Topic: Loose Tornado men

[NJMike]

I had bought a new 30TH Anniversary Tornado coin op back in 2003. All but a few men cracked pretty quickly. It was an obvious defect, but I still had to pay for the new men. There were a few left from the original set and they finally started to crack. So I ordered a few more men to replace them.

What I'm finding, the new men are loose on the rods which makes tic tacking inconsistent to say the least. I took some measurements with a micrometer and telescoping gage. All the rods are in .620-.623" range. The bore on the men I removed are all .624-.625". It's a nice fit. The new men are all in the .633-.635" range. It's just too loose.

Has anyone else run into this issue? I don't want to have to start gluing or shimming the men. My only other option is to order a bunch of men, check them and hope some come through with a proper bore.     

[NJMike]

I was just contacted by Valley with an answer to my question. Turns out, Valley offers 2 types of men, reamed and un-reamed. They take a foosman and ream the hole a little bigger to make a reamed man. They did this because they were getting some complaints from people who bought home models because they were finding it difficult to install them. Apparently I somehow got reamed men.