I got a stick to fix for a friend and the stick has too much play room. I tried replacing the spring but it still has the same amount of play room. Any suggestions?
the sanwa flash sticks have like no play room at all… like you mean the WIGGLE room till it activates…
his ACtuator may be a little worn down if its really old or something… takes a good while for that to happen or a rough hand. replace that and it should be fine…
If you mean the full range of motion, how far you can move the stick left to right or up and down, the only things you can do to adjust it are by modifying the restrictor plate (or trying an alternate one, like the square instead of the octagonal if he is using the octagonal that came with the flash) by carving some of the plastic away (to give it more range in each direction), or by adding onto the thin part of the actuator, like wrapping it in electrical tape or head shrink tubing (to give it less range in each direction).
If you mean how far you have to move the stick to activate the direction, the only thing you can modify is the actuator, to make it wider (more room before activating) or thinner (less room before activating). Since the actuator is somewhat bell shaped, you might be able to get it wider by trimming a little off of the narrow end of the actuator, so the wide portion is closer to the e-clip.
But I bet if you take it apart, he has something screwy with the assembly, like using the actuator from a different stick, or has it assembled improperly.