Recreating ancient seals...

[Trygve]

Yes youre correct thats where the blue o ring goes. My sydarm was leaking from the 12g chamber couldnt figure it out for the life of me. Found the remnants of a sticky black o ring inside the the neck of the pierce assembly. Really hard to see and remove. Get a flashlight and a dental pick. Replaced it and it fixed the leaking.

[wthomas333]

Doc,

I would be interested in some valve seals for a BE Poison.

[kevin qmto]

Doc, my Sheridan Equalizer is leaking (again). Might need some help. This time, its actually not that orange seal between the frame leaking, its the trigger switch itself, it leaks badly when you hold the trigger down. What seal might that be?

[DocsMachine]

Odd that they'd make that distinction, considering the last Sydarm left the factory only a few years before the last (production) 'Mag did.

Either way, if they can still be had from AGD, I'll focus my attentions elsewhere for the moment.

Doc.

[Levi]

The fact that the classic valve kits are available from AGD but the Sydarm kits are not is suggestive that there is something unique going on.

Looks like I'm completely wrong on this. AGD still has the Sydarm kits on their website. They are not in the "GUN PARTS" category with the other rebuild kits, they are in the "LEGACY PARTS" section. Probably not worth messing with as long as they remain available from AGD.

[scottieb]

That's a gold mine right there! I'd love to rebuild my Centerflag regs. They were the best!

[DocsMachine]

Understood on the limited life span of the VM-68 cup seal. I have the steel shafts. I was looking into make the brass pressings and the seals. Seals themselves need to be like the original.

-I hadn't considered rebuilding/remanufacturing originals, that's an interesting thought. Yes, making the brass collar and soft seal should be easy.

I have a VM disassembled- one of my own projects, it's been sitting for a while- and dug out the cup seal to see. I don't recall if this thing was leaking or not- it hasn't been assembled in well over a decade- but the seal face wasn't in the greatest shape.



I got a bunch of measurements before I started work, and then tried to turn the OD of the brass to "cut" it off. I got a ways through it, but eventually, even with the very lightest of cuts, it'd just spin on the shaft. I tried driving the rest through with a punch, but the "nail head" on the end shattered.



Not a huge problem, I could still get the relevant measurements and dimensions, and it'd be easy to turn a new brass collar and punch fresh seals.

How many seals do you have or can gather together? I can't really sell a "rebuild kit", as you'd have to have a matching punch and die to crimp it, similar to what I did for the Montneel seals. That'd end up being a $60 or $70 rebuild kit.

But, if you could get together a fair handful of originals, I could rebuild them as a batch- or periodically in batches.

Barring that, I'd also need to turn the posts as well. The shattered head shows the originals were at least somewhat heat-teated... Probably not strictly necessary considering that the cup seals in brass-tube guns are, well, brass...

I'm wondering if we could put together a two-piece cup seal, with just a shaft and machined plastic cup seal, like some of the later 'Cockers, and most stacked-tube blowbacks...

Oh, and on the Dynaflow, I popped the reg piston open and extracted the seal... or rather, what was left of it.



Easy enough to get dimensions from the remnants and the part it came out of, but yeah, the seal in this particular reg was well on it's way to goo-city.

Simple enough to punch, so once I get the proper O-rings in, I can easily put together rebuild kits.

Doc.

[dano_____]

Fair enough. I tried using xrings in place of the energized seals and could never get anything to seal up. Newly machined parts might help. My working epic has no problems with the regulator.

[infamoussmiley]

-Sheridan style poppets like that are brass with a steel shaft and crimped shut. It'd be almost impossible to replace just the seal portion, but the entire part could be reproduced.

An interesting thought, I'll add that one to the list.

Doc.

Hi Doc,

Understood on the limited life span of the VM-68 cup seal. I have the steel shafts. I was looking into make the brass pressings and the seals. Seals themselves need to be like the original.

Best,

Smiley

[DocsMachine]

Thanks for the pics and info, Levi. I'll double-check that when I can dig out my Sydarm and see.

And Dano, I'll definitely have a look. I was, however, given to understand that the Epic regulator worked fine, it's just that when that one oddball seal starts to go bad, then the reg doesn't work properly anymore. As I recall from the last one I looked at, I thought there was a way I could fit a standard O-ring in there, but I'd have to design and make a new piece to make it work.

Doc.

[dano_____]

So on the topic of the ICE Epic. Looking at the patent drawings, the regulator is situated as the air coming from the top and then going down to go into the air transfer tub after being regulated. It has been a while since I took one apart, but from what I recall there might be a possibility of revising the top portion of the reg to use a Schrader valve like a ccm or bob long reg. There is already a large chamber below that could fit a piston and possibly use the existing spring pack. The reg is adjusted from the bottom with the original design and you could use that for the retrofit as well. Patent number is 6520171 for images to look at. This would simplify replacement parts significantly and reduce it to common orings and a common valve.

[Levi]

Here's a shot of the other side of the label which shows the rest of the kit contents. Nothing fancy there.

[Levi]

Here's what the Sydarm kit looks like. It all looks like standard fare classic mag stuff except for two items. The blue O-rings at top right, and a steel spiral retaining ring immediately to the right of one of the reg seats.



Blue O-rings: The color suggests they are fluorosilicone not urethane. https://www.globaloring.com/oring-colors/





The spiral retaining ring measures as follows:
ID: 0.445"
OD: 0.537"
Wire thickness is 0.018" and the clip makes a little more than 1.5 turns, so where there is overlap it is 0.036" thick.



The kit labels this as "SPIRAL CLIP-PIERCE ASSEMBLY" and I'm pretty sure the blue O-rings are "O-RING PIERCE PIN OD"



The O-rings seem to fit nicely around the neck of a 12g, so I'm guessing that is where they go. I wonder why they used this particular material. I don't know if this is just a matter of Tom Kaye overkilling it for the sake of overkill? Or if there was a particular problem they were engineering around?

[Levi]

Includes the little hard plastic seat/piston thingy. The o rings are long past the use-by date, but the hard plastic part doesn't seem like something that age as poorly.

[Levi]

Look what I found!