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N64 joystick replacement

Posted: Wed Aug 09, 2017 1:29 am
by lvl3
Where do I go for an OEM (or equivalent) N64 Joystick? I tried 3 on eBay, one was a GameCube stick modded for 64 use, and the other two were stiff and not OEM (though one claimed to be) so I bit the bullet and just bought new in box controllers (needed a few of the colors for my box collection) but one by one those sticks get loose and it would be nice to have a source to get good joystick replacements instead of dropping $60 a controller.

Re: N64 joystick replacement

Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2017 2:29 pm
by yellowsnow4free
lvl3 wrote:Where do I go for an OEM (or equivalent) N64 Joystick? I tried 3 on eBay, one was a GameCube stick modded for 64 use, and the other two were stiff and not OEM (though one claimed to be) so I bit the bullet and just bought new in box controllers (needed a few of the colors for my box collection) but one by one those sticks get loose and it would be nice to have a source to get good joystick replacements instead of dropping $60 a controller.
It has been a long time since I worked on mine, but what I noticed was on worn joysticks the "knob" would have vertical play, meaning it could be pulled up a bit. If you open a joystick up you'll see the gray powder where the base of the joystick has worn away.

As long as the black guides are in OK shape (meaning they don't have any big wear spots) what I did was use a small ring of heatshrink on the joystick knob (right piece in below pic), above the bottommost part but before the ball (basically on the nontapered cylinder):

Image

This causes the knob to sit higher on top of the black guides, and thus doesn't have that vertical play anymore. The best analogy is like choking up on a baseball bat.

Of course, top it off by cleaning and lubricating the base of the knob in case it wears anymore.

If the joystick is badly worn it won't help much, but I've repaired all my controllers using this method.

Sorry for the vague text-only description.