TX Ferrari 458 Italia Edition - self repair?

thommosim · Apr 17, 2023

Can't believe I only just found this place, it's right up my street!
Hoping somebody here can help. I love racing sims but am very much amateur. 2 kids and a wife means I get an hour a week if that to commit to my hobby. I have an XBOX series X, TX 458 edition wheel that's 30 months old, and some shiney T-LCM pedals I got before XMAS. Since the pedal upgrade, (FW on the wheel updated too) I've noticed a now show stopper of a problem. The wheel under FFB 'slips' off centre. Any game it doesn't matter (AC, PCars or Forza), you get a couple of corners in, and when the FFB kicks in over kerbs or correcting a slide, the wheel will jolt and be a few degrees off centre. Happens more as you play but it's too much to play around. Simply unusable. I'm furious with TM as my previous TMX died after just after 2 year warranty period, this one too. Because I have the T-LCM pedal set, I am reluctant to throw it all away of go to another brand.
Does anybody know where I can get a belt set or internal spares/service kit for the TM TX wheel base? TM cannot help apart from offer a fixed price repair but it requires international shipping at my cost plus a fairly large repair charge, and you get 3 months warranty on the repair. Sucks!
Any help much appreciated, plenty of videos showing you how to get into the wheel, I am happy it's unusable now anyway so have little to lose!
Thanks all! Alan

gearloos · Apr 27, 2023

There's a few bearing and tensioner mods out there on YouTube. Maybe one might show a belt replacement.
You can take a string and run it around to see the size and try and order one online...like 8" x 1/4" or whatever.
Might just be the tensioner is loose and its jumping s9me teeth?. Open it up and take a look.
I was going to do the mods to my 10 year old tx that I also had updated to LCM pedals but gave it to a friend and got a logi DD recently.

thommosim · Apr 27, 2023

Hey thanks for the advice. To be fair I was meaning to come on here and post my latest update after getting the tools out on Sunday.
Took me way too long to get the wheel apart mostly down to me not being brave enough to force the plastics. Once open it seemed in real good shape I couldn't see anything wrong initially. No broken lugs/mounts. Not really clogged so overheating was off the cards. So those belts. I could see the tensioners could be adjusted so I got them probably a little too tight and nipped them back up. The other belt it was about as tight as it could be and there was no more adjustment when I tried to move the motor so that was about all I had to go on. Then I broke off a wire and had to re-solder - DOH! Then the bit at the top, someone on YT said it was an XBOX sensor or something? Wire came off that and I couldn't get it soldered so I left it off.
Anyway after getting it all back together, it bloody works! Guess it was the belt with the tensioners. No apparent slack really but forced it way tighter. Probably too tight as it feels a bit rough and notchy now, but hey it works so I am chuffed. Thanks to this forum for the inspiration really - that and TM saying they could only repair for too much money and I'd have to ship to them. Ruled out that so went in with the tools, glad I did.