Questions on Gottlieb Bronco Machine

[jimfusco]

Hello everyone! I'm new to the pinball universe, as I purchased a 1978 Gottlieb Bronco machine for my dad over Christmas. We're in love with this thing and restored it to its original beauty.

But, I have a few questions that I'm sure some more seasoned players could help me with.

1. On the attached photo, you can see a row of numbers at the top that I've only seen light up once- here it's #40. What do those numbers mean?

2. I thought I had all of the settings and jumpers in the correct positions, but no matter how hard I try, I cannot get the Free Ball feature to work, even though we should be earning them. Any help here or maybe a layman's manual for this?

3. The game sometimes gets stuck with the big red light, "Same player shoots again". It never goes off, so you can play forever. As much fun as that is, there's something clearly wrong...

4. Finally, the individual reels on the first player's scoreboard tend to "stick". That is, when it tries to add 100 points, it sounds like it's trying to catch a gear, but it slips. You hear a fast-paced clacking noise and the score doesn't increase. Plus, even when it does sometimes catch, it doesn't trigger the thousands place to move, so Player 1's score never really goes up. It doesn't look like I can just replace the reel (the wires are attached to the other circuitry- you can't just unplug it). Any idea what part might be failing here?

I know that's a lot for one post, but I hope someone can give me some direction. Thanks in advance!

[tiltjlp]

Welcome to the forum. As for the number 40, I'm guessing that there are other numbers up there too, and that one of the numbers get lit at the end of the game. It's a Match Number, and any player whose last two digits of their score Matches that number gets a Free Game.

[jimfusco]

Hi John,

Thank you very much for the response! Now I finally know what that Match Feature is. Not sure it's really necessary to have that on, considering we already get free games!

Do you (or anyone else here) have any advice for the other questions I've asked? I'm really trying to make this game work properly and the combination of the faulty reel and never-ending "When lit, same player goes again" light is driving me crazy.

Thanks again- hope to hear back soon,

~Jim