I feel ya, my cougar is close to 20 years old…
I took it out from storage recently and found that center play and shot pots made it unusable. Pulled the plug and purchased Vipergear’s force sensing drop-in replacement that should take care of the center play and bad pots (strain sensing sensors) and also purchased the throttle hall replacement sensor. Should arrive next week.
I know, big investment for an old joystick but hey, it’s a Cougar. Seen guys offload old cougars on ebay for $500USD unmodded. I did’nt even pay that much back in the day for brand new!
A hint for the throttle, to get rid of the stiction effect is to use nyogel 767A. I think I applied too much as it’s a damping grease and throttle feels “heavy” but no stiction for fine tune thrust.
In the meantime for the pots, you can carefully split them open, clean and slightly bend the pot wipers for good electrical contact. No spikes for now but still centre play until the VFS gets here.