I picked up a project Gottlieb Card Whiz recently, looking to restore it. It has a fair amount of rust, dirt, playfield wear and backglass flaking. I got the game to start and the flipper rubbers disintegrated once I started using them. Looked like it was going to be a fun project! I'm in the middle of the restore now. This is what it looked like at the beginning.

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One of the first things I did to this game after cleaning and waxing the playfied was to clean the rust on the front legs. I used Evapo-Rust. That stuff is pretty amazing! I poured the solution into a capped PVC pipe and dunked the leg in. I had to flip it over after 24 hours to do the other end, but it ended up making the legs look almost new. I tried it on a few other small metal parts and the ball shooter gauge, but I think I may have left them in too long or something because they started to turn dark and the paint started coming off the ball shooter gauge. I ended up ordering a bag of miscellaneous metal EM playfield parts and a ball shooter gauge from Ebay.

I got the game mostly working after adjusting some switches and strengthening/replacing some springs.

In in the middle of replacing all the rubbers and cleaning the plastics. There's a lot of dirt in this machine...

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@MeNaCeFiRe, Thanks! I'm enjoying it already.

@Silverstreak02, I'm planning on getting it playable, putting in new rubbers cleaning up as much rust as I can and replacing lamp sockets. I may try touching up the playfield paint, especially around the flippers. That's something I haven't really done much of before. I also want to see if I can clean up the inserts. It seems like they are coated with something that has since flaked and yellowed. It probably won't look prefect in the end, but I'm hoping it will be a enjoyable to play and nice to look at.

Finished cleaning, putting on new rubbers and general illumination. Looks much better now.

Next up is sanding and repainting the top arch.

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Just finished sanding and repainting the top arch. It came a really nice.

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So I started working on playfield touch up near the flippers. I used acrylic paint. It looks better I suppose, but I'm not sure I'm completely happy with it. I still have the option wiping it off and staring over because I havn't clear coated it.
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@leckmeck, I would be interested to see that restore!

I ended up redoing the acrylic paint and it came out pretty good so I did a Verathane top coat just in that area and lightly sanded and then Novus. The painted darkened a little as expected, but it still looks okay I think.

I also rebuilt the flipper mechs some. I think I still need to line them up a bit better, but at least they have a lot more flipping power.

The game is playing pretty good, but there are some weird scoring issues and and things to still be worked out.

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@thelaw, are you talking about the white around the inserts?

Another update: I've been cleaning steppers, replacing springs and adjusting and cleaning switches and the game is finally playing correctly and not getting stuck giving you infinite points or anything like that. I've also replaced the hole plates. I thought about cleaning them, but they were pretty gross. It's funny how much of a difference it makes to the way the game looks.

Getting down to the details: Evapo-Rust for the back legs, flipper adjustments, etc. If anyone knows how to clean pealing topcoat off of inserts, let me know. I've been considering sanding a little and then adding some Varathane Polyurethane see if it makes it look any better. I might just have to leave it alone.

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I decided to stop there, but I added one last finishing touch.

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Here's the final before and after.

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