I am in the process of restoring a Thief arcade game. The control panel overlay was shot, and ordered one a week ago. During the wait the control panel was sand blasted and the joystick was taken apart. The grommet was shot, and ordered a new one along with polishing up the joystick.
The 30-minutes went quick today as I packaged up a power supply to ship out and spent the rest of time cleaning up the joystick. I still have some more polishing to do and put the joystick back together.
I came back to this project this morning and finished up the rebuild. Here are the steps that I did to rebuild the Wico joystick.
- Remove the e-clip from the joystick. Unfortunately, mine was stuck to the grommet and had to damage the grommet to get it out. I placed an order for a replacement.
- Remove the joystick from the base.
- Remove the actuator followed by the small spring.
- Took apart the base and replaced the grommet. Metal washer goes on top of the grommet. Grommet is placed flatter side towards the outside.
- Took the joystick and put it in my drill and sanded it with 200 grit sandpaper, 600 wet/dry sandpaper, Novus 2, and couple coats of wax.
- Reassemble in reverse order.
