Paintball

[lechooch]

Originally Posted by BlueDragonX

Nope, not fixed, not to my satisfaction anyways.

I tried polishing the guide rod and the inside of the guide hole. Didn't help. Tried tightening the rods down in various configuration. Didn't help - made it worse actually.

What I noticed is when I leave the guide rod in the hole and inscrew it from the pump handle and tighten the thumb screw down, the threaded portion of the guide rod sits slightly higher than the hole on the pump handle. There's no binding when the guide rod isn't installed so it has to be at the guide rod.

Now, when I loosen the front thumbscrew it slides buttery smooth - but of course the body is loose and the thumbscrew isn't tight enough to stay on.

Finding that out I put an o-ring on the front frame screw between the body and the grip frame. I tightened the thumb screws down and it works perfectly. Except of course since it's an o-ring the body still wobbles back and forth.

So my conclusion is the guide rod hole is at just slightly the wrong angle and I've got no other ideas to fix it short of putting it on a mill, which I don't have.

That is leterally, 100% exactly what problem I had. Seriously, don't do anything drastic and risc fing it up. Send to Rodney.

[Stitch]

One thing that I noticed when I was experimenting with the bushings that when the locknut is loose you can change the angle at which the rod is seated to some degree. You need to be sure when you tighten the locknut that

for the guide rod - it is straight in relation to the pump

for the actuator rod - it is straight in relation to the pump AND the end is rotated to correctly mate with the bolt (if you look straight at the rod it cants roughly to 10/11 o'clock relative) will try to get some pics tonight - it sounds like the rod was not quite seated right when you tightened the locknut.

also need to be sure the bushing is all the way in as the locknuts push against the bushing slightly (at least mine did)

when they are positioned at the right angle you can sit the actuator rod in the groove and insert the guide rod it should slide all the way in without binding.

keep in mind if it was a problem that required machining - it would have been like that from the word go - unless something bent after the fact (which should be fairly easy to see) so if it was working fine prior to the last break down and re-assemble - it must be a positioning or assembly issue.

/salute

[Stitch]

Ok so basically the first pic here shows how I test the setup - now to test the guide rod depth you can turn the pump arm slightly so only the guide rod is seated and the actuator rod is outside - then slide down and confirm that the guide rod contacts at the same depth that the actuator rod would tap the stop inside the frame (the steel pin)

Then put the actuator flat as show in the pic and slide the pump up and down to see that it smoothly moves and stays even note how flat both arms sit in the grooves



next few pics are of the arms in position - note the actuator arm has a slight cant/tilt for the 90 degree turn - that is the angle that the bolt sits at - you can see it in the way the bolt sits in the body - also note that the pump arms are flat and even to each other with a very subtle/slight angle from the bushing/pump itself





again usually I will lock the guide rod in place first making sure it is flat relative to the arm and then I lock the actuator arm, check the depth, double check that they are firmly in place, then assemble and test.

hope that helps

/salute

[Stitch]

Any luck fixing that binding issue?

[BlueDragonX]

Thanks for the pics, Stitch.

Rodney sent me some info but I haven't had time to fool with it. I've got it on my desk right now and I'm going to try a few things.

[BlueDragonX]

Hey, wow, I'm done and it works!

I followed Stitch's advice. It didn't work. I followed Rodneys advice. It didn't work. Something must have been different with mine, because nothing I tried worked.

I was very frustrated at that point but I still had one last trick in my bag. I could permanently modify my Garg to solve the problem. I was a bit hesitant - risk screwing it up or take the safe route and send it to Rodney? In the end my curiosity and desire to fix it myself got the better of me...as usual.

So this is what I did.

I removed the cocking rod, return spring, and internals from the Garg. I tightened the thumb screws finger tight like they're supposed to be. Then I tightened down the guide rod and colored it with a sharpie. I put the pump handle on and pumped it once. It bound up horribly, but I knew exactly where it was binding thanks to the sharpie trick...

Now the fun part! I spend the following (the last...) five hours sanding the inside of the guide rod hole! This was difficult given that I have no specialized tools for this sort of thing, but I ended up wrapping small pieces of sandpaper around one of my round hobby files. I used 320 grit. Periodically I would re-sharpie the guide rod and pump the gun to see where it was still binding. Eventually it got to the point that it was good and I switched to 600 grit, then to 1000 grit, then to 2000 grit. I then re-polished the guide rod (it was scratched up from checking where it bound up) using the same process and assembled the gun.

Buttery smooth pump stroke.

That is all. I'm going to bed.

[Stitch]

Awesome - glad you got it working =)

/salute

[worrptangl]

Good job! My wife would have killed me if I took that long, LOL!

[RTR]

Odd that it was fine one moment and not the next. Maybe something got bend just a tiny bit at some point. Glad you got it to work well.

The hole in the rail that the guide rod goes in is a magnet for crud to build up during the ano process. The acid likes to cake in there if it does not drain properly. I clean it out as best I can then oil it and simulate the pump stroke with a test rod over and over until I believe its good to go then swab everything out.

Everything is pretty tight on the gun. So the break in period will make some think it's gritty at times. But after all the parts rub together enough and are happy all is right with the world.

[BlueDragonX]

I had an LED flashlight I was using to view the inside of the hole. I noticed that the bottom of the hole was kind of wavy, which I think accounts for part of the reason it was binding. It would only bind at one part of the stroke. Once I was done sanding the waves were gone. Don't know, but it works now! Time for the next project... Post incoming!