Hi there. I wanted to clean my pedals today and I read a post from someone that I could use WD40 to clean the pots. After having read on a few other websites, I realise that this was a huge mistake so can anyone tell me what pots I would specifically need for a G25 and where would be a good place to get them (preferably Irish, UK or European dealer). My pedals are working perfectly now but just when they start playing up, I'd like to replace the pots then. Thank you.

http://www.thesimshop.com/

Quote from Leprekaun :

Hi there. I wanted to clean my pedals today and I read a post from someone that I could use WD40 to clean the pots. After having read on a few other websites, I realise that this was a huge mistake so can anyone tell me what pots I would specifically need for a G25 and where would be a good place to get them (preferably Irish, UK or European dealer). My pedals are working perfectly now but just when they start playing up, I'd like to replace the pots then. Thank you.

What did you read that made you think it is a huge mistake?
WD40 will not harm any of the parts/pots on the pedals, I assure you.
Will the pedals start to spike again eventually? Yes of course, WD40 can not stop the inherent problems of potentiometers. I have used WD40 on my pedals 3 times now over nearly 3 years of using my G25 and they have not turned to jelly/dust yet.

Thanks dadge.

Oh please don't understand Anthoop. Its nothing personal against you. Its just I read from a few other sources that WD40 shouldn't be used. I think I can salvage the situation anyway by spraying some switch cleaner to remove the residue so its not a big problem. I appreciate you were trying to help so please don't think I'm not grateful.

This was one of the sites I found that stated not to use it:

http://www.lugnutsracing.com/pedals.php

I am really not offended but there is a lot of rubbish said about WD40 on the net.
As an example from the link you gave :-

Quote :

Do not use WD-40, or a similar product. I understand that this will dry out the seals, and further and more frequent cleaning and lubing of the pots will become standard procedure.

There are no seals in the potentiometer! As I said before they will need to be done again as WD40 is not a cure but it will not make cleaning any more or less frequent.

WD40 has been used as a lube, cleaner, rust preventer for years. i don't see how it could make an already faulty pot worse. it's silicone based to it's non-conductive. when used, any dust that does get into the pot would stick to the WD40 and that's where it would stay until next cleaned again.
usually the people who have had bad WD40 experiences is probably because they used too much, or not enough. or used it for the wrong application (lubing a bike chain or something like that)
we all know that if we look hard enough, we can find a counter argument for any subject on the internet.

from my experience, WD40 has saved my bacon so i would keep using it. for others, they might not have been so fortunate and thus don't use WD40 any more.
if you're going to buy new pots then you could still blast the old ones with the WD40. the way i see it, you've nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Every time I clean my pots I've used WD40 and the spiking goes away for at least a few months. I just pull the panel off the underside of the pedals, spray the pots a bit, give them some travel with my hands and then screw it back up and the pedals feel like new again.

Quote from dadge :

http://www.thesimshop.com/

Thank you for this link. These pots look like the same ones in my Driving Force Pro pedals that I need to replace. With a slight mod these will work great.

Oil is a great isolator but will probably not reach the contact patch in the pot but you never know.

And a potentiometer for 6.5 quid is outrageous. Go to your local electrics shop and get one there for 25p. Ask for a 0.5watt 10.000 ohm potentiometer.

I'm not 100% sure of this but I remember reading somewhere that 10k potentiometers don't fit to G25, it uses better ones as stock and the ones it uses are usually a lot pricier.

I don't feel like opening a new thread, so I'll use this

I have extreme spiking on my brake pedal.

I have cleaned my pedals several times during the years, even I switched throttle and clutch pedal to minimize the issue.

Here is a video of its behaviour in DXTweak2 (where it already has dead zone in all 3 pedals):
http://youtu.be/4yLMRQuzD-g


I see that I can buy new pots, installing them is easy and they are cheap. But I'd rather prefer to clean mine once more time before spending any money on them.

Is there any advice to revive them?
Maybe over the years someone has discovered the most effective way (lube, compressed air, sulfuric acid...) to clean them.

potis dont last forever, you have abrasive wear in them and at some point there isn't much you can do except replacing.

You could try opening the potis and cleaning the abrasion from the conductiv parts, but I'm not sure if the potis are even designed to be reopened

this what you will find inside (the moving slider is missing here)



if there is metal dust bridging the inner and outer loops, you get spiking (am I right electric engineers?)

I guess they won't be designed to be opened, but I'll take a look when I open them in the next days.

This is a suggestion I've never thought about

Yep, pots ware out. Only thing special about pots on pedals is they are servo type pots with low friction, practically every pot on retailers shelves are the conventional type (high friction to turn by hand and hold position). No real problem using that type, it puts more strain on the mountings, some pots (metal can type mostly) can be striped and the friction reduced.

As far as I can see the one on thesimshop is just a conventional pot (high friction type) costing a few pence from a retailer, if they verify its a servo pot then 4.50 isn't a bad price, they can be got cheaper but very hard to find. If its not then a ceramic pot would be about the same price and last a lot longer.

The potentiometers can be opened but they are not designed to be...and there really is no point to open them.
They can be simply flushed clean with either WD40 or a switch cleaner, you will be able to see the wiper and board (pictured above) fairly clearly through a gap in the outer pot cover.
As said, eventually the track on the board wears out but so far (for me), a simple blast with the WD40 fixes it untill the next time.

I have 1 G25 pot never opened, bought from the sim shop if anyone needs it. I'll send it to you for the postage.
My gas pedal started spiking long ago, I just used the clutch as a brake, brake as gas. Went to fix it today and stripped an allen head, oh well.

I guess that would be more expensive than buying to simshop (it's not that expensive really xD).

I've been too lazy to open the pedals yet. And now my monitor is broken, guess that june is the month to spend money on broken stuff

If someone could find me a link without paypal/explain to me how to do it via direct debit I'd be V.Grateful...

-Fake

Another sidenote that my Dad (chemist) has just added-in his words 'You really want switch cleaner due to the fact that WD40 leaves oily residue which attracts dirt (buggering up the pot in my experience) and releasing some damn volatile stuff into the atmosphere'

Quote from MattsterGT :

Another sidenote that my Dad (chemist) has just added-in his words 'You really want switch cleaner due to the fact that WD40 leaves oily residue which attracts dirt (buggering up the pot in my experience) and releasing some damn volatile stuff into the atmosphere'

I am not a chemist but I will hazard a guess that switch cleaner will be "releasing some damn volatile stuff into the atmosphere" and probably more than WD40.
If your fathers concern is that WD40 will cause premature wear in the potentiometer, then I can reply that (in my experience) this is not the case.
If you have neither product to hand then switch cleaner is primarily designed for cleaning electical contacts, so therefore would be the ideal purchase.

Bumpy bump!

As in summer I don't play that much I've not opened the pedals yet. But after playing 3 days in a row I got pissed off and went straight to www.thesimshop.com just to get more pissed.
When I try to pay it says that the item has sold out. They haven't answered to my email in the last 3 days

What can I do? Who must I kill to get those damn potentiometers?

Nice, now when I click the buy button Paypal throws an error saying that there is a problem with that web.

I'm starting to think that that web is dead and that I will not have any new pots

Afaik g25 and g27 pedals are interhangable, how much would it cost to get g27 pedals

I had a look few days ago, and only found G25 pedals+shifter for about 90€

A new G27 costs only 195€, I can't see the logic in the prices people asks for used stuff...

Ah, finally the webpage let me pay for this. I'm now 17€ poorer, hope it arrives soon