STTNG, like Terminator 2 (another Steve Ritchie machine), has a gun trigger to launch the ball instead of a traditional plunger. On my machine, the trigger was very loose and only had “spring” in the last little bit of the trigger pull. Definitely felt broken.

I looked up the part number for the spring in the service manual, and went ahead and ordered one from Bay Area Amusements. While I was at it, I ordered a replacement wiring harness for the left shooter, because it’s sometimes acting funny – more on that in a future post.

So I went ahead and removed the gun trigger from the machine to see what was up inside it. Four bolts attach the gun handle assembly to the cabinet, and can be easily accessed from inside the cabinet with the playfield raised. As suspected, the trigger spring was beyond toast. Replaced the old collapsed one (top) with the new one (middle), and cleaned the shaft that holds the spring with WD-40 (bottom). Now my trigger works and feels like new! Easy as pie.