If you’ve found yourself with one of the X-plorer Guitar’s for Guitar Hero II that has the unfortunate flaw of not having a properly functioning whammy bar, then you might be in luck. A fairly simple dis-assembly of the guitar might yield the happy reward of a functioning whammy bar, but if you don’t have a brave soul for DIY projects or possibly causing your whammy bar to stop working all together this is not for you.

For the brave souls out there. Here are the steps:

1. Place your X-Plorer controller face down and remove all 11 of the black screws from the white body of the controller .

2. Once you’ve removed the back from the controller you need to locate the whammy bar’s sensor mechanism.

3. Slightly loosen the two screws that hold the sensor in place and rotate the whole mechanism by only a slight fraction in a clockwise direction before tightening the two screws back up again.

4. Replace the white cover and tighten up the 11 screws again.

5.Voila! That should fix the whammy bar problem.

You can get the entire walk-through and pics here, but just remember that this is not a recommended method, as for returning the guitar for a replacement will yield you with the same desired result without trying to be McGuyver and possibly completely break it.

I myself wouldn’t try this, but if you have guts why not? I’ve built several computers, but won’t touch this. Go figure.

-William “thewilleffect” Bell-