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Bought Doctor Who In 2004
I bought a Doctor Who in 2004 for a very reasonable price that worked, but needed some serious cleaning.  I decided to do a real shop job on this game which means stripping the playfield down, removing all pop bumpers, flippers, flipper buttons, flipper assemblies (EOS, coil stop, flipper bushing), switches, light bulb boards from the bottom side of the game, mini-playfield, ramps, all metal guides, apron, all plastics, all posts, and all light bulbs from the playfield.  After stripping all the parts off, I used the Treasure Cove playfield refinishing compounds and a buffer to clean the playfield and make it nice and shiny.  I also cleaned all the plastic ramps and the subway plastic and then flame-finished the plastic to make it clear and remove ball groove marks.  That's the tear-down part, with some initial refinishing on the ramps and the playfield, but then there's the reassembly process.  This is typically where plans change.

Take Digital Pictures
Before doing any restoration, I start with tons of digital pictures that I take from the beginning of the restoration, as I remove the ramps, show the metal guide placement on the playfield, posts, standoffs, plastic layout, and any details I think that will help in reassembly.  It's a good thing I did this since I thought I would continue the restoration through completion and .... a bunch of other games took precedence that also needed restoration or repairs.  The result was that after buffing the playfield, flame polishing the ramps and cleaning the mini-playfield, I put things on hold for Doctor Who.  The parts I had removed from the game ended up in plastic boxes where they sat for almost three years until February of 2007 when I decided to finally return to finish the game restoration.

Whoops, Game Not Finished As Planned
This isn't an uncommon practice for me.  I'm always buying games as they become available when least expected, and am excited about playing the games, so I end up stopping the current shop jobs and tackling the newer game of interest.  I usually start the new game and finish it so that I can play it in a restored condition, but games like Doctor Who may find themselves pushed back in to the lineup in an unfinished state until I finally return to finish the job.  It isn't like Doctor Who isn't a good game since it is, but I had already played the game and when new games came along, they needed to be shopped or repaired so I could play them for the first time.  The games that displaced the Doctor Who restoration completion?  There was a second Black Knight that I also bought with the Doctor Who and a Banzai Run, but I hadn't played Black Knight much so thought I would tackle it right after beginning the Doctor Who.  I also bought a second Black Knight to sell, two Flash games, a Gorgar, Flash Gordon, KISS, Fireball Classic, Viking, Pinbot, a second Joker Poker, a Fish Tales at my buddy Clay's house that started having problems, and then a Fathom.  As you can imagine, these games take time to restore and the time pushed out to the point of taking three years.

Many of the pictures you will see below are from the restoration work, and in case you are doing yours and lose a picture, perhaps you will find one below that shows you the detail needed for completing your restoration.  If not, send me an email and I probably have the picture you need.

What I Learned During the Restoration and Reassembly

• Never buff a playfield with a velcro buffing pad with switches still protruding from the playfield.  The switch leaf will grab the buffing wheel and sling it across the room never working with the velcro again.  Remove all the switches from the underside of the playfield.  You can have them hang down out of the way, but not protruding to the upper side of the playfield.
   
• Completely remove the flipper coil mounting plate.  Don't be lazy here and leave it in place since removing the flipper bushing and coil tubes are always easier to do when the plate is removed.  Besides, games of this era often have the three screws holding the flipper shaft bushing in place with a lock nut on the back side of the plate which can only be removed by removing the plate and using a nut driver to remove the lock nuts.
   
• Replace or clean the EOS (end of stroke) switches while you have the plate off.  It's also easier to re-solder the EOS wires if you removed them to separate the flipper assembly plate, so re-solder them before mounting the plate.
   
• Look at all screw holes left after removing various screws holding standoffs, metal guides, and anywhere else that uses a non-threaded screw.  Push toothpicks in to enlarged holes so that the screw will have some wood to bite in to when tightening the screw.  I dip the end of the toothpick in to white glue before pushing it in to the enlarged hole.  It's a real pain to have to remove a metal guide just because one screw hole was enlarged and the screw would never tighten correctly.  Murphy's law says it will be the last screw you try to tighten when you realize the wood is stripped and now you have to remove stuff to fix it.
   
• Do NOT completely reassemble the playfield on the top and bottom until you get to a point (with the ramps removed) where you can put the game in the test mode and ensure the light bulbs and all playfield switches test OK.
   
• Remove the mini-playfield, but before reinstalling it, make sure the pop bumper skirt switches are adjusted and the pop bumper coil mount is tightened on the playfield.  I removed all three pop bumper coil brackets so that I could replace the coil tubes and easily de-solder the pop bumper light wires but hadn't replaced them before reinstalling the mini-playfield.  It was a nightmare reinstalling the pop bumper coil mount bracket with the mini-playfield in the way.  Especially the left pop bumper bracket and the metal pop bumper ring nuts.
   
• Do NOT attach the clear subway plastic under the mini-playfield until you test the light bulb matrix that is between the subway and the bottom of the playfield.  I replaced all light bulbs in the game but had a bad bulb and after reassembling much of the playfield parts, I did a test and discovered the problem.  This meant I had to remove the subway plastic to replace the light bulb.  What a hassle and a complete waste of time doing it twice.
   
• Even though you make think it's intuitively obvious where a plastic goes, take pictures anyway.  It was nearly three years from the time I started the restoration until I finished it and I didn't take a couple of pictures where the plastics were located, especially at the back of the playfield.
   
• Take detailed pictures where double posts or double rubbers are used.  Nothing worse than missing a double post installation and then trying to figure out where it went after the game is mostly reassembled.  Doctor Who only has one of these double posts and of course, I didn't realize this until I noticed it after installing all the other posts.  That explained why I had an extra rubber ring at the end.  Doh!