I bought a Gottlieb Spirit of 76 game in mid-April of 2007.  I ended up paying $400 for the game since although it would fire up, none of the score wheels would reset, the ball count would never increment, the right target bank always stayed down, the score motor ran on and on, and the playfield had some wear in the usual places.  The backglass isn't perfect, but it had only minor flaking.

While searching around on the Internet for info regarding this game, I discovered Dave Pauk's pages outlining what he did to restore his game.  He supplies many pictures with descriptions for each picture discussing the problems he faced, and what he did to rectify problems.  You can find Dave's restoration pictures and discussion here.

The pictures of my restoration effort for this old game are shown below.  It can't be too bad a game for $400, but even still, it takes time to get one of these games right.  Especially a 30 year old electro-mechanical game.

Update - First, I traded this game to my pinhead buddy Ryan for his Soccer game. Then after it was gone for a while I realized how much I missed it. Lucky for me, Ryan also missed a Sure Shot game that he used to have. The result is that I traded my Sure Shot and one of my Top Card games to Ryan for the Spirit of 76 which is back home again.

(click picture to enlarge)

Spirit of 76 Flyer	Glass Artwork
Underside of Playfield.	Underside of Playfield showing the flipper area.
Inside the gamebox.	Inside the backbox.
Lower left view of the inside of the backbox.	Lower right view of the inside of the backbox.
Score wheels without the backglass.	Latch to hold the light board and score wheels in place.
Upper left part of backbox showing glass retainer.	Upper right part of backbox showing glass retainer.
Upper playfield.	Upper playfield.
Upper playfield with pop bumper view.	Mid-playfield showing left side of the playfield.
Center of the playfield.	Right side of the playfield.
Lower playfield showing insert wear (all the inserts fell out).	Another view of the lower playfield showing the wear around the inserts.
Lower playfield.	Removing a "pin" using a dowel for leverage.
Target bank removed.	Another view of the removed target bank.
Side view of the finished playfield.	Another view of the playfield showing the wire forms that still need to be inserted in to the playfield.