Working on the A2:s...was like jumping around on a live meat grinder without any safety at all. I'm amazed that I came out of that career with all my digits and limbs intact. It's a thankless job that is highly underrated, underpaid and more dangerous that I would like to contemplate now in my olden days. But we've all been young and dumb. :)
1972, Our house had 56 lanes, and management would NOT leave me a couple spares to use in case of breakdowns. On league nights often times I ran my butt off, and it was usually on top of the machines cat walk. First thing you do is flip the red trouble light switch on to show the bowler you're working on their machine. Then spot, or reset, or fix the 180, or 270, or stuck ball. If I had a lucky night, no belts broke. But I really liked those A2 machines, (most of the time). Man it was noisy back there. The head mechanic told me they paid $55,000 for each one in the sixties. I'm not sure if that included the lanes, ball return, etc.
We owned a small center for many years.. 24 lanes.. one day the pinchaser asked me to turn the machines on so he could get ahead of the game and have the ball wheels and cross conveyor belts cleaned before the league started. Always liked it when someone took the initiative. Found out when the league started he cleaned everything with lane oil and not cleaner.... whoops
AMF i think they are 8270s or something like that are way simpler than A-2s,, there is so much more above the pindeck with A-2s and the gear box maintenance is ridiculous, as well as the The Ball lifts , if theyre out of adjustment and youre ball passes thru and gets stuck under,, the pin wheel can put some serious gouges in your ball, and just so more mechanical stuff, the Newer Brunswick GX models have tracks and stuff more similar to AMFs,, i worked on A-2 s for 8 yrs, after the first 6 ( non Auto score) then come back 8-9 yrs later and had all the diodes and other things for Auto scoring,, it was like realearning the machines , was kind of weird, that was my last of working on them and by then i was almost 30 ,,
