andrewb
Well-known member
I stand corrected...its more glossy.
Side note, my stick feels sloppy/loose. Got anything to tighten that up?
Cool. Glossy it is then.
These sticks inherently don't have much throw, so when the grommet starts to wear, they'll feel sloppy faster than other sticks, though they'll still work.
You can replace the grommet. It's actually the same size as the one used in Qbert, and the Qbert replacement ones will fit. However those 'grommets' are actually brown pinball rubber bumpers, as apparently there's a bumper size that's also the same.
The problem with the replacements I've bought is that they're stiffer than the original rubber, which is somewhat soft, so the stiffer ones don't feel right (and they probably stress the housing more, and the sticks aren't that robust to begin with).
The issue with the originals is that the shaft actually wears a cone into the grommet, which you'll see if you take it apart. There's a small plastic sleeve also, which goes though the grommet hole, but it doesn't do much when the cone-shaped hole is worn in the grommet.
One thing you can do for a quick and dirty temporary fix is remove the grommet and flip it over. (You can pop it out with a thin screwdriver.) This will improve the feel/centering a little bit, but it's not perfect, and the amount of improvement depends on how badly the grommet is worn.
There's probably a way to find a replacement piece of softer rubber that will fit, or can be cut to fit, but I don't know of one offhand. I've also thought about trying to repair the worn ones by filling the worn hole with black RTV silicone rubber, around the plastic sleeve. If you do that, and flip the grommet over, I wonder if that will be a workable fix, but I haven't tried it yet.