I'm starting up a restoration thread for a Whirlwind I acquired just yesterday. I'll be posting more pictures of the overall machine, but man this machine looks rough. It was unfortunately neglected pretty badly, but the one positive is that the boards at a glance appear to be okay, and there is no battery/acid damage.

I haven't taken a closer inspection yet, but my goal over the next several days will be to do just that. What I have already observed is the following:

-The cabinet artwork is trashed on one side, and some of the wood is sagging/warped on the backbox. This was likely due to it being left out in the elements for several years with a tarp over it.
-The playfield does appear to have a fair amount of wear, but again I need to take a closer look. Many of the insert decals are completely gone, the spinning discs have no decals, and there does appear to be planking.
-Topper is yellowed and cracked in many spots, but amazingly the fan still appears to work (I did not see it myself)
-When the previous owner turned it on, many of the lights were not working, the display was out, and several pop bumpers and switches on the playfield were not registering according to him.

TLDR; I have my work cut out for me!

UPDATE: Pictures of the machine have been posted in the thread!

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Will do! I'm really tired from the long day of picking it up and bringing it downstairs so I won't quite get to it tonight.

Oh nice! Great to see a fellow pinsider also working on Whirlwind!

Are those decals you have Radcals?

I think that's how the radcals are as well, but I could be wrong. How did you get them custom? Are there stencil kits for Whirlwind?

I see, that was cool! I don't have the artistic ability to paint the artwork, so radcals may be the way to go even though purists hate it. But after I post pictures of the cabinets condition, I think even purists would think radcals are a good decision!

Alright, without further ado I present a plethora of pictures!

CABINET, TOPPER, and TRANSLITE/EXTERIOR BACKBOX

Coin door and front decals. Good amount of wear, but could be worse.
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What? You've never heard of a 2/3 Plunger?
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Aah, that will buff right out! (Joking aside, this was a telltale sign it was left out in the elements imo)
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The bad cabinet side.
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The good cabinet side! If you look at the machine just from this angle, it actually looks decent!
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Ouch. That's all I have to say.
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Double Ouch!
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Triple Ouch!
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Do I even need to say anything?
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Topper. Typical yellowing, and it's cracked where all the screws go in. Other than that, not terrible. I removed it because the machine is raised up way too high on the front legs and my ceiling couldn't accomodate the topper without hitting.
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Hey, at least the fan works! (Supposedly)
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Maybe the only decent looking thing on the exterior, but even the translite art definitely has the signs of getting hit with moisture and then drying.
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Left side backbox decals. Looks great...compared to the rest of the cab.
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Closer inspection reveals it has plenty of damage too.
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Underneath where the backbox rests.
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Top of the backbox, right side
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Top of the backbox, left side
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Behind the machine
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Corner on the back of the machine
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Rear of backbox
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Now that's a high quality power plug!
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I was wonder why I couldn't adjust the height...
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One more image.
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Next post, the playfield!

PLAYFIELD PICTURES

Overall Playfield.
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So glad I can see the instructions!
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Already you can see the coming storm (pun intended). Inserts completely gone on numbers, mylar lifting.
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I don't even know what happened to the spinner decals. It almost looks like someone tried to half-ass paint it after they wore off?
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That is one dirty, messed up playfield.
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Oh god...inserts popping up from the playfield.
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They're not inserts, they're mini ramps!
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A bumpy ride on that ramp!
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Red Cap for one of the flashers fell off.
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Another raised insert, ugh...
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That ball will travel as smooth as sandpaper!
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I'm pretty sure the mylar eventually said to itself, "I give up, F*@! this!"
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Are you crying yet?
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UNDER PLAYFIELD and INSIDE CABINET

To be honest, I was expecting worse.
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Eeew...
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Whirlwind #574. If it thought 574 it was it's lucky number, well...
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Inspected by JJ Abrams himself?! Oh, J. Abrams, my bad.
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Shop-Vac is in order!
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INSIDE BACKBOX and BOARDS

Maybe I'll see something positive out of this...

Out of all the bad things that happened to this poor Whirlwind, acid damage was amazingly, NOT one of them.
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Overall Boards. I'm quite surprised there isn't horrific damage, but seeing boards on the surface doesn't always indicate a problem.
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How that rust/corrosion didn't reach the boards, I'll never know. Or maybe it did, ack!
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Wow, so many different shapes, sizes, and patterns inside those fuses! Wait...
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Speakers and Display
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Light Board
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Phew, those are all the pics for now!

I just want to give a public service announcement real quick...

If you want to own a pinball machine, and you're really excited to have it, for F&@#'s sake, don't treat it like this!

End of service announcement.

Based on the pictures, I think it's inevitable I have to do a near full restore, haha. At the very least fix the cabinet, and probably order a CPR playfield.

I don't even think this plays correctly yet. That will be the first thing to do is get everything mechanically and electronically functioning

I spoke to a CPR person that said they will be doing another Whirlwind run soon. I'll likely buy one of them. For now though, I have to see how I can salvage this current playfield...

Right now the machine is tempermental; the guy who owned it said it didn't work the day before I picked it up, then suddenly started working the next morning.

Of course, "working" is a subjective term for some owners.

His original price was great imo ($500), but then the bidding wars started...I had to settle on $1000 to secure it. Whether that was a good price or not, remains to be seen.

I'm not experienced enough to haggle people on machines, and usually that won't end well if there are 20+ other people willing to buy it for more.

I've heard...mixed reviews on mirco. CPR less so.

Also CPR changed their printing process this year so they don't have grades anymore and the quality is universal, or so they claim

I contacted him within a few minutes of posting, and people were already offering double what he was asking.

The only reason he sold it to me was because I talked to him first. He was a very reasonable guy. Most sellers would go for bidding wars and just hold out until they make quadruple what they asked.

Covid really has driven people nuts, haha.

Thanks! I know it will be a long term project, but hopefully worth it!

Also, I turned it on since bringing it home and here is what happens:

It does the "Ding" sound, backbox lights mostly come on, some playfield lights come on, but no display appears.

Based on the fuses I saw (which you can see pictures of in previous posts), some of them looked cooked and need to replaced.

Assuming all the boards are functioning normally, would fuses be the cause of some of the lights not working and the display not turning on?

I would imagine most playfield swaps are an endeavor, but as I said I know this will be a long term project. My first goal is to get the electronics and mechanisms working right.

But you're absolutely right that I'll be reading a lot! Haha.

Yeeeep, that's the current worry I have with CPR and especially Mirco. I don't know if it's really avoidable or not, but if I had to choose between the two I'd go with CPR since Mirco seems to consistently have that hole and dimple problem from what I've seen.

Ugh, sorry to hear both of you had that problem. Really sounds like it's stressful and difficult. Makes me wonder if I'm better off just trying to work with the crappy playfield I have now or look for a nice NOS one.

The playfield is pretty gross right now, but it may end up looking nice if I can really clean it and then fix the popped up inserts and put replacement decals on the inserts.

That looks awesome! I would imagine NOS playfields for Whirlwind are tough to find now.

This will be my last pin for a while, haha! I have this to work on along with a Sky Jump EM. Two great pins to learn from!

They must have listened to my facebook message yesterday, lol.

Man, I'm really tempted to buy it, but I'm so worried about that stupid dimple alignment problem. That will be such a headache.