Noob restoring a Williams Whirlwind

cathaldub

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So I bought a Williams Whirlwind pinball that has been sat up for 10 years.
I've made a few small repairs to the electrics, changed the batteries, etc and all is sound.
I've bought a service kit which includes all new bulbs, rubbers rings, flipper rubbers, post sleeves, etc.
I've the play field completely stripped down to try clean 10 Years worth of warehouse dust from it.
The play field is 100% perfect, just very dirty, black dust caked on.
The Mylar has a few bubbles around the inserts and is a tiny bit peeling between the flippers and I'm looking for advise on removing the Mylar vs keeping it.
Will removing it devalue the machine, as I do intend to sell the machine on at some stage, what are the chances of paint peeling off, what's the best way to remove if I do go ahead(hair dryer, freeze spray).
 
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What I would do..

Strip the playfield down, one section at a time and take lots of photos.. Clean the hell out of it, plenty of threads on what and how to clean it. Wax, put it back together. Play it for awhile, then decide if you wanna pull the Mylar off. There are a bunch of videos on YouTube on how to do it.

Rebuild every flipper, change out every bulb.. Pull the interconnect pcb out and check for burnt connectors.. Usually the GI ones are toast.. Re-pin the whole pcb and add new connectors.
 
You can pull paint off of your playfield removing mylar. If the mylar is not clear and dulling, beyond help, then use the freeze spray as you mentioned. The best part of all of it if you screw up the playfield and it ends up looking horrible or you just have a lot of cash sitting around http://www.classicplayfields.com/order.html :)
 
Thanks guys, I'll leave the mylar for now and try trim the small bit peeling beside the flippers.
I've the playfield stripped, cleaned and photographed.
Going to polish and wax it on monday
 
IMO, pull the mylar. No reason for condoms if your wife is on the pill!!

The Mylar on my WW came right up with the freeze method. Absolutely no issue. Same with my f14, earthshaker etc etc.

Be careful for sure. If there is ANY tension as you pull, youre doing it wrong.

Once the mylar is up you basically have a playfield that has never been touched by a ball. The results are totally worth it.
 
I've always enjoyed WW. Great game! Post up some pics if you can as you work to get it back into good shape.

Was the fan topper there and functional when you got it?
 
The freeze method works great, but it doesn't remove the mylars adhesive.

Get ready to put alot of elbow grease into removing the adhesive, because that stuff is a total bitch to remove.
 
The freeze method works great, but it doesn't remove the mylars adhesive.

Get ready to put alot of elbow grease into removing the adhesive, because that stuff is a total bitch to remove.

Absolutely. But it won't pull up any paint or inserts...it's a choice between paint issues and elbow grease during cleanup.
 
I've always enjoyed WW. Great game! Post up some pics if you can as you work to get it back into good shape.

Was the fan topper there and functional when you got it?
Topper isn't getting any power for some reason, I've checked the small board its plugged into, fixed a few dry solder joints, etc, I've a feeling its a bad connection somewhere, red lights on ramps are dead also.

So I got a phone call about 3 weeks ago looking for me to make an offer on a pinball that was sat in a warehouse for 10+ years.
Anyway long story short, I drove out had a look and bought it, The flippers didn't work, none of the lights worked although it did power up, after a bit of soldering and fixing some taped wires, etc, I've now most the problems fixed.
Here is how it stood the day I took it home. It looked a hell of a lot smaller in the warehouse than it did in my spare room of the apartment, girlfriend not impressed:eek:

Click to enlarge







Stripping the playfield - As you can see its not a pretty sight




 
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Congrats man!

Pin looks great. You may want to check all the fuse holders, as they stretch with age and you might not be getting good voltage through them. Also, triple check every header pin on the long skinny interconnect pcb in the backbox. Touch everyone with a bit of solder, or just replace all the header pins. Plus the connectors should be replaced with better pins..

This one thing has saved me hours of time tracking down issues.. Heh, just realized I already said this in my first post.. But hell, it's that important..

The worst connector in the whole pinball is the GI connector with the looped wires.. That one is always burnt or will burn.. Focus on that one.
 
The freeze method works great, but it doesn't remove the mylars adhesive.

Get ready to put alot of elbow grease into removing the adhesive, because that stuff is a total bitch to remove.

Not necessarily. I use 3M Adhesive Remover and plastic razor blades to remove the residue. The Remover doesn't attack the paint on the playfield and the plastic razor blades won't do any harm either. No elbow grease needed.
 
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