Hi, I found your site while doing a search on Google for Valley tables and whatnot. Anyway, I'm hoping someone on here can help me figure out a problem with a coin op Valley ball return that's not working right. Half the time the cue ball ends up at the wrong end of the table. Plus there will be 2-3 balls that will end up where the cue ball is supposed to go. Sometimes the cue ball does go back to where it's supposed to but not always. Any ideas what the problem is or what I need to do to fix this? It's a friend of mines table and he can't figure it out. They are supposedly using a magnetic cue ball on it right now, but he also has the oversize cue and "claims" that it works right if you use the oversize. But to me that makes zero sense since some of the other balls go where the cue is supposed to go or whatever. Any help/advice at all will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
For the problem of the other balls going where the cue ball should go, make sure the table is level. If that does not solve the problem, might want to try slightly raising the cue ball return end of the table. Otherwise you will need to remove the rails and then the slate top and see what is going on inside. May need a good cleaning inside the table.
The cue ball return mechanism has a rail with two sides for balls to roll down. Gravity makes them go to one side. There is a large magnet on the other side. This magnet will attract a magnetic or metalic cue ball to roll down the other side of the rail. If the table is not level, balls may roll down the wrong side and come out the cue ball side. Or if a magnetic cue ball is old and loses its magnetism, it can come out the foot side. There is also a bar on the top of this rail which directs oversized balls to the cue ball outlet. Smaller balls will roll under the bar. So the oversized return mechanism is different from the magnetic return mechanism.