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I highly recommend buying an old pinball machine and refurbishing it yourself. You'll learn a ton about how these great machines work. I got an old Creature From the Black Lagoon (1993) [1] and stripped down and rebuilt all of the playfield and the cabinet. There's lots of info on the web about how to fix them, and many companies sell spare parts.

[1]http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=588

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I second this - and am happy to see an ipdb.org link - there is a ton of information there. I picked up an old Xenon - http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?gid=2821 - worked it over with guides online and it still runs great 10 years later. If I had the room I'd have more!

Thirded. One of the most satisfying restorations we've ever done was a sand-it-down-to-the-wood repaint/restore of a Space Shuttle. There's an extra level of satisfaction to play a machine where every screw, bolt, wire, and switch is something that you personally put in place.

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