No matter what, you have a lot of work ahead of you.

Use "GOO GONE" (NEVER Goof Off!!!!!) and get rid of all that adhesive.

Buy a set of Classic Arcade decals with the protective top layer.

Apply decals.

Wax with Blitz, to get a nice protective wax layer.

Pop in 4 new balls and play.

=
Skip the Mylar if you are using the game for home use, re wax every few months.

One day when you have 100 free hours, replace sticker decals with Water Slide decals and have the playfield clear coated professionally.

^^
What he said. I removed the mylar from my F-14 and went with the CA decals. The mylar removal was a bitch, and I definitely don't recommend a re-mylar for HUO. It's pretty hit or miss (mostly miss) to re-mylar, especially with raised inserts.

Mylar over those decals is just going to be a bubbly mess.

The decals will last more than a year, so if a few get chewed up, for $39 buy another set and fix them.

It will hold you over until you want to go all out with a perfectly smooth clear coat finish.

Question for you vid since you seem to know these pretty well, are these classic arcade decals pretty thick almost like a vinyl feel to them? I just peeled a set of thick decals off the F14 I picked up a while back because they were actually affecting the ball travel, especially at the bottom of the playfield where the alpha, beta, charlie, etc. inserts are. Inserts underneath were all flush save for one or two, so it was definitely the thickness of the decals causing the ball movement. Just curious if you think these are the same or if maybe the ones that were on my game were from elsewhere and maybe the classic arcade decals wouldn't have the same effect. The game plays much better now with those decals removed temporarily. I'm doing a full teardown/touchup/clearcoat this fall/winter, so I will need to get some of the thin water slide decals instead. Do you know of a source for a good quality set of these? Thanks!

Yes, any peel and stick decals are going to deflect the ball path somewhat - it's just the nature of the beast.

The water slide decals are thinner than paper, so once you clear over them the field will be as smooth as glass.

Just a month or so ago I gave away a full set of water slide F14 insert decals for free on this forum that were left over from all the playfields I had done.

You can get them printed at any hobby shop in your area.

It wasn't bad when the ball was moving fast on hard shots, etc., but when the ball was slow esp. near the bottom of the pf by the flippers where you have a bunch of inserts all close together I did notice it enough that it bugged me. Then again I'm probably more anal about that than many others might be.

Leave the decals off until you do a full restore then.

There is no insert that you need to read to enjoy the game.

Yup, exactly. I've been playing it without the insert decals for a few weeks now (except the ones under mylar) and don't plan on replacing any of them until the restore. It plays much better now than it did with those thick decals imho. I love the speed of this game and can't wait to see how much faster it is with a full clearcoat!