When the GORF came home, there was really only one problem with it: the trigger on the flight stick had broken, and was hanging loosely in the stick, held in by a rubber band. The previous owner had purchased, and included with our deal a replacement part.
Getting the stick apart was something of a challenge. The stick itself is held together by two bolts on the right side, and three on the left. The drive looked at first like a security Torx, but in actuality is a security hex. This is something of an unusual drive, but fortunately, my local Sears store had a 33 piece screwdriver set that included the bit I needed, and it was on sale for just under ten bucks. Just to be safe, I bought three sets. You never know.
Once into attack mode on the stick, there was good news and bad news. The bad news was that someone had attacked the bolts on the right side of the stick with the completely wrong tool, so the drive heads were stripped. These will have to be drilled out at some point. The good news was that the bolts on the left side were pretty near perfect, and came off with the appropriate level of effort. That was enough to get to the trigger mechanism, and it was an easy fix after that. I will still need to address the bolts on the right side, and no major maintenance of the stick’s mechanism will be possible before this happens.
The left side of the flight stick came off without excessive difficulty.
At this time, I also got a look at the insert, which was clearly broken in half. I ordered a replacement from Groovy Game Gear, and it looks like it’s going to work out nicely. After getting the stick back together, the game plays just like it should. Success!
The let half of the GORF flight stick shell.
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