Williams Defender Restoration 1
So, with some decent weather around these parts over the past couple of weeks, I thought I’d make a start with the restoration of the Defender upright that I picked up. Catch up on the details here.
Our starting point isn’t exactly great, but there’s enough here that’s complete to get this thing back into shape and playable as a Defender again.
I figured the first thing to do was to give the cabinet a good clean out. The plan is to get it in solid shape ready to repopulate with new hardware. So let’s get going.
The cabinet came with a WG4600 monitor. Original from factory, these are hardy monitors from everything I’ve read, and typically to get one going again doesn’t take a great deal of work. This one was particularly filthy having been sat in this cabinet since the early 80s, and I had no idea if it worked. The first job was to clean it up:
Now there are various ways of cleaning up an old monitor. I tend to go at it with brute force.
I know, I know! We can debate the merits or otherwise of doing this but having “washed” various monitors over the years, I’ve found this method to be effective and safe. Clearly, you want to make sure the monitor is fully discharged before throwing any water at it, and ensure everything is fully dried out before applying power!
After letting the monitor fully dry out in a warm place for a couple of days, it was time to take a look at it. I worked on a few areas:
- Reflowed all the header pins on the remote boards after discovering some hairline cracks
- Resoldered the power cable – noticed it was detached
- Checked fuses and continuity to the neck board
- Made a new aqua dag grounding strap – the one it came with was rusted and had snapped off!
With that done I plugged it into my Centipede cabinet and got a picture!
Having a working monitor without requiring major repairs is a huge bonus – very pleased with that.
Let’s get back out to the garage to tackle the cabinet:
Finished result:
Interior next.
The base of the cabinet wasn’t nice at all:
So there you go. We’re in good shape with the Defender so far. I’m treating this job as a light restore, as I have no plans to hang onto it.
While this is drying out over the next few days, I’m on the hunt for a replacement control panel, and will be digging out a Jamma loom, Williams JROK board and new power supply.
Next steps will be removing what’s left of the original wiring loom, dealing with the random paint that has found its way onto the sides of the cabinet, then sanding out the inside bare wood to neaten it up.
Then we should be ready to install new hardware and hopefully get it running Defender again!
More updates in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.
Thanks as always for checking in!
Tony
