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Hi everyone. I'm working on fixing up a 1960 Pace $.25 4-reel and it comes up with payouts far too often. The payouts are legitimate in that the symbols align properly on each payout. I've tested it and every $6 put into it empties the payout tube.

The machine was a gift, purchased from Harrah's in the late 80's. It was severely damaged, missing the base, coin path is modified, extensive brazing on the worn or broken cast iron components. When I got it, the handle did not move. I opened it up (front opening), removed the loose coins and other debris, sprayed it down with WD-40 (and yes, I now know that wasn't the best idea), wiped an cleaned as best I could, and it seemed to be working.

At this time payout seemed normal in that in that the payout tube would fill up and you could easily drop in $5 without a single cherry. After that i did some touchup painting and I also installed some beautiful warm yellow LED's to substitute for the missing wiring, switches, and bulbs. After buttoning that up, I started noticing the increased payouts. Other than a statistically impossible winning streak, I don't see how this could happen.

I'll post a separate thread on some other issues, including figuring out how to get the mechanism out of the case, but in the meantime, let me know if you have any ideas.

Welcome to the forum !!
many of these Harrah's pace machines were modified within an inch of their life , & used well beyond most machines would be. Plus that specific casino & it's neighbor had very heavy traffic in the 1950's & 60's. Most frequent issues were jam ups due to to many coins overflowing the entrance to the "coin bucket" below. mechanics would open the back door with coins pouring out onto the floor. remove the coins & ready to go again.
the winning payouts might just be sure luck, or it's rigged up for more wins. checking the dick holes & the symbols on each reel will help figure that out. But ,on most 4 reel machines ,to get any win is very difficult , just by the math.

I own one also but, a 3 reel.... still apart / restoring. I do own a Mills token bell (J.P.= token plus 20 coin type), it was modified to pay out almost every coin put in. not so fun to win "every time" with your own money. Believe it was in the Nevada club / Diamond Jim's N.C. ,which was common for those machines to pay out better than usual. currently it's been non permanently ,put back to factory made.
jeff H.

Thanks, Jim. Interesting background. I had assumed it had been stolen and recovered, then fixed up for sale, but your explanation of extreme use makes more sense.

Not sure what I was thinking when I posted, but it's actually a Harvey's machine. Need to figure out how to post pictures. Not sure why this came out sideways.

Some times the photos (due to size ?) just show up like that but, click on it, it turns up right.
Harvey's was it's neighbor .... over the years ,when needed , 1 actually owned both properties, later the other owned both. they went back and forth like this to help the other in $ issues or ,gaming board issues.

this one have the red panels light up ??? if so , little more hard to find. a 4 reeler of any brand tends to be harder to find. it looks good so far ....
jeff H.

Yes, the red panels light up. See the photo below.

All the electronics were missing when I got and it definitely needed lights. Tried to figure out where the bulb(s) used to be located and found one mount in the upper right and a couple of broken rivets in the lower left looking at the inside as shown in the first photo. Too much work for me, so I installed a 3-foot white LED strip around the door.

The reels were still a bit dark, so I put in a 3-inch strip top center just above the reel window. The wiring and LEDs are temporary for now. Need to figure out how to run the power through the cast iron case, which will require removing the mechanism and drilling a hole. After that I'll solder all the connections and apply permanent glue to the strips and wires.


I used white 12-volt LEDs but they were too bright and too white. An artistic child of mine researched '60s-era incandescent lights and mixed up several batches of transparent paint. She covered the LED strips with scotch tape and painted each LED with the color mix. It took several tries to get it right, but peeling the tape off made it easy to experiment. Now that we have right color, she will remove the tape and paint directly on the LEDs. You can see the tape in the second photo. I used a flash so it's very white in this photo.


Almost forgot: After all that, the color was perfect, but it was still too bright inside. As an experiment, I reduced the voltage to 9v and the result is what you see in the earlier photos. Not too bright, but very warm and smooth lighting across the whole interior.

Cheers!

You can run the power cord out the back door ,like how Jennings did. just a notch ,on the lower right side.
just a thought. looks good so far. I recently found 3 nice older power ballasts for the power I need for one of mine. will use "correct" regular type bulbs. just a matter of finding the time. jeff H.