360 optical driving wheels help

[BC_Jeffro]

hi i have a Continental Circuit and the steering  worked till my buddy decided  the wheel needed some oil ..and it ran down to the one of 2 steering optical sensors, 1 sensor it center direct witch is fine but the left and right steering pcb got the brunt of it (drenched in oil) and now the game can only steer right and straight
can anyone tell me a little about optical sensor because i found one of the 4 optical sensors look different then the rest (yellow tinge) ant rest were white so i de-soldered it and took it out found another of the same color (red or black top) from a working trackball put the new one in and now i have no steering at all so i put the original back in and back to center and right, so the little sensors have black or red on top and color stripes on there back whats with them, my new replacement did not match the color strip of the suspected bad one
thanks for any info

[BadMouth]

I'm not familiar with that particular board (or many real arcade boards). 
Are you saying there are four for each steering wheel?

Not sure if I'm telling you stuff you already know, but usually there are 2 sensors.
Each one consists of an emitter and receiver (a IR light and a light detector)
When the slotted disc is turned, it alternates between letting light pass and not, so you get a pulse.
The sensors are spaced so that the direction can be determined by how the pulses are timed.

The pulse from one sensor is labeled A and the other is labeled B.
The output would look like...
A_BOTH_B_NEITHER_A_BOTH_B_NEITHER_ for one direction
A_NEITHER_B_BOTH_A_NEITHER_B_BOTH_ for the reverse direction

So it doesn't make a lot of sense that one direction would work and not the other, at least not on the usual setup.

Looking at pictures online this game has another sensor that is blocked when centered.
Maybe the game looks for that one to be tripped before allowing the car to turn the other way?

Also if there are two extra sensors that are tripped when the wheel is all the way in either direction, I'd look at the left one.
If the game thinks you're already turned all the way left, it's not going to let you turn left.

[BC_Jeffro]

thanks for the help
i am going to take out all of them and put a new set in and see what happens

[BC_Jeffro]

got it   
new optic sensors and a little messing around and it works
 it feels a little different then before but i can play just fine
thanks