My PAS has had many different mods done to it in it's history. I've had it since April, and I brought it to three wars. But a few weeks after the third war. The trigger nub broke, it's the piece the the plunger rod catches on. I didn't get around to fixing it for a long time because I had a weird barrel setup on the gun that made it nearly impossible to use. A few months later I finally got around to changing the barrel setup. The next barrel setup I used was better, but for some reason I couldn't get the barrel piece back into the gun. I also tried fixing the trigger, but that failed too because it wasn't nearly strong enough. So I was stuck with a broken barrel stub and a broken trigger. I left my PAS untouched for several weeks.
Then, I see Sputnik's Mod and had hope that I could fix at least the barrel part. I tried that out, and I thought it could hold, but the E-tape kept telescoping. I figured, that I would work on that later and work on the trigger instead. I spent several hours trying to find ways to reattach the broken nub to the trigger. I even tried epoxy putty, bit that would just break off at the tip of the nub. I figured that I would need to completely replace or reinforce with something that wouldn't shatter. That brings me to my first fix, replaced trigger nub.
I used the thinnest brass strip I could find at ACE for the new nub and 2 screws from an AT2k and a small nail lathered in super glue to hold it on. I precisely bent the brass into place so that it would fit. The only parts that I had to modify to accommodate the new trigger were the cocking bar and the shell.
I will be reinforcing the cocking bar soon, so it won't be likely to break even though it's weaker now since I worked it down. The shell modification is hardly noticeable and took very little time to do. Here are some additional pictures of the new trigger:
Installed in the gun:
The next thing I had to do was figure out how to make Sputnik's coupler replacement mod practical and able to last. I was thinking of something besides e-tape that I could use to make the fitting fit into the plunger tube when I saw some craft foam sitting on the floor. It was adhesive backed so I figured it would be very easy to try. It worked very well. Just two layers of 2mm craft foam fit perfectly in the plunger tube and didn't require a groove to be cut out in order to fit in the shell because of the tendency of it to compress easily. Here's what it looks like:
From the back:
Installed in the gun:
This method is also good because it doesn't require the trial and error of getting the right about of e-tape on the fitting to get it to fit in the tube. The craft foam just shapes itself when left in the tube.
The last problem wasn't crucial, but I figured I should do it anyway. The brown piece that the spring compresses onto always annoyed me because I had to fill it with hot glue precisely and the hot glue was always uneven or it would break out over time. That, and it looked like it was going to brake. My solution was to take a 1" PVC endcap and cut it to about an equal size to the brown piece. Then, cut out a slot so that the plunger rod could go into it like normal like so:
I sanded down the part of the cap that touches the plunger tube, so that it didn't fit quite so tightly. For a while I used it unsanded, but a crack started forming on my plunger tube because of it.
That concludes my fixes. So, what do you think?
Edited by venom213, 19 January 2009 - 01:19 AM.