The Air Power Vector is one of Paintball's Classics. Nothing about it really fit in the direction that the paintball community wound up going, but it is a mechanical masterpiece with wild attention to detail and design. I owned one back in 2001 or so and later sold it. I recall having issues with balls rolling out, and the valve body o-rings being a task. Those o-rings are now unavailable. I am now 39 and still have several guns that I have started rebuilding. This Vector was a random Ebay purchase and I am going to get it operating and usable. Surprisingly, I gassed it up and it fired, though had a valve body leak due to teflon tape being used as o-rings. I cleaned it up and its clean and smooth...just needs valve body sealed. Bacci Paintball also had a beat up Vector barrel I purchased, though he has not shipped it and is not responding to emails. Anyhow...
Valve Body Mod:
A friend of mine is a Precision Rifle Builder. He trues and chambers barrels to a .0001; no slouch. Now I realize we do not want to bastardize these guns, but I want to provide a solution to get them back in action. The Valve Body is straight foward and there is plenty of room to chuck it and turn the grooves for a common o-ring. Shown in images is a standard tank o-ring which apparently was the mod back in the day. I do not think this is ideal as it takes great effort to stretch tank o-ring around and the o-rings is not even close to matching the ID of the gun where it seals. If anyone has specific knowledge on properly sizing o-ring and the proper groove tolerances, this will help me get there quicker.
Freak Mod:
The object here is to get the gun back in the game. I a much more willing to do this since I have a second barrel. If you looks at pics, I marked the gun body with pen where to Bolt face stops forward. I then installed barrel and marked the barrel as well. The Freak XL inserts are 8" long and would allow the barrel to be chopped 3-4 inches from the front. The insert would slide in from the front and the original barrel would thread into itself. This seems like the simplest method and would keep the alignment pin active.That said, I have no experience with the Freak kits so if I am missing something, please educate me.
Alright...so there is the premise. We will get specifics sorted on extra barrel with all critical dimensions. Ideally, we would do a handful at a time to simplify the work for machinist. Parts would be labeled and kept together, and he has a laser engraver so it would be an option to have the o-ring size lasered onto valve body.
What kind of interest would this have in the community? Money would go directly to the machinist as I simply want to help keep these masterpieces alive!
Valve Body Mod:
A friend of mine is a Precision Rifle Builder. He trues and chambers barrels to a .0001; no slouch. Now I realize we do not want to bastardize these guns, but I want to provide a solution to get them back in action. The Valve Body is straight foward and there is plenty of room to chuck it and turn the grooves for a common o-ring. Shown in images is a standard tank o-ring which apparently was the mod back in the day. I do not think this is ideal as it takes great effort to stretch tank o-ring around and the o-rings is not even close to matching the ID of the gun where it seals. If anyone has specific knowledge on properly sizing o-ring and the proper groove tolerances, this will help me get there quicker.
Freak Mod:
The object here is to get the gun back in the game. I a much more willing to do this since I have a second barrel. If you looks at pics, I marked the gun body with pen where to Bolt face stops forward. I then installed barrel and marked the barrel as well. The Freak XL inserts are 8" long and would allow the barrel to be chopped 3-4 inches from the front. The insert would slide in from the front and the original barrel would thread into itself. This seems like the simplest method and would keep the alignment pin active.That said, I have no experience with the Freak kits so if I am missing something, please educate me.
Alright...so there is the premise. We will get specifics sorted on extra barrel with all critical dimensions. Ideally, we would do a handful at a time to simplify the work for machinist. Parts would be labeled and kept together, and he has a laser engraver so it would be an option to have the o-ring size lasered onto valve body.
What kind of interest would this have in the community? Money would go directly to the machinist as I simply want to help keep these masterpieces alive!
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