Warthog fix for play at centre

Hi all. So I was doing that stiction fix. Worked all good and all except I broke the red wire and none of my buttons worked except my trigger button, which when pressed, triggered ALL the buttons on the stick. So a heads up for those that I heard this has happened with people with new out of the crate sticks. TM prob broke a wire when assembling. Not great QA to make sure the stick works before sending it out for retail. ANYWAYS, when I put the stick back together I found that there was even more play in my stick than before the stiction fix. SO I took it apart and just noticed how crummy that white plastic ring is that is screwed to the round drum that presses down on the gimbal. It was totally warped, probably from absorption of the grease. SO for S&G I thought I would fabricate another one. SO using a plaxiglass type material that didn't worked cause it cracked when drilling I finally used this flexible yet sturdy big sheet that I bought at the pro hockey life. was MUCH better to work with. After a couple hours of do that I thought I created a masterpiece (probably was the beer thinking that). So After fitting and sanding and fitting and sanding a bunch of times I finally got it to fit nicely. Was excited to possibly see that the centering slack might be reduced. Anyways turns out it may have put it back to pre stiction condition but slack was still there. I was determined to figure out how to reduce this play. After taking it apart and partially putting it back together a bunch of times testing things (and a couple more beer) I think I may have found the issue that so many have. So the big spring, the black circular pipe that encases the drum, and the metal disc that pushes the drum down are all put aside, what I noticed that with the drum (the one that has the white ring screwed to it) when placed on the gimbal and compressed down on the 4 springs as far as it can go STILL sit about 1/8 ob the base of the stick. So I thought, what if I put something on the base of the stick to fill this gap so the drum ,when compressed, sits perfectly flat on something. The question was, what something am I going to use? Hey I have the original white plastic ring that I replaced with my fabricated one just sitting there. SO I took the drum off, took the 4 springs sitting on the 4 posts off, placed the original white plastic ring on the bottom then reassembled the whole stick and voila! The play at centre COMPLETELY gone. COMPLETELY!! Now mind you it IS easy to move the stick off centre and thats because the grip is sooo heavy. I bet Wags F18 one that I believe is made of ABS feels better being so much lighter. Time will tell. Anyways, I didn't know if anyone ever tried this so I thought I would share it in case. If you wanted to try maybe order another white ring from TM or fabricate one yourself. Take care all!

"Jake"

Was this a known fix? Maybe I'm out of the loop

Someone used to make white rings out of PTFE for effectively cost. I bought one and it did help things.

yes but did you put it at the BOTTOM at the base. So in essence there would be TWO white rings. Not sure if people understand what I am explaining. Sorry, I can be bad at that

No, it just replaced the existing one. Your spacer or washer use idea is interesting and new.

haha, bet the beer made things longer!

thanks for posting ill prob take mine apart again, I'm trying to compress the main spring to make it easier to move the stick around

Oh it most certainly did lol. OK since I am terrible at describing things on text I made a video of what I did. Excuse the mess on the counter and me in my PJ's lol.

Oh Fred, I sent you another pm for another script problem I am having. You've been very helpful and thanks a bunch.

https://youtu.be/U5k6-FpUlkA

Good video. Mine does about the same. Makes you think they intended to put that disk down there but didn't.

.................I made a video of what I did. ……………….https://youtu.be/U5k6-FpUlkA

NO VIDEO THERE I'M AFRAID.

:(