wacky racer, a pic from the ebay sale I missed out on:




Those two machines are completely diffrent cabinets inside and out. Ones a lot taller as you can see than the other. Yet I made it my mission to morph special circle into wacky racer, a madness project from the start and one which will make you cringe and laugh at the same time. Thats what it did to me anyway. it may look good there, but special circles surrounds were all cracked to hell and there was a lot of damage to the top of the cabinet. I came up with the idea then to cut off the top and refit it lower down the cab, leaving me with a line up (and Wacky sized) cab. Starting off, once all SCs glasses had been removed(this had happened about a month before I started the project, bigshot arrived beforehand) The cabinet was then sitting in my shed waiting for me to get some spare time on my hands. I did take a wee pic tho while it was there-


And then, after a bit of a struggle with a hammer, I popped that coin mech panel and button shelf out and had this-


I explained how to remove that mdf button panel over in my confessions thread so I wont go over it again here as its a pain in the arse to ge out and still makes me sweat thinking about it. Once it was out thoug I could measure up the sides of the cab, peel out the t molding so I could cut and I immediatily realised this was going to be faiirly easy. Pity I didnt have a striaghter eye as youll see later on. On the inside of the cab the mdf coin mech panel was mounted by dowels, and these just happened to form an ideal guide for marking out where to cut. the top dowel hole is at an ideal hieght for the cabinet top, so It was a case of digging out the t-square and drawing a line from back to front through the middle of the dowel hole...



Once the markings were made inside, and the handle shelf removed (which in this machine was screwed together, not dowelled) I could mark the same level at the back, and then on the sides from the outside using a craft knife. Best to use a sharp object to mark the cut as the things veneered and pencil marks will rub off. Its here I made a biiig mistake though. I marked one side of the cabinet, then flipped it over and marked the other side, but my straight edge wasnt perfectly level and the result was one side was marked front to back the other back to front and sloping slightly the other way! I didnt see this at first but youll see later- anyway learn from my mistake MAKE SURE THE LINES ARE LEVEL!

once marked, the cabinet top was cut off along the line with a jigsaw.


Once the top was cut off both sides it could be removed, the top panel taken off the scrap side parts and refitted. Again its screws that hold it together. Once refitted it was then I noticed my error. the top was refitted with new screws at the same height from the reel shelf both sides, yet the top of the sides were not in line. errr whoops. Give it credt though this was me first project where I made all the mistakes that I learned from so I could do a perfect job with later projects. As it was it wasnt too far off, so I used a disc sander to rough it down a bit. Still far from perfect but at least the two sides were more or less level. To this day im still not perfectly happy with the cabinet top but sometimes youve gotta let heart rule head and get on with it.
Once the top was on and the sides adjusted as best as I thought I could I had a short version mpu3 cab...


Now its time for a couple of hand drawn diagrams- youll need to bare with me a bit Im not the best at sketching. but I need to show em to show you how easy it is to fit mpu3 framework. The great thing about it is that the frames go in as easy as they come out- you just have to use your ingenuity a bit.
With most mpu3 glasses, the top ones anyway what you have is something like picture 1- There is a surround which has two recesses for screws all around its perimiter. screwed into the inner recess is a flat metal retainer for the glass which is pressed up against the back of the surround. The outer recess holds the long L brackets which provide the mounting to the machine cabinet. The screws used all round are round head self tapping screws which bite down into the groove of the recess forming a thread as they go. the bottom glass is sometimes a little diffrent, with a hinge etc at the base, but MDM opted for L brackets all round when they built wacky racer, so the rebuild job is all the simpler. On my bottom glass the L brackets are still there. theyve been removed from the top glass though, so to mount the top surrounds I had to come up with a suitable method. What I did was to use alloy right angle brackets spaced evenly down each side of the surround. provided all the screws are nice and secure and the brackets are of a medium duty or more (you can get this brackets out of any ironmongers /b and q but dont buy lightwieght, they bend easy) the top glass will be rock soild fitted.
Bottom pic shows the topglass in and secure. You can just see the brackets peeping out from the sides.Now for the bottom!



Bottom glass was a a peice of gateu to fit- not being smart here- peice of cake would make it sound too easy. As the L brackets were still in place it was simply a matter of me wife laying it down into the cab and me straightening it up and screwing it in. Not entirely striaghtforward as I also had to ensure the reels were lining up with the winline once the glass was in. I didnt have a reel mounting frame yet,so the way I set all this up was to prop the reels up inside the machine with whatever i could find (in this case a spare part from a diffrent machine) so they were in the right position in the cab and then making sure each reel had its optical hole lined up with its sensor, adjusted the bottom frame until the center symbols lined up and screwed it in place. Once that was done the frame had to come back out so the lamp mask could be put in. Not a problem to refit the frame later now, the holes were now marked.


Now that lamp mask gave me a major headache- At first i couldnt figure out how to re attach it, it had fallen off altogether.After enquiring at the mecca (thanks TTX, andrew, Oldman, system80) I tried doublesided tape all around the flat surfaces of the mask, which seemed to work at first, but once I refit the lamps to the mask it all fell back off. Problem I had you see was this retaping had been done many times before and there was lots of tape debri on the glass. I wasnt even attempting to scrape that off for fear of damaging the artwork. The mask had stayed stuck on at the bottom though, where the feature held decal was. it just needed some more solid attachment. In the end i opted for the solution below (another hand drawn diagram). At the top of the mask, I screwed one or two angle brackets into the inner recess and fitted them over the mask so that when i tightened them down to the recess the mask was pressed into the artwork. I made sure all the double sided foam tape was nice and flat, and at the sides and bottom I loosened off the L brackets a little bit, Pushed some thin alloy strips under to make retaining strips and pushed the mask gently under the strips. Then I tightened it all up so it couldnt move. A nice compromise between three diffrent mounting methods!


Coming together nicely it was- it was time to move it inisde and get on with it


With the construction nearly done and the lamp mask in and secure the reels came next- wheres me pen (AT LEAST WITH THE OTHER PROJECTS I PHOTOED EVERYTHING!)

The problem with the reels is that I had the wrong type of frame to mount them to. The frame from special circle is far too high. I tried it in numerous positions including the two optional hieght settings that the rods can be mounted to but no joy. I did have an MPU4 mounting frame and it was closer to the right hieght, but the rods didnt fit the mpu3 reel assembly. what I had to do was make one out of the two. If you look at the diagrams its not as akward as it seems. First thing I did was lay the frame on a table, then lay two strips of tape on the table to represent the width of the frame to make this easy to do. Then I dismantled the mpu3 frame completely taking care not to lose the spring that goes onto the centre rod. The MPU4 frame got completely dismantled next, then the rods for the MPU3 frame were fitted to the MPU4 side plates. Making sure that the frame was lined up with my tape guides I tightened it all up and adjusted it till it was straight. I then learned yet another lesson- when I put the frame on the reel shelf and test fit the reels they wouldnt lock in the right place- the center rod was the wrong way round! Not too much of a hassle tho to take it out and turn the rod about. Second thing I found was once I had made good my mistake and the reels now locked in line with the windows it was clear that alough they had looked more or less right from the back they were too low!
Again it wasnt a major problem- the frame just needed raising up a bit. I did this by screwing down a bit of 18mm board to the reel shelf, and then two spacer boards to that, one either side. The spacer boards I didnt even have to make- the cabinet side tops I cut off earlier were an ideal size! Once that was all in I could begin more technical things like the wiring!


I wont go into the wiring details - it was straightforward enough. The buttons and switch connections were all labeled and the lamp loom could only fit in the machine the one way thanks to the way it was all sectioned out. I actually started putting it in the wrong way round at first only to realise that once the feature board had two or three rows in the rest didnt fit. Sorting that out I put them in the right way round, top to bottom left to right. The wires were bundlled in branches, one for each coloumn of the feature board, and the feature held lamps branched off the lamp connection for the cancel button which meant it was really a quick job to fit in the rest of the buttons correctly- while doing this I fitted new buttons to the surround as some were missing. I didnt have a set of buttons with the right decals, but they were close enough bar the autonudge button, for the minute theres another hold button in there but that can be changed later on. Once the MPU and power supply were fitted back in place (Just a matter of mounting them back on all the mounting points were there) I couldnt resist firing it up and checking those reels lined up just right- they did


Hard to see with that dark piccy, but after a wee bit more work (fitting the flu tubes etc it was almost finished- no center panel yet, that would have to be made out of chipboard. I didnt even have a lamp fuse in yet or nudge up buttons fitted but I was desperate for a play of the machine so I rigged everything else up and ran it in test mode (it started in test mode anyway on boot up- no back door!

whooowhooo


Not much left to do on it there was, but the wife wanted a play too so the nudge up buttons ended up getting put on so she couldnt get a shock and i didnt get to visit my couch overnight! At least I was spot on with the reels!


It was ooooh so nearly finished by now. Two things left to do really- get the lamps running, get the tubes on (oh and thridly fit the center panel!) This lot didnt take long. The lamp tray had been refitted along with the MPU so it was just a matter of feeding the connectors up to the right places- I put one 4w tube under the reels on the clips from the mask, and fitted a 6w on the top glass- in a reeaally dark room this isnt bright enough as the pictures show, but it will save the reels from getting yellowed. And after popping in a 5a fuse into the 34v line the lamps worked fine too..



After that it was only a case of making and fitting the centre panel- All i did here was use a holesaw to cut out holes for the buttons ater marking them out more or less in line with the reel windows. Once the holes were cut I then keyed them by cutting small slots either side out of the hole so the buttons locating notches sat flush with the board. I added a small round button too, the switch in this is connected to the 20p credit liine.
After all that, and a little rewiring of the back door switch, to save making a back door for the minute, switch on, press for credit and play!

A good fun machine and a not bad result for a first project!

And to think had I deleted them folders I could never have told you all...