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.

  1. 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.
  2. Remove the joystick from the base.
  3. Remove the actuator followed by the small spring.
  4. Took apart the base and replaced the grommet. Metal washer goes on top of the grommet.  Grommet is placed flatter side towards the outside.
  5. 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.
  6. Reassemble in reverse order.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *