no responses?? wow. best advice i can give you (my personal preference for shoppin)

1. have a good digital camera to take pictures of all the processes (before, and during the 'breakdown' of ramps, toys, etc.

2. i use a box of 20 ziplock bags...i mark them in order of parts taking off the playfield example;

#1 right ramp
#2 left ramp
#3 etc
#4 etc.

3. this way you have pictures if you had forgotten what you did and how you did it.
4. after cleaning (see #6 here's how you reinstall everything) start from the highest # of ziplock bag you have numbered, then work you way back to #1.
5. don't drink more than 3 beers while doing this
6. i clean EVERYTHING..toys, ramps (novus 2 or 3), lamp inserts (under playfield), just EVERYTHING. get it? haha

good luck and be proud

forgot to mention..don't forget to replace the rubbers (all of them).

i'd also recommend taking off the apron, and cleaning out your ball trough..seems most used pins need some emery cloth to smooth out the 'grooves' that the balls create in the trough over time.

i just start taking stuff off, and lay this out in a linear fashion on the floor (or pool table haha - most use it gets). this works well as you can only take off in sequence what you can get to, and therefore it should go back together just as easily, which always worked for me. I keep all hardware with each piece I remove.

take a lot of pics. put all the parts like they come off on a bench so it looks like a pinball game with no playfield. thans how I do it.

Pictures - lots of them

Take some notes and place sections together into bags. Lay the ramps and bags of parts out on a table in about the same place as they sit on the game.

Label all connections from under the playfield with sharpie and or masking tape

For cleaning I like the magic eraser/simple green method to start, then Novus 2 the pf. Most everyone likes the treasure cove polish kit - it gets great results (I'm to cheap to buy it yet, but have been tempeted a few times)

Wax at the end with pure Mothers

Also, simple green or Novus 1 on the plastics.

For the metal ramps, I've used bartenders friend - it cleans them up nice, then any kind of polish

Make sure to clean anything that touches the ball from under the playfield too

Good luck and have fun!

I've heard of people using a piece of cardboard and sticking the pf parts through it in the same fashion as the actual playfield.

Novus 1 is just a gentle cleaner/polisher, non-abrasive I believe. 2 is meat and potatoes cleaner, slightly abrasive but not much. 3 you'll hardly ever use, the most abrasive. Metal ramps - no idea, I don't have any machines with metal ramps.

By bubbling, is that mylar on the outlane? It's just plastic, you should be able to clean it with Novus 2 just fine.

Yes, you need a wax AFTER you clean it with the Novus.

The plunger - just start taking off screws. There's also usually a little metal clip that holds it together that you can take off (and put back on) with needle-nose pliers.

As opposed to going full on clean, you may find it easier to do the machine in sections, that way you're not tearing the whole thing down at one time and trying to figure out how it all goes back together. Take one section apart of the playfield apart, clean, wax, reassemble, move on to the next.

No questions are bad questions, you'll be a pro in no time.

Watch this series of videos for a good start. Do you have the manual?

The little clip is a "C" clip up near the rubber tip. Take the tip off first. The spring pressure will be against the clip so try to hold the spring back or the washer and spring will go flying.

also could be an "e" clip depending on the game.. if you want to get technical. I'm sticking with "little metal clip" though.

Very unlikely that anyone here will be annoyed by any of your questions. I asked many of the same myself less than a year ago and not a single person ripped me! (in print anyway )

I don't have much to add to the advice given so far other than, YOU can do this and will be amazed how much you learn in just a short time of digging in and getting it done.

Links I refer to constantly...

http://www.pinrepair.com/begin/#intro2

http://homepinballrepair.com/

these help when your answers here aren't coming fast enough for your satisfaction!!

Good luck!

The only bit of advice I will add to the growning list is to
take...your...time.

Don't rush and hurry your process of doing the tasks you're going to do.

I cleaned my playfield several times during the first days it was in my house.

The first pass was to remove dust, dirt, debris from both the playfield and inside the
cabinet and backbox, stuff that was on the surface.

The second pass was to get into a more detailed and deeper cleaning of the playfield.

The third pass was to make sure the detailed deep clean got everything as clean as it was going
to get, then it was onto the waxing of the playfield.

Welcome to the club. Our numbers are growing every day, keeping PINBALL alive and
well in the 21st century.

For the playfield I usually start with rubbing Novus 2 on letting it dry then wiping it off. You might need to do this a couple of time depending on how dirty it is. Don't scrub the playfield. Better to do it a couple of time gently than try to get it all clean at once. I hit it with Novus 1 to clean up any residue left over then wax it with wax, not Novus. Put wax on let dry then buff it out, 2 or 3 coats of wax should be enough. Ramps and habitrails I put Novus 2 on and clean like anything else. I think some people wax them too. I wouldn't use that Novus 3 on an older playfield, might scratch it or take off some paint, but that is me being cautious.

Everyone has a different wax they like. I would put some wax on that to help protect it from any further wear and to make the ball roll better. Bubbling insert and worn playfield areas are a bit trickier. That is one of those how far down the rabbit hole do you want to go questions. Leave that one up to you. You can use freeze spray to remove the mylar in front of those slingshots. Hard to tell if that is just the mylar or if you have lost paint there as well. Some people put the mylar back on (new) and others like it off and just keep it waxed. You risk removing paint anywhere you try to lift up mylar. Keep that in mind. For inserts that have some damage you might want to just protect them with a piece of mylar at this time. Another area that can very hard to deal with.

The plunger should be pretty straight forward. There is usually an "e clip" I think that's the name. Use a small flat head screwdriver or some pliers and remove it. Plunger should slide out (remove rubber shooter tip first, might need to cut it off) replace stuff and slip it back into game, put clip back on. Like others said take pictures even if it is only a couple of parts. You will forget how it goes back together. A lot of ring kits don't come with the shooter tip so order a couple extra to have around when you order the plunger spring. If you didn't already, order new balls to put in the game. Even if the other look pretty good, change them out.

You will gain enough confidence and knowledge to be dangerous in no time! At first I didn't know what wax to buy and now I am soldering new sockets onto boards. It's a learning process and mistakes will be make. Ask for help and you will probably get some on this forum. We all started at the beginning at sometime. Good luck and have fun with it.

1-Don't be intimidated or scared of a dirty pinball machine and unplug it before starting your task.
2-CAUTION,I usually start reading and posting here,and then the task at hand takes about
100 times longer than it should.
3-Be Patient.It's not a race.Take your time.
4-If lost,confused or frustated,come back to it tomorrow.
5-You can ask or post pics here,someone will eventually (usually sooner than later) help you.

imagesCAN0D21T.jpg

You might wire brush and hand clean, but this will get old real quick. I recently bought a tumbler for this purpose. It will usually take a number of hours in the tumbler to make them nice and shiny. I will bag all the parts as I take things apart...and in this case, I take a picture of all the hardware I'm putting in the tumbler next to the bag they came from (i.e., inventory) and let them run in the tumbler as I'm working on the rest.

Heres another link thats really good for info

http://pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

Some good advice. I do one section at a time too.

OK. A few more points. First, make sure that you have all the parts you need before you start to take the machine apart. Rubbers, insert decals, and lights. If you are going to switch to LED, have all bulbs in your possession before you begin. This is critical as once you start to take the machine apart, you are going to want to keep going. You can't afford to waste time waiting for bulbs to come in the mail. This happened to me and it was challenging.

Next, if you have kids, do not allow them to have access to the room.

Finally, pictures are required. As are the ziploc bags. I used a black paint sharpie (different than a regular sharpie) to touch up some lines on the edge of the insert decals. Made a huge difference. Best of luck.

Start early. It'll take you longer than you think.. and you don't wanna go to bed mid-way thru.. you'll forget something that was fresh in your mind, regardless of how many pics you've taken.

Take video as well as pics and talk in your video to yourself.."i'm gonna unscrew these 5 screws, then remove this....."

Ziplocks.

Diagrams.

The reward at the end is amazing.

2 VERY good points V8torino!