Well the weather here has been pretty crappy and that means I haven't been able to cut out the canopy hoops:(
So to keep things moving along, albeit a little slower than I'd like, I have started getting stuck into restoring the various metal parts like the control panel, yoke and coin door..
The cab that I got my control panel from was converted to an Atari
Hydra and so they decided to completely f#ck up a totally good panel and bore some dirty great holes in it for two push buttons..
Initially I thought that the control panel overlay might of been an original Star Wars but it turned out that they'd replaced it with a generic overlay and then sprayed it black..
The yoke overlay had seen better days as well and couldn't be saved..
So the first step involved removing the yoke controller and stripping off the CP overlay - this was a pretty crappy job as it really had bonded to the metal panel. Once I'd stripped off the overlay, I was left with this thick, sticky glue that took a while to get off as well.. it certainly wasn't one of the more enjoyable jobs.. After all the glue was removed, the panel was lightly sanded..
Next up I needed to fabricate a couple of filler panels to cover up the holes. I spent a little time making sure they were a decent fit after which I then grabbed the mig and welded them in place..
Next up I pulled out the angle grinder and cleaned up the welds and then finished up with the sander to smooth off the rough grinding and also give the filler something to bind to..
To fill any of the imperfections, a skim of filler was smeared over the welds and left to harden..
..and then this was sanded down leaving a really nice, smooth panel. I then shot a couple of coats of satin black over the front and back to seal everything down and give the new overlay something nice to adhere to..
The yoke itself had seen better days with lots of surface rust and scratches..
Internally things weren't much better either - there was lots of rust, dust and 23+ years of grime..
I set about stripping down everything to their basic components and then cleaned up all the rust with the wire wheel - I followed up with a wipe over with some de-oxidene to ensure the rust wouldn't return..
As you can see in both the follow and previous photos, I masked up the sintered bronze bearings after I'd cleaned them up with some fine steel wool.. this just gave them that
new look that would further be enhanced once everything was painted. Even the rear bracket was cleaned up even though it can't be seen when installed - it's the little details that count..
I also rubbed down the handles which were VERY scratched - interestingly the right hand handle was quite dented from what I can only assume was from rings. I carefully filed out these dents followed up with a light sanding - the end result was pretty bloody good if I do say so myself.
While the paint was drying, I de-greased all the springs, gears etc and set everything out ready for re-assembly. As you can see, the original manual was invaluable in getting everything back together in the correct order..
The bumpers that limits the pitch and yaw travel on the Star Wars yokes are almost always buggered - the original bumpers turn into chewing gum and the end result is very harsh end of travel.. Although
Ram Controls now offer replacement parts for these bumpers, at $40US (plus postage) - this would run out to around $60AUD by the time I took delivery of them for nothing more than some rubber..!! I was determined to find another way around it and so came up with the following method..
On the left is how most of my bumpers looked when pulled out of the controller - pretty much screwed. What I did was take the original nut and bolt along with a "spacing" nut to form an arbor of sorts - this was then placed in my drill press and with the use of a file, the original rubber was removed, leaving nice clean metal.. as seen on the right hand side..
A quick snap of how I used the file to remove the old gummy rubber..
I then took some extruded rubber which I cut into 10mm slices and then punched a hole into each to form a thick, rubber washer - this was then slid over the original metal bumper hub. The result actually works really nicely and at a fraction of the replacement costs from Ram controls - hopefully this can help out others out there..
The end result looks 100 times better than the original piece did and feels a lot smoother and much more crisp.. I am awaiting the overlay for the metal cover for the yoke - I have manage to find a NOS overlay which is on it way down under and will complete this part of the cab..