Removing / Cleaning the Game System

While the monitor was out, I took this opportunity to clean up the system hardware.  Most of the extraction was pretty straightforward - the 20 year old screws getting stuck and stripped was probably the hardest part of the ordeal.  Here are some pics:

One of the first things you should do if you ever happen to come across one of these dinosaurs, is to rip out the old NiCd backup battery.  Really it doesn't have any important purpose besides saving game, hardware and coin counter settings in between power cycles, though the risk of your contacts becoming corroded makes at least taking it out worth the effort.  The battery for the 4 slot MVS is soldered to the bottom board, note the orange cylinder:

Pull off the glue around it to loosen the battery, then desolder the contacts on the bottom, it should pull straight out like so:

The battery seems fine on the top, but the bottom side tells a different story.

You don't actually need to replace the battery, but for the sake of completion (and hating to reselect my game / clock settings), I figured I may as well.  Any 3.6V NiCd or NiMh rechargeable battery will do.  You can use a standard PC clock battery as well, but will need to remove some motherboard components to prevent it from being charged up while the system is on.  I opted for a cheap phone battery I found at Frys:

Strip the ends and solder to the contacts on the motherboard and you're done.  Nothing fancy.

Cleaned between all the chips and components with some q-tips and paper towels, screwed it back into place and it was ready for action.