I picked up a Johnny a few months back from a friend and it suffered from awful cabinet fade. The Playfield was in great shape and the game played well. I shopped it out for last year with new rubbers and LEDs when he owned it.
If I was going to re decal a game like Monster Bash or Medieval Madness I would most certainly purchase the highest quality decals I could find. However, with this game I'm going to try some of the less expensive options available from overseas. I'm going to cut some corners on the process for this game because frankly I just don't want to put in the work needed to do it absolutely correctly.
Here is our subject...

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As you can see all the red is gone, of course with the exception of under the legs.
I ordered a set of decals from Retro Refurbs, after currency conversion and shipping it was about $220. I received and Email from Pete at Retro Refurbs saying that the Johnny decals shipped, but there was an error on the file that was used (font was different). He told me not to use the first set that was coming but to wait for a second set, they arrived a few weeks later. My initial impression was that the decals looked good and felt fairly heavy duty.
Thanks to Pete for noticing the error and presenting a quick solution before I even knew there was an issue.

Just a disclaimer: This is not a "how to" guide, this is just a documentation of how I did it. I am willing to bet there is a better way to do every step shown here.

Now begins the teardown, this will be much easier than my Pinbot project (https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/first-attempt-at-cabinet-restoration-lets-see-how-it-turns-out) and should go much quicker. Unlike my Pinbot there is no main harness disconnect between the boards and the playfield, this means each connector must be removed from the boards and labeled. Once that was done I removed the legs and lowered the cabinet to the floor making it much easier to pull the playfield out by myself...
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Then removed coin door, start button and flipper buttons. For the side rails I removed the bolt from the end and then used a heat gun to soften the glue so I could slide a putty knife between the rail and cab and carefully work my way down the cabinet. They came off nice and straight...
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Then just worked through removing the head from the cabinet, I decided I would leave all the boards in the head to save time. I did however remove the transformer from the cab just to make it easier to move around. I labeled and stored all my parts and moved the cabinet and head to the garage for decal removal.

Ok, lets be honest...this part sucks. Using a heat gun and a putty knife took hours to remove the original decals...

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Finally done, this was by far the worst part of this project...I know there are tools (Festool etc.) that would complete this job in minutes rather than hours.

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After inspecting the cabinet I found one corner split. I opened the joint a bit to allow wood glue to get in, the strapped the cab nice and tight and installed 2 wood screws for extra support. The heads of the screws were countersunk and will be covered with bondo during the cab repair. I used a plastic bag (I was out of wax paper) to keep from glueing the strap to the cabinet...

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Next step was bondo and sanding. Not much damage to the cab or head so this part went quick. Plus, like I said, I'm not trying real hard on this project for perfection. Had to sand off the glue residue from the original decals, it came off pretty easy with a palm sander and 150 grit.

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In the meantime I laid out the decals flat to relieve some of the curling from the shipping tube.

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Wiped the head down with naptha to clean of any bondo dust and began to install decals. I was afraid that the decal may be easy to scratch or stretch but neither of those were the case. They seem very durable. I used the hinge method of installing decals, smoothed out with a plastic squeege wrapped in felt and trimmed the edges about 1/16 " from the edge. If I was doing a high-end restoration I would have painted the cabinet and sanded in between coats to get a glass-like finish but since this is the quick version I used a sharpie to touch up the edges. It worked great, after the first decal I began to color the edges with the sharpie before laying down the decal. That worked even better.

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Then proceeded to install front decal. I did not have to put anything to support the decal over the coin door hole...it was stiff enough to just lay it over. Then cut out for buttons and bolts...

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One side done...went on pretty easy without another set of hands to help with the large decal. I found out that the red on the front does not quite line up with the red on the sides but its pretty close. I also found out that even wrapping the squeege in felt it still left some very fine scratches in the black. You can barely see them under bright flourescent light when you are very close. I doubt anyone would ever see them...

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All done with decals. Time to start re assembly. Overall it was a very easy process, with the exception of removing old decals. I am very happy with the decals from Retro Refurbs, overall I would give them a "B"...the only real issue I had was the art not lining up (not by much, just about 1/4") but other than that they look great.

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about 4 hours

I used a small palm sander with 150 grit after removing the decal with the heat gun. it quickly removed the glue residue and leveled the areas that had bondo applied

Thanks for the tip, I will heat and smooth them later tonight.
I did use a flash, the red is deeper in person. The decals are much thicker, stronger and easier to apply than I thought they would be.
Nice product Pete.

The heat gun with the micro fiber cloth did a great job of setting the decals. I could see the decal "grab" the cabinet as the heat passed over. In the areas where the decal was covering a bolt hole in the cab it would dimple in a bit and stay that way. I also wanted to point out that not only did the heat erase the micro scratches, it caused the small air bubbles trapped under the decal to expand...making them larger and more noticeable, and easier to push to the edge and remove.
This last step made a big difference.

No, I didn't trim the front of the side pieces. I lined up the front and the bottom and just had to trim the top and back.
I laid the decals out before installation or any trimming to check for alignment and they were just a bit off.

I should note that you should always install the front decal first, then line up the sides to the front...if you install both sides first you wont be able to line up the front.

I wanted to do that but I would have had the side decal too high avove the bottom of the cab...I should have put the front decals on just about 1/4" lower, then I could have lined up the red at the top and hidden the mis alignment under the legs. I learned quite a bit. Next time it will come out better.

Refinished the coin door and legs, buffed leg bolts and lock cylinder...I am very happy with the transformation

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The only problem I had when I was finished was that the game would not boot. No display, no gi or insert lights...nothing.
After troubleshooting I found one of the display ribbon cables was off by a row of pins...after a quick check of the rest of them, it booted and played with no addition issues.

I have to say that although I didn't put in much effort in prepping everything, it really is hard to find something to complain about. I was afraid that the extensive black areas would show more blemishes. But, to be fair, the cab was in really good shape to begin with so the results are skewed in my favor. If it were a more in depth restoration I would have primed and painted the cab, wet sanding in between coats. I also would have painted the inside of the head and cab, sanded the underside of the cab to give it a "new" look, replace legs, bolts and levelers etc etc

Im not sure how it would come out if you tried to put them on over the originals

Overall it is a pretty easy process...it basically took one weekend. I took the game apart on a Friday evening, then was able to re-decal and reassemble on Sat and Sun...was playing again Sunday night.