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I am still looking for an electric coin door for a large door vendo 81, 56, 110. It is not the same as the V83 and V80 as they are shallower than the 81.  If anyone has one they want to sell let me know. I will pay cash or I have a nice Vendo (Not VMC) bottle door and a very nice 29' Coke bottle thermometer sign I would trade.

Hey Josh, just saw your pm & this post.  I am not sure which part you need?  The electric coin door?  Is that just the plate that goes where the crank handle would have gone on a mechanical one?

Sorry, still learning!  :Oo:

vendo_110

Thank you for your message.
I need the whole door with the cover for the crank handle. There are two types of coin doors I would be interested in. One is the type that you had which is a mechanical door that had a plate on it to cover up the crank handle and the second is the coin door that was made for an electric mech. There was a door that never had the hole for the crank handle punched. Obviously this is the door I prefer but I will take either. let me know if you have one available.

I have a Transition 81 that I am converting to electric vend. All I still need is the coin door and a few shelves

I never knew or i should say noticed that they made a large coin door mech, without the cut out for the crank handle.  These were made for round top machines or square tops?

The doors were made for transitional machines - some had a crank handle and others did not.

Ahhhh, I get it now.  I dont have a complete door.  My V56 has the plate that covered the hole where the crank handle would have been. 

I do have that plate if you are interested??  I am converting mine to mechanical so I dont need it.

I do have a V-216 door but I am assuming its a different door altogether?

Tom so were the transitional machines for the late 50's or 60's ?

Yes - they transitioned between round tops and square tops and were in that timeframe.

I have also seen several round top 81s with the solid door on them. I have heard that they were given to bottlers to use on their round tops if they wanted to be able to raise the vend price higher than the mechanical mechs could do. They would supply a conversion kit for the stack and a wire harness along with a new front door so it could easily be converted to electric vend and then the same machines could be used into the late 60's and 70's.

I learned something new today, I love this site  :laugh:

I've seen round top conversions, but never as detailed as you say with a wiring harness, etc. It has always looked to me like someone converted it and was not part of a manufacturer supplied conversion kit.

I have seen several that are totally converted. Here is one on a V56 that was posted here (Vendo 110 Please excuse me for using you thread). This is a good example of a conversion. If you think about it mechanical machines were very limited when it came to the amount they could charge. So by the mid 1960's they were obsolete and I am sure there were a lot of bottlers and vending companies that did not want to trash their working machines for new machines so they converted them to electric vend. The conversion was not hard to do so am surprised we dont see more of them. Here is the thread and I have posted some picks.

http://soda-machines.com/discussions/index.php/topic,11022.0.html

I know what you have to do and have seen a couple first hand, but my point is that they do not look professional or like anything the Coca Cola Company would have put in. Even Vendo 110' s 56 has the hot lead coming across the gasket and not through the line cover and it doesn't look like a harness either.
With a simple adjustment of the rejector and mech, I can make any LD change-giver mech vend on a quarter and rejector all nickels and dimes. Most SD mechs can be set to vend on 15 cents and some for 20 cents. I don't think it was the limitations of the mech as much as it was the styling of the newer square tops and people wanted the newer machines...Out with the old and in with the new!!

that makes sense

One thing to keep in mind too, is that the "Coca-Cola" company did not do the install, Vendo may have made the kit, shipped to the bottler or the guy in charge of the vending route, and some guy making 1 dollar an hour wage named Hank was told to go out and "Fix" these machines.. I don't think he (Hank) had any vested interest in making them look real nice and just was told to make them work on 25cents or 30 cents whatever..

I know the guys my Grandpa had working at the bottling plant when I was a kid, would fit this description pretty well..... They would modify what they had to make it work however they could.

just my two cents..