Fix N64 Joystick - Failed Attempt - Plus other Tips

[optmusprimenumber]

See below

Another interesting method is listed as well...
perhaps we can log our various combined methods here

EDIT: ...eh, crap... I just took it apart to see how it was holding up and some of the foil peeled right off the little parts it was glued too... back to the drawing board

[noiseredux]

oh.

[GamerMON]

Well, don't leave us hanging.

[noiseredux]

is it duct tape? If it's duct tape so help me...

[Ziggy]

Besides lubing it up, I'm very interested to hear what you've come up with.

[GamerMON]

Are we suppose to guess until he tells us?

[BakaTanuki]

rituals?

[enderfall]

I remember back in the day, (before internet was so mainstream and N64 was still sold in stores) my friend was convinced that the powder around the base of the stick was baby powder and that you could fix the stick by opening it up and putting more baby powder inside of it. Now we all know it is actually the plastic that it coming of when rubbed against each other, but the end result was that my friend had managed to further ruin his 2 N64 controllers and make a fool of him self

To this day, I still tease him about it.

[optmusprimenumber]

(it's a bit tedious...)

Alright... here goes.

If you don't know how to take the controller and stick assembly apart, this guy should help you...

What you'll be doing is coating all the parts of the black plastic pieces and the stick that rub against each other with aluminum.

What you need:

Aluminum Foil
Super Glue
Sharp Razor Blade
Very Fine Point Tweezers
A shoebox top
Pointy Toothpicks (not the flat ones)
Scotch Tape
Petroleum Jelly (I know, not for plastic)

Once you get the stick assembly apart, you should clean all the plastic parts. Once dry, continue...

Take a (approx.) 6x6 inch square of aluminum foil and tape the corners of it to the shoebox top (the underside of it) so it's nice and flat and immobile.

Place one of the black plastic parts on its flattest side on the aluminum foil and with a toothpick, trace the crescent shape (just the inside of the crescent, it's hard to keep it in place to trace both sides). You can make two of these crescent lines on the foil while you're at it. With the razor, carefully cut the line, then another above it, then cut the piece out. You'll end up with a crescent shape aluminum piece. Still with me? (I don't have the means to post pics, so I hope this is sufficient). Do that again so you have two identical pieces. Repeat this for the other black plastic part. Use the tweezers to hold these pieces and check how accurate they are, size-wise...if it's too thin, you should make another, too short, make another, too long, cut it shorter.

Put a little dab of super glue on the shoebox top, take a toothpick and roll the tip of it in the glue and use that to apply a controlled amount to the inside of the black plastic piece (you know, the inside of that part where the bottom end of the stick wears on). Now, with the tweezers, grab one of the crescent aluminum pieces (one of the two that's for this piece) and place it gently on the applied glue, you might have to make fine adjustments to line it up, but if you cut out the aluminum closely enough to the right size, it shouldn't be too bad. Take another toothpick and roll it and slide it gently along the aluminum piece to flatten it out.

Repeat 3 more times for the other side of the first piece and the other black plastic piece.

Hopefully this is all making sense...

OK, now onto the stick part. The very bottom of the stick I will refer to as the "hammer head" and right above it is the "neck" (the neck being between the ball and the hammerhead")...

Use the razor to cut a strip of aluminum the width of the hammerhead (height, actually... and not to ramble, but the width of the strip should equal the height of the hammerhead, to be dimensionally correct) from the edge of the square. Using the same technique with the toothpick, apply super glue to all four sides of the hammerhead. Take the strip of aluminum and wrap it around the hammer head, making it as smooth as possible. If there's any left over length to the strip, let the glue set for a little while before you cut it off with the razor. Do the same to the neck.

You may have to add layers of aluminum foil if your parts are more worn than mine.

At this point, all parts of the black parts and the stick that rub against each other, are now aluminum coated. With a toothpick, apply a very light film of petroleum jelly to the aluminum.

Reassemble the stick and enjoy.

The logic behind all this being: the aluminum won't wear itself out.

I've seen all sorts of ways to temporarily fix these things. One guy wraps tiny strips of scotch tape around certain parts of the stick, I almost was content with that until I realized the potential horror of chewed up scotch tape in there. Some guys talk about the glory of having an aluminum stick and whatnot, but nobody's selling 'em. So I basically thought about how to make the rubbing parts metal. There wasn't a single method I could think of that would be feasible for this tiny little thing, until... Then... all the years of watching MacGuyver kicked in and the idea of aluminum foil blasted into my head. I just did this last night to one, (i forgot to make a note of how bad it was in the first place, but...) it fixed the y axis looseness more than the x, but the x axis plastic part is designed to allow more movement in the first place. Either way, after doing this, there should be no more extra space or wear on those precious and near-rare parts.

I might make some effort to put up pics in the future.
Hope this helped

recent edit: pretty wordy i guess.. too bad it didn't hold up

[Niode]

If it's that silicone grease they use in RC cars I'm gonna slap you silly.