PS2 Hacking: What's safe to cut away?

[king88mob]

I bought a MadCatz dual-shock controller to hack around with, and as promised, this was a very easy controller to solder to.

I have a little problem though: it has 2 motors for vibration, and of course the two analog sticks.

What do people usually do with these? It would seem logical that the two motors can simply be disconnected (i've had pads whose vibration systems have failed, and they still work fine) I"m not so sure about the analog sticks. With them attached, i can't easily fit my gamecontroller into the project box i was hoping to put it in, but that's a fairly minor issue.

Any Advice?

[reighty]

I know that the motors for force feedback can come off, however for the analog I have heard stories from others (when using different pads than yours) that taking off the analog sticks off can cause weird affects such as the controller permentily reads the stick all the way in on direction, which makes sense do to how pots work.
I say just leave the analog controller alone.

[grafixmonkey]

Some analog sticks I've seen you can just unscrew from the controller if you twist 'em the right way.  worth a try, maybe.