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Working on a Mills hi-top 777. I rescued it from the parts pile at a local estate sale. It's a nickel machine, but at some point the baseplate casting (MLB-7900) was changed and it has the pay posts for the coin slides from a quarter machine (5/32" shorter than for a nickel). This explains why I found all the nickel slides in a bag inside the case. These posts are riveted/staked in place unlike some of the ones that unscrew on earlier machines. Can I get these out without destroying the base? Or anyone know of a source for a 5cent baseplate with the correct height posts? Thanks for any advice or info.

The posts on your machine are the original riveted posts. Screw on posts are replacements for worn or updating the machine to take other coins. MLB7900 base stamp means it's from a late model Hi-Top. The machine started out as a 25C, why the 5C slides who knows. I've seen slides drilled out ground down and soldered together by others.

Actually the machine is all 5c parts: case price castings, coin tube, slides, escalator... EXCEPT for the 25 cent base. I think the original base was damaged and somebody replaced it without realizing the posts would be too short for the 5c cent slides, which is why they just put the payout parts in a bag and gave up. Anybody ever replace the riveted posts? Just drill them out? Don't want to damage the good baseplate.

J.N. Shetler wrote:Actually the machine is all 5c parts: case price castings, coin tube, slides, escalator... EXCEPT for the 25 cent base. I think the original base was damaged and somebody replaced it without realizing the posts would be too short for the 5c cent slides, which is why they just put the payout parts in a bag and gave up. Anybody ever replace the riveted posts? Just drill them out? Don't want to damage the good baseplate.

Pictures would help

These are the riveted/staked posts (pics attached). They are 1 - 5/16" high, which is for a set of quarter slides. Nickel posts are 1 - 15/32" high. The Nickel set of payout slides will not fit, they are too high when stacked. I either need a base with nickel denomination posts in place, or a way to drill these out and replace with nickel posts. I was just wondering had anyone done this before and had any advice. I don't want to damage the base removing the posts. Berten's has posts that I'm assuming will fit. Every other part of this machine is nickel denomination parts, so i gotta make the change one way or another. Someone swapped the base at one point, which is why it was never reassembled when it came to me.

Just my thoughts . . .

I don't think it would be too hard to drill three of the rivets, especially if you have access to a drill press. The fourth rivet appears that someone may have attempted to grind it off but gave up. That one may be harder to drill, because I don't see a well defined center on the underside.

BUT . . . not knowing any more about your machine than what I can see in these two pictures...

If the nickle machine requires 1-15/32" posts, and the quarter machine requires 1-5/16" posts, would it not be possible to extend the nickle posts upward by using a 5/32" tubular spacer of some sort stacked on top of the existing post (along with a longer screw to suit)? Maybe even stacking a couple of washers might work?
Of course my idea may be silly, because I don't know what attaches to these posts.

Hi WS65711,

Those posts hold the top frame for the coin slides, the base of the coin tube, and jackpot lever.

I thought about some home-made "extensions", but I'm going to keep this one, so want to try to do it right.

Might be time for the drill press......