Restoration Horror Stories

Not having any luck fixing my Fairchild Channel F so I felt like I needed an easy system to restore & get some confidence back.

Cracked into a Sega Saturn that I paid $15 for at Goodwill and...It was filled with roach parts and rust. Ok, not so easy after all..lol. I've heard Saturns are Tanks so i'm hopefull that a thoughough cleaning will get this up and running. Time will tell.

But it got me thinking: what restoration horror stories do you guys have? Must be some doozies.

 

This reminds me of awesomeNES and his "Roach Motel" NES.

http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/the-roach-motel-nes-restoration-project.57729/

 

I for sure have one!

I had a knock on the door from my neighbor, saying he found some stuff I might want. I go over there and see a clean, but dusty, Genesis 2 with all hookups, 3 controllers, and a bunch of games. Said it was mine for free if I wanted it. Needless to say, took it home and wiped the dust off. While cleaning inside the cart slot, I saw something move... Me being the curious idiot I was, I cracked it right open. Boom. Black Widow about 2 inches from my hand, alive, and angry. I quickly ran away and grabbed some bug killer. Come back? Its gone... I still believe its in my garage somewhere today, and when I do find it, its getting DROWNED in pesticide.

 

Damn, Mine looks like the ritz compared to that! lol. Got one deep rust area on mine though..not sure the best way to keep it from rusting anymore. Thinking i'll dremel with wire brush as much as possible and brasso after.

 

I've got an Amiga 2000 with a corroded board (around the area where the battery leaked, just like on every other damn 2000 in existence), but I don't exactly have the know-how to fix it. It was missing the CPU when it arrived to me, so I replaced the CPU socket (had corrosion on some of the pins) and put the chip in but still nothing. I have a feeling there are some cut traces somewhere, but I've got no clue how to fix them or even test for them.

 

Cut traces can usually be fixed with IDE or CAT5 copper wire.


Anyways,my horror story was a broken PS1 SCPH-5502 - god may have mercy on me,it was the predecessor of awesomeNES's Roach Motel. The CD controller must have been shot,as no laser mech worked in it.

I also found a bug (yes,a "kitchen bug" as we call it here)inside a broken v1.0 Xbox. Quite the same as the PS1 afterwards,but this one did not even work at all. Solid green,no DVD ejecting,no video,no audio. Had a Hyundai/Hynix TSOP. (my current 1.0 has a ST)

 

Must be nice to have neighbours that you get along with.

 

Lol, I wish it were like that now.. Those neighbors moved away because the person they were renting from went bankrupt. Now the house to the left of us is empty and owned by the bank and the people to the right have an annoying yippy dog that never shuts up. I have also only seen them outside of their house once.

 

I also get along with my neighbors and one (who's really a great guy) is killing me with his game stuff. He's a hoarder not a collector, he just saves everything and doesn't use it.

So I was asking him if he wanted me to mod his old xbox since his wife told me he had one. He said he was good because like most of us ex GI's, he bought his already modded overseas (U.A.E.)

So he went to his attic and pulled out this dusty Halo 2 Xbox..perfect condition, nice and blue..not faded at all and....A Freaking superman sticker set all over it!

Ugh! Here i am looking for one and my neighbor has one he'll never part with, doesn't play and is covered in a horribly ugly sticker set on that beautiful blue frost case.

 

Neo Geo mf1fx that had a bajillion eroded traces. One trace could have 10 different eroded spots. z80 IC had rusted off pins. Binned.

 

I'll just leave this here.

 

Jesus christ. Looks fixable but with a hellofalot of work.

 

How about that Game Gear someone fished from the trash? Broken wires, bad sound, bad display, covered in rat piss, etc. It was a mess at the start and he made it work in the end. I wouldn't have touched it when it was obviously pissed on by critters.

 

Maybe if I had a solvent tank like Awesome NES..other than that..yeah, i'm with you. Well, wait a minute..if it was something rare I'd probably don one of my level A hazmat suits and dive on in that dumpster!..lol.

 

Well the good news is, Its all cleaned up, I had to heat silver paint the shields they were so bad even after removing the rust, but..everything works great!

Wow, these things really are tanks, the cart slot in the back which I was pulling bug legs out of forever, even utilizes my pro-action-replay just fine!

Funny part is..I really wanted to get a grey (or skeleton) Japanese Saturn since I think they look nicer when I came across this. But hey, this will get me by till then for sure. Or be my workhorse after I get the grey or skeleton ( or both, who am I kidding?, i'll end up with both..lol).