Mills 2nd & 3rd Reels Stopping at Same Time; How to Disassemble Reel Bundle

[club_slots]

Hello,

My old Mills slot machine (not sure which model or year; see 1st picture) is having reel issues where the 2nd and 3rd reels stop at the same time. When manually rotating the reels I find that spinning the 2nd reel causes the 3rd reel to spin too. The first reel spins independently. My guess is that reel bundle is all gunked up and needs a good cleaning & fresh coat of lube. However, I am having trouble taking apart the bundle. I'm guessing I need to remove these two sets of bolts (see 2nd picture) on the 1st and 2nd reel to disassemble, but they are not coming out easily. Before I go breaking this thing or my arm trying to unscrew these bolts, I want to confirm I am headed in the right direction. Or if anyone else has a solution my issue.

Thanks!

[shortrackskater]

Yes... you are definitely headed in the right direction. Gummed up reels makes for one big spinning reel! So when #2 is stopped, reel 3 follows suit. Do you have a Mills manual?

[club_slots]

I do not have a manual yet; not sure which one given my machine.

Any recommendations for loosing these bolts? They are not the easiest to get to and I don't want to break them.

[shortrackskater]

Sounds like they're frozen on. If you can work in a few drops of liquid wrench, that might help.
Definitely use a high quality socket set with extension, or even a small breaker bar. They'll eventually let go.
Here's a link to a pdf Mills manual, that should be close. 

http://rwatts.cdyn.com/download/mills%20777%20hitop.pdf

[club_slots]

I got the reel assemble taken apart, cleaned, re-lubed, and put back together. Reels run smooth and independent of each other; however, now I am having issue with the machine not paying out for winning combinations. I'm wondering if I put the reel assembly back together wrong. Do the tins have to aligned a certain way when I put it back together? It paid out fine before I took apart the reel assembly. Maybe the payout levers got screwed up

[shortrackskater]

Oh nooooooooo!!!!
Yes those need to be aligned as they were before. I think you can see that in the manual. There may be a mark on each disk (right next to each reel) that shows an order.