How to Disassemble/reassemble a Nintendo 64 Controller...

Hi everyone, and welcome to my first guide at Instructables!

Today i am going to show you, how to disassemble a N64 controller completely.

Let's get started!

NOTE: In all of my instructables, i wil post many instructions as a NOTE at the picture's. Those notes can contain important information, so please read them.

When you look at the picture, i gave the screws numbers. I recommend removing the screws in that order.

At this step we're going to remove 9 screws. 7 on the back of the controller itself, and 2 at the rumblepack connection.

First, remove the 7 screws located on the back of the controller. (see picture for closer information). Put those screws in some kind of a small box, seperated from the other 2 screws we will face in this instructable.

After you've done that, you can remove the other 2 screws on the rumblepack connection port. They are a little bit harder to reach, but i'm sure you won't fail.

Note: All of the 9 screws are done with the same screwdriver.

Now the controller is open. Good.

What you want to as first now, is removing the R and the L button. These are easy te remove. Just pull them out of their holding place. (place every single pard of the buttons in some kind of a little box. Keeps them together)

Next, you should unscrew the 3 silver screws and unplug the connector from the analog stick. After you've done this, you should be able to moe the analog stick. Take it out of his place and try to disconnect the blue connector. It's quite hard to pull out, but you should be able to do it.

Now you can easily take of the motherboard from the controller. Also put this in some kind of a box. Now it should look like the last picture.

In this step we're going to remove the buttons, so after this step you will end up with 2 empty pieces of the controller.

There are 2 ways of removing the buttons.

1: Turn around the controller and they will all fall off...

2: Take them off manually.

I prefer 2, because you can be more carefull and it it still easy.

When chosing 2, first take the rubber thingy's and put them in a box, then you can take the buttons out. Repeat for the other 2 rubber thingy's.

NOTE: You can see, when you remove the buttons.. They only fit in one way, this make's it easy to reassemble every button!

Now you are done! You can do whatever you want now. Custompaint it, mod it, remove something etc..

Now we will put it back together!

Okay, i won't show as many pictures as i did before, because now you know how this controller works from the inside. I will describe in steps how to put it back together.

1: Take the buttons and place them back in the controller. You can also already take the Z and put it back in the other part of the empty controller.

2: Place the rubber thingy's in place, they only fir in one way!

3: Take the motherboard and place it back, this wont be a problem also!

4: First connect the analog stick to the blue connector, when you've done this put the analog stick back in place and take the 3 silver screws. After it is in place again, you can get the connector and put in back in the 2 clips from the analog stick.

5: Next put on the L&R Button. Remember when the controller lies in front of you, its some kind of mirror. You have to put the R one on the left side and the L one on the right side.

6: Make sure the cable is back in place. If the cable is back in place, you can put on the other side of the controller.

7: Now you can take back the 9 screws, and you're done!

I hope you guys enjoy your custom controller, with whatever it is you did :D.

In the future i will make more instructables, including retro consoles. (disassemble/custom paint)

Greetings,

CustomPainting NL