ICD Thunder Cat Restoration

[gcr]

I bought this Thunder Cat on ebay and I'm going to try to restore it.

I found a rebuild kit for $11.88 on ebay so I ordered that too but it won't arrive for a week.

[gcr]

Hey, trying to dip more into the community here.



This is my first paintball gun restore and I guess a pretty simple project in comparison to the amazing Sword Gun and other crazy shenanigans I see around here from actual machinists and people like 100 levels above me.




I should mention the bolt cocked / cycled which is a good thing when I got it but the safety is really hit or miss right now in being able to push it one way or the other.

I want to disassemble the lower and upper receiver but I don't really know what I'm doing and I don't want to mess up.

I found a pdf of the manual (attached) but it is pretty low resolution and it's not giving me any more confidence. I followed the instructions to field strip it so the bolt and spring are out now.




Can anyone please point me in the right direction of how to take this apart without damaging it?

Attaching a picture of it now after about 45 minutes of rubbing steel wool and wd40 on the surface to try to clean it up a bit.



Very kindly,

[capitalpaintball]

There are 2 screws inside the vert asa, remove them, the asa will come away and there are 2 more screws under it, plus 1 screw in the back behind the 45 frame. the 2 halves will come apart.
there is a spring under the detent, dont loose it. clean the detent (there is no reason to remove it) the valve pin and seat and valve spring can be remove. just oil and return.
bolt comes out the back, just remove the recock knob and pull it out. there is no need to remove any pins or remove the trigger guard unless you are going to anno.

ps I am afraid you are removing the grey/silver anno with your steel wool. not sure that is something you wanted to do. Unless the gun was originally black and someone already ruined it.

[gcr]

this is amazing, thank you a lot.

yeah, my bad on the steel wool. i won't do this again, i just really needed to stay busy today and get going on something but unfortunately i didn't do my research.

[Axel]

Eeeeh I wouldn't have done steel wool. It'll function fine but you changed the finish forever. Oh well. You have a fine candidate to paint or send off for a fancy re-anno now 😁

As far as the rest of it, it's an inline blowback, incredibly easy to rebuild. You probably just need to take it apart and clean everything. Don't use the steel wool. Some air tool oil and a rag is fine. Hot water and soap are OK too, just dry it well. I like paper towels and q-tips. No abrasives!

I've never pulled apart an ICD, but you really can't mess up a blowback. There will probably be a tiny spring and a small steel ball holding the safety in place so watch that when you remove the frame, that they don't go flying. Otherwise just take it apart methodically, take pictures to remember what goes where, replace the seals when they get here, and post any problems or questions.

Welcome to your new addiction 😁

[gcr]

appreciate it a lot, yeah my bad on the steel wool lol

[Jordan]

Well.... it's got a vertical valve so it's not really an inline.

[Axel]

Well like I said I've never had one lol

[BrickHaus]

https://www.mcarterbrown.com/forum/p...ge2#post523656

There is a lot of extremely valuable information in this thread. I bumped it as it got pretty buried in all the recent B2k posts.

Mods can we maybe sticky this glorious thread written by Myrkul?

[gcr]

dang, yeah this place is awesome i just gotta look around more and calm down a bit over here. i appreciate it a lot.

[gcr]

OK, first update is the good news that even though I ruined the surface it still looks pretty cool.

I think I have gotten most of the scratches out that I accidentally created lol, won't do steel wool again.

I still struggling to figure out how to get the parts by the rail the same color but I guess it isn't a big deal. Maybe I can polish this with mothers and that would be a small victory of it gets a cool finish.

Again, I'm sorry if you guys are pulling your hair out because I messed up this badass paintball gun, but it was non-functioning and I'm still trying my best to restore it.

[gcr]

OK so so now the part I don't really get. By the way, I really appreciate the advice you offered, I was able to get the two halves disassembled and I managed to not loose that tiny spring.

The safety just doesn't work. You have to really slam it one way or the other and it feels crunchy like there's stuff there. I'm attaching a picture of where I'm at now. I haven't cleaned this lower half yet either but at least I know I can take those big scratches out.

My goal here is to get the safety to work.

So basically my question with this picture is how do I disassemble the internals of the trigger? Do I even want to go down that route?

Should I just drench the whole part in air tool oils for a few days and then try to hit it with high pressure air to clean it?

Obviously I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing lol

[gcr]

There are 2 screws inside the vert asa, remove them, the asa will come away and there are 2 more screws under it, plus 1 screw in the back behind the 45 frame. the 2 halves will come apart.
there is a spring under the detent, dont loose it. clean the detent (there is no reason to remove it) the valve pin and seat and valve spring can be remove. just oil and return.
bolt comes out the back, just remove the recock knob and pull it out. there is no need to remove any pins or remove the trigger guard unless you are going to anno.

ps I am afraid you are removing the grey/silver anno with your steel wool. not sure that is something you wanted to do. Unless the gun was originally black and someone already ruined it.

I wanted to remove the part that is like copper and keep the part that is silver. I'm super color blind so I apologize if that makes no sense.

Your instructions were great I appreciate it.

I have no plan to anno it, I was thinking it would just look awesome with that exposed metal and then maybe some mothers aluminum polish on it but again I have no idea what I'm doing.

[capitalpaintball]

Are you trying to remove the trigger guard? it is removable but you cant leave it off, its how the grip frame is mounted. you would need to drive out the pin(just above the "H") that holds the sear in place, there are 2 screws under the sear that hold the guard. You could cut the guard, but please dont. It makes me cry.

[gcr]

Are you trying to remove the trigger guard? it is removable but you cant leave it off, its how the grip frame is mounted. you would need to drive out the pin(just above the "H") that holds the sear in place, there are 2 screws under the sear that hold the guard. You could cut the guard, but please dont. It makes me cry.

My goal is to get the safety to work. I'd like to be able to push it both ways easily and right now it's extremely difficult to move it.

How I can achieve this goal I have no idea haha. I agree, yeah, definitely don't want to cut the trigger guard.

I was thinking of maybe driving out the pin above that H. but honestly I don't know how to do that without potentially damaging the pin. Any ideas?

Yeah last thing I wanna do is make you cry brother haha

[capitalpaintball]

You can remove the safety ball bearing and spring first. punching the safety out the side with out removing the spring can damage the gun and safety.
The aluminum above the spring is bent. use a tiny drill bit to clear the hole. remove the spring and ball, the the safety should come out. I dont believe you need to remove the trigger pin at all.

[Myrkul]

My goal is to get the safety to work. I'd like to be able to push it both ways easily and right now it's extremely difficult to move it.

How I can achieve this goal I have no idea haha. I agree, yeah, definitely don't want to cut the trigger guard.

I was thinking of maybe driving out the pin above that H. but honestly I don't know how to do that without potentially damaging the pin. Any ideas?

Yeah last thing I wanna do is make you cry brother haha

Remove the trigger first. Ocne the trigger plate is out of the way, you will need to use a punch to push the safety out from (I believe) the left hand side. There will be an EXTREMELY small bb (likely rusted) and spring that will shoot out. Fair warning, it's going to be a bitch. They ALWAYS are on ICD mechs.

Once everything is removed, carefully polish the inside of the hole where the safety goes. Polish the safety itself, if it's bent it will need to be straightened. Purchase a new ball bearing, solid chance ACE hardware has one, but I'm not sure they go that small. Soak the spring in oil overnight. Once everything is polished and shiny, oil it thoroughly and re-assemble.