I recently acquired my first pinball machine, a Williams EM: Gay 90s. I noticed within the first day that the upper drop targets which are supposed to trigger an up-post between the flippers rarely trigger it. I had done some poking around and saw this morning that the springs pulling the B drop target down was missing so replaced it. It should be noted I used a pen spring for this as I did not have nor feel like waiting for the proper part, I also replaced the a side spring with this as it was a bit stretched. Still the targets don't activate the post consistently as desired. I have attached a drawing of the three conditions on the drop target here, when its up the post is down, and when its down the post is down, however the middle position activates the magnet to lift the post. Best I can guess is the targets lower too fast and the middle position isn't hit long enough? After replacing the springs the targets activate the up-post more often but still not consistently any suggestions?
Another thing of note is compared to when actually playing, if I just tap the targets with my fingers they work properly almost every time, I don't know if that's a force or angle difference affecting it.

Screenshot 2024-04-09 182558 (resized).png

OK, I may be stupid. was it an issue with the springs? no, it wasnt an electric issue either, the tab that locks the post down just wasnt able to be pulled properly. So a bit of grease and everything works like a charm. Now i can move on to fixing the other minor issue with the machine before slowly figuring out how I want to fix aesthetics.