Remember my mishap with the lights? Thankfully, I was able to use three out of four sets. Here's what I did in the end:
- Concave Dome - these have the lowest brightness, so I used them for all of the "colored" properties, 8 groups of 3, hence 24 in total, and 1 got a special use. These are lights that are steady for the most part of the gameplay, get activated in groups.
- Frosted Dome 1SMD - railroads, corners, all transparent inserts (2x, B-A-N-K, 100K, etc.), and 3x-5x since these are very close to the player
- Superior Fluted Dome 2 SMD - since these are very strong, under red, orange, and distant yellow inserts - these lights typically indicate an important event that the player needs to consider, so this makes sense to me.
- Frosted Dome - too big to fit into the available space

At this point, I'm still undecided what to do with the A-B-C segment. From the left: Comet 2SMD, Titan Frosted Dome 1 SMD, Titan Superior Fluted Dome 2 SMD. I postpone the decision until I return the plastic guides back into place.

"Power up!"

This looks really good. The inserts are reducing the difference between the Comet white I have in GI and Titan white under the playfield. A nice ending to my third weekend of work on this project.

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"You missed everything!"
Not everything, but just another work week. After I've applied that disgusting petroleum-smelling substance over my playfield, I couldn't force myself to be anywhere near the machine for days, until it evaporated fully. Now that it doesn't smell like hell, I continue with the work.

Since the smelly wax doesn't really add much shine and glide to the playfield, I decide to do what I should have done from the start- use Blitz. But wait, I need to wait for days until it arrives. Who could have some locally? Of course, hisokajp to the rescue.

Now I finally realize what's that "hazing" that everyone is writing about.

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After the wax has dried out, let's wipe the playfield for the Nth time.

"Do it again!"

The playfield looks a bit shinier. Bonus level: some smaller tools now slide down the playfield if left unattended. It truly feels smoother now when I slide my finger over it.

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Let's see how it looks with the lights on.

"I like that!"

Goodness gracious! This is amazing!

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The bank's blue rubber appears damaged. So, let's get it out and use the other side instead.

"You broke the bank!"

There's some adhesive on that side. I guess it's best to wash it off. What a mistake!

Lesson learned: The rubber was actually only VERY dirty. The only thing I needed to do was to simply clean it in-place, without removal. Even with the removal performed, the real wrong move was to wash off the adhesive. More on that later.

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"What do we have here?"
It's one of the parts I ordered back in May 2020 was the hole protector for the chance scoop. So I use the opportunity to install it, now that the chance assembly had to be removed when the insert lights got replaced.

Finally the 101 piece kit comes to use. A small drill to trace the path for the screws and remove the excess wood, so that I don't risk any damage to the surrounding area. Amazing how even an old dog can be self-taught new tricks, huh?

Most importantly, after weeks of tearing down and endless cleaning and waxing, I finally installed something. It's only up from here.

(I just took the "installed" photos. I didn't have a good close up view in my original batch of photos.)

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The bank, the chance assembly with its posts, and most rails are now back in place. (Mostly. There are some more surprises later. Of course.)

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The "storage facility" on my garage's wall looks smaller now. Let's finish this part completely.

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The railroad and the electric company are back in their place.

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Who says you can't use water to clean your pinball?

At least the plastics. Dishwashing liquid, a few days of drying, and there you have it.

"Not bad!"

While at it, the apron got a decent dose of Flitz.

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Now that I put the apron back, time to install the rubbers.

"So nice!"

All the colors all over the place. Kitsch 100%. Yes!!!

Lesson learned: On Monopoly, since there are so many areas on the playfield with different colors, if you want to try color matching, do NOT take every ring size in a separate color. Rather, go area by area and compile the colors based on area's color instead of using the same color for rings that are placed in differently colored areas of the playfield.

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Time to put the plastics back. Titan_Pinball tools for the win!

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One by one, plastics are coming back. In this image, I am showing translucent 2" ID bands (around the slingshots and nearby the chance scoop). I later switched to the yellow ones, but liked these ones as well.

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"Hurry up!"
Since my fourth weekend resulted in a welcome change of direction, I decide to start working on workday evenings as well. It's not like there's a lot to do outside on January evenings

Remember the screws I broke? Turned out, these were 1 3/4". And of course, not so easy to find around. So I got 1 1/2", 2", and 2 1/2". The photo shows them in ascending order, left to right. I settled on the 2" ones. Thankfully, no disasters under the playfield due to the extra length. The replacement T-nuts fit perfectly. Yay!

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"One more..."

I somehow managed to misplace on of the small orange rings. Of course, that was the one located in the most inconvenient place to access once the railroad and electric company were installed. And I of course dropped it. And it of course fell under the railroad. And of course I don't have any food sticks to pick it up with. So I resort to a long wire/rod left behind an electrician, and stick the runaway ring on it. It worked!

At the same time, I'm starting to regret that I've waxed the machine. The crummy junk has already started to wander around.

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"Shoot again!"

Rather, install the posts again

Turns out that the post I put over the roll & collect saucer has a small screw on top if it, so that it could hold the plastics that's right next to the waterworks engine saucer. That doesn't sound good to me, either. Let's swap them.

Since the nut holding the post is blocked by a kicker for the roll&collect scoop, I have to remove it again, swap the posts, and install it back. How convenient.

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"You're playing like a million bucks"

I don't know about playing, but when it comes to cleaning, looks like I'm pretty good. The bank's blue rubber looks almost like new.

Too bad I cleaned the adhesive as well, so it now slides out every time the bank door opens.

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"Uh-oh..."

After nearly twenty years of not being moved, this piece of plastic practically melded with the wood in the place where it had the tightest contact. Hence some of the dye is now on the wood. But in the end, it doesn't look bad, once assembled back.

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"There we go!"

All of the plastics are now back. The game looks very clean and bright.

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"I wouldn't have done it better myself!"

The A-B-C area of the playfield looks beyond kitsch now. I love it! It's unfortunate that it's mostly obscured with the ramps.

But I'm still pondering on which kind of bulbs to use for the A-B-C inserts themselves. Since that can easily be change at any point, I leave them mixed for now.

Any suggestions, folks?

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Now that I'm done with the plastics, I mostly have the ramps and their associated pieces left to install back. Here's a photo of how I had them while I was in the middle of it. There's a lot of parts that have lost their original layout as I was working

Lesson learned: Ziploc bags are your friends. Or at least, stick every part into the cardboard so that it doesn't drift around as you retrieve other parts.

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Apologies everyone for the radio silence on my end... I'll now post the final batch of photos.

Time to clean the ramps. Novus for the win!

In an ideal world, I would have disassembled everything, then washed and dried the plastics, then assembled everything back. No way in the real world

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"Just a little more..."

A few posts earlier, I complained on how I swapped out two posts. To add insult to injury, when I was swapping them, I forgot to in the guiding rail.

So, let's unscrew that post again, which means let's unscrew the kicker below, all the while ramps are installed back in their place. That's some advanced finger yoga right there.

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"Nicely done!"

I think that this machine was that clean only back in 2001 when it was manufactured. In sequence: lights off, some lights on, many lights on. So bright!

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"I feel lucky today..."

In an ironical meaning of it. After I've fully installed the ramps and moved onto the railroad, I realized that the posts holding the ramps are different in length by a few millimeters. That's needed so that the railroad ramp can fit in nicely on the left side. That moment I felt a bit smarter... not.

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"Just one more..."

Installing a washer and a screw at the same time without a magnetized screwdriver can be a challenge. Not for me, since I have the magnetized rod from Titan_Pinball that came in very handy to install the final screw.

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"Own it all!"

Or, rather, fix them all. Due to all of the tinkering with them, most of the flashers fell out of their place. But they initially appear very hard to access. So, I take an "intelligent" approach of photographing from below so that I know how much I need to move a certain flasher socket.

What an idiot...

Lesson learned: to remove flasher caps on Monopoly, simply unscrew them from the top. You'll then have an unobstructed view of the flasher's socket.

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"Take a ride on the railroad."

I certainly will! Very soon...

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"Multiball!"

With all the work that's gone into this machine, anything but installing brand new balls would be plain stupid. As many of the previous posts show, I do have uncontested talent for stupid. However, I played this one the right way.

To follow the game's theme, four black balls with a shiny dollar sign on them.

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"Congratulations!"

Can't wait to play it...

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Although I'm done, there are some mysteries of life that remained unanswered.

The extra screw was in the box where all the railroad parts were. But where does it go in the assembly?

The waterworks rubber was dead easy to swap out with the new one. But why is the flipper shaft so badly stuck?

Why do I find a glass shard every time I look for a screw that fell under the playfield?

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Time to play...

Of course, new rubbers require some switches to get adjusted. I have the right tool handy, let's do it.

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I actually have a lot of tools (and gloves). Here's my complete lineup. If I had to select the top three, these definitely would be the magnetic rod, the tall shaft nut drivers, and the thin wrench.

The two that are probably less expected are the superglue I used to affix the bank rubber to the bank door and the tape with two adhesive sides to hold a broken latch for a light insert. I know it sounds bad, but it works.

An honorable mention goes to the pee cup holding the borrowed Blitz wax.

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So, finally, after a month passed on the calendar, I finally start playing the game.

I'm blown away!

It's extremely fast. Clean ramps allow the ball to travel faster. Backhanding the right ramp is actually possible now. The game is so fast that a strong shot to the railroad will skip of the flipper and end in the center drain Another funny thing is that a ball that should go into the lock on the left hand side will sometimes bounce off so high that it will end up in the left inlane. In a hindsight, I really shouldn't have waxed the game.

All in all, I'm happy how it all turned out.

"Bye-bye now!"

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Looks good! How did you install the extra green and the extra blue lights under the ramp? Is there a reference you could share? Thanks!