I buy mostly early SS games. When they first come home they go in the garage bay where my car belongs, I hate having my car in the driveway so that assures me I'll get around to having the game done ASAP.

First order of business is cleaning, I get the head off and empty the cabinet, then use a bunch of Mean Green to get all the yellow crud off. The legs go into the sink and get scrubbed with steel wool and waxed with Noxon or replaced if they're too disgusting. I almost always replace the feet.

The machine goes from the garage to my basement in pieces, that way I can do the work myself. I remove everything protruding from the playfield, all metal parts go into my tumbler, plastic parts go into the ultrasonic cleaner. If the coin door really disgusts me it gets disassembled and cleaned. I take a million or so pictures while I tear down so I can remember what screw goes in which hole.

I clean initially with a damp cloth, then Novus 2, then wax with Mother's Carnauba wax. Reassemble the playfield, replace all rubber with a new ring set, sometimes replace the acorns. I like to replace all of the coil sleeves and clean under-playfield parts at this time. Also give all the under-playfield stuff a good inspection for previous hacks, etc.

When it's time to hit power I normally grab a beer, I find that part nerve racking.

I've found that I'm much more efficient at assembling pinball machines than the manufacturers, I often have extra parts when I'm done. I place "extra" parts in a zip-lock bag in the cabinet and wait for the day I remember where they go.