How to disassemble the clock of Twilight Zone pinball machine

Taking the clock assembly of your Twilight Zone pinball machine apart is not very difficult. There are however some things to consider to make it easy to put it back together correctly.

A reason to take apart your clock is when you 'shop' the machine and want to look at the condition of the boards, to clean the inside of the clock housing, or when you want to repair the optos (that often get damaged because of heat buildup in the clock housing) or when you want to install replacement clock boards.

Some things to consider:

  • Try to set to clock to 12 hour ! Or at least remember to what time it is set before you remove the clock hands !
  • Do not remove the gears on the clock ! If you did and don't know how to assemble them correct: there should be small dots on the gears to get them aligned.

tz clock

Here's the backside of the clock, already removed from the game. Removing is not difficult, unplug some connectors below the playfield and remove some screws.

tz clock

Removing the face plastic is also easy, it is held in place with just 4 long screws.

tz clock

Now it starts to get a bit more complicated. After removing the C-clip that holds the clock hands in place, you can remove the plastic. The metal pin that's behind the plastic slides out of the center pin. Remove the hour and minutes plastic.

tz clock

Now you can remove the whole motor and gearbox in one piece. Try to keep the gears in place !!

tz clock

The face plate can also be removed for cleaning (or replace it with a proto face plate).

tz clock

Finally unplug these 2 connectors (you could have done this before).

tz clock

And then you can remove the boards from the clock housing plastic.