Bally's Twilight Zone must be one of the greatest pinball machines ever made. The amount of playfield toys must have been a true revolution, when it came out back in '93. And these features must have been an operator's nightmare if I try to imagine all the mechanical features that can break down and break down earnings. The gumball machine must have been one of them, I recon, after having been trough the trouble of de-assembling it.

The idea for this little project were some posts on the newsgroups. Obviously some people went to the trouble of using a dremel tool to cut holes in their gumball machine plastic. I settled with an afternoon of (de)assembling work.


Having walked around with the tought of putting 'real' gumballs in my Twilight Zone, I must have been in all toy stores in the vicinity. None of them had marbles which resembled real gumballs. A sweets store was my last resort.

Remove some parts so your gumball machine will be easier to reach. I started taking of the plastics around the machine and at the backside of the playfield. This is also a nice opportunity to clean stuff in areas you normally never go. Some plugs have to be losened, some screws losened, no big stuff.

After doing this, you will have a perfect view of what this assembly is really about.

It's time to tear this machine apart! Well, let's first take a sip of coffee and not rush things. The assembly is pretty self-explanatory. Just some screws and nuts to losen and you're done.

Now it's time to clean the whole assembly and then.. fit in your gumballs!

After cleaning the asembly you can put the parts together and before tightening the screws, insert your gumballs. Don't forget to create a nice composition of colours!

And you're done. It's that simple! Good luck and I hope this article will bring more gumballs to gumball machines in pinball machines or whatever..

Robin