Finally, moving onto the top side of the playfield.

I started with removing the left ramp's wireform, the right ramp's wireform, and the right ramp. Removing the plastic revealed some broken glass.
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New plastics, rubbers, bulbs and flashers.
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Note that in order the access all the screws for the plastics around the canon, you'll actually need to move the cannon from the diagnostics menu.

Also, note that there is one metal ball guide that had to be riveted to the new plastic.

Cliffy protector added to the left saucer hole:
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Since I was pressed for time and the pop bumper skirts & bodies were in good condition, I simply opted to clean them and polish the pop bumper ring. Normally, I would rebuild them with new parts. In this case, only the cap is new.
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One of the mods I added was the T-1000 made by @pinball_customs, which I obtained a couple years ago. This was the fully painted version, but there was also a silver-only version. Unfortunately, he ran into fulfillment issues in the past year or so, and it looks like he finally stopped offering all his molded & painted items.

One benefit to that mod was to help hide the damaged metal plate. Somehow, it was bent up, but I pounded it as flat as I could, and the mod hid the crime.

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More new plastics The new plastics were carried by marco, and I'm assuming they were the ones made by Buthamburg in Germany.
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Next was tackling the most difficult portion of the playfield--the upper left corner. Surrounding the skull, there are just so many screws and parts that need to get put together just right, or things get loose or don't fit right.

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The easiest way it to remove the sign, then the ramp itself. Then for the plastics around the skull, remove the nuts in front, and at the rear of each plastic, there is a long screw holding it into the playfield.

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Some broken bits of glass made it into this area too.
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Once the plastics are unscrewed, spread the back ends apart to get around the wireform, then just remove them up and forward.
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Next, remove the wireform, remove the metal ball guides leading up to the saucer hole, install the cliffy protector, and also replace all the red plastic ball guides at the top of the playfield.

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Note that the two outer plastic ball guides should each have only one side, but only the two-sided ball guides were available at the time. The single-sided guides were out of stock. Since there were no sizing issues, I opted not to try to cut off the sides since I didn't have any extras and since there was still a time crunch to get this game ready.

Also, note that the two cut wires lead to the lamps in the skull. There is a connector for them below the playfield. Since I have a complete connector, I just replaced that when I installed the new skull.

The metal parts have been cleaned, polished, and have been installed back onto the playfield:
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Since the sticker on the back panel was peeling, I went ahead and replaced the back panel from the partially populated spare playfield I stripped down. It was held by small screws through the metal ball guide, and wood screws through the bottom side of the playfield. The small ball guide screws were so rusty, there were unable, but luckily, I was able to dig out replacements, also from that spare playfield. While the back panel was removed, I was able to install the cliffy protector for the upper right saucer hole.

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Note that in that last photo, there was a mistake with the rubbers that I just copied from the old rubbers that were previously installed--the plastic post should have rubbers going across to one of the metal posts. That prevents balls from getting stuck under the ramp. I ended up finding that out after I had assembled everything, so I had to go back and take the ramp off and put the correct rubbers on.

Next up was the skull.

First, don't buy the skull the marco carries. It is an awful mold and looks hideous.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/marcos-terminator-skull-isdisappointing

Second, I've seen a few NOS skulls, and for some reason, all the chins had a vertical crack running through them that wasn't immediately obvious.

If you need a replacement skull, the best option right now is starship fantasy. However, they are not currently adding the black paint, so you'll need to do that yourself.

http://www.starship-fantasy.com/ramps/Terminator-2-Skull

The skull I'm using was a starship fantasy skull when they were still painting the black highlights. however, they were a little generous with the black, so I ended up rubbing a lot of it off with naphtha in order to better match the paint job on the original skulls.

Since it's common for the chin and sides to get cracked and damaged, I added generous amounts of epoxy to the inside of the skull to help reinforce it.

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Since this is a bare skull, you will also have to transplant the brackets and lamps to the new skull, and secure them with rivets.
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Since the lamp sockets were very loose and wouldn't hold a bulb very well, I replaced them with new sockets.

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The face side:
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Back on the playfield, the wireform was installed back onto the playfield, the new plastics were assembled, and the skull was installed.

Note that the skull is a little tricky to get back on. I ended up adding it after the plastics, but it was a little difficult to get a small screw bit on the underside of the plastic, and a socket on top to screw the nut down. I have a tiny ratchet wrench that I just used with phillips head screw bit to get under the plastic.

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And finally, the remaining ramps and plastics went back on.

Some wax, and it was finally ready to play, pack up, and bring to the show.

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At the end of the first day of the Pintastic show, the flipper rubbers at the tips of the flippers started getting torn up, so I replaced them with silicone rubbers from the mayfair amusements booth.

Other than the issue with the skull's eyes popping out, the game ran well the entire show. It ended up getting a total of 768 plays.

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I received several compliments on how well it played--it could hit all the targets, make all the ramps, and it was a fast playing game. It played just like a brand new T2.

I plan to bring it to the Saratoga Pinball & Arcade show taking place on Friday & Saturday 8/9 & 8/10, so if you come to the show, you'll have a change to play it there

https://pinballsaratoga.com

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/2019-saratoga-pinball-amp-arcade-show-8-9-amp-8-10