[Djzapz]

Edit: My questions from this OP have been answered, but I've got more. I need to get this baby back on track!

Hello everyone. I don't know how likely I am to get a response, but I have multiple questions. I've been out of the loop as far as paintball goes for a rather long time, and I just decided to pull out my old LED Matrix to put it back in shape. However I've noticed (and have always noticed) that the bolt is really hard to move through the body of the marker. I'm not sure if it's normal that I have to apply a significant amount of force to manually pull and push the bolt back and forth. That said, it kind of makes sense because the o-rings are old - perhaps they're "inflated" or whatever.



As you can see I've been using Hater Marmalade which is a bit thick from my understanding.

So my questions are
1- Is it normal that the bolt doesn't slide through easily? I remember shooting it anyway but maybe it was suboptimal?
2- I'm from Canada, does anyone know of a way to get a few sets of fresh o-rings?

I can use any advice, I've never been too savvy about my equipment. Just want to play . Cheers.

[Spyderdome]

Originally Posted by Djzapz

Hello everyone. I don't know how likely I am to get a response, but I have multiple questions. I've been out of the loop as far as paintball goes for a rather long time, and I just decided to pull out my old LED Matrix to put it back in shape. However I've noticed (and have always noticed) that the bolt is really hard to move through the body of the marker. I'm not sure if it's normal that I have to apply a significant amount of force to manually pull and push the bolt back and forth. That said, it kind of makes sense because the o-rings are old - perhaps they're "inflated" or whatever.



As you can see I've been using Hater Marmalade which is a bit thick from my understanding.

So my questions are
1- Is it normal that the bolt doesn't slide through easily? I remember shooting it anyway but maybe it was suboptimal?
2- I'm from Canada, does anyone know of a way to get a few sets of fresh o-rings?

I can use any advice, I've never been too savvy about my equipment. Just want to play . Cheers.

Looking for a little clarification. Are you talking about the actual bolt is difficult to move back and forth inside of the bolt assembly? Or are you refering to inserting and removing the entire kit into the body?

If you're refering to the entire kit when removing from the body, then yea, it's quite common, at least in my experience, to have difficulty removing the bolt kit. Especially from the beer can forward. However, I don't think it has any negative affects on the performance of the marker.

Personally, if I have a bolt kit that I can't just push out with a swab, looking down through the breach, I'll place the tip of the swap at either the top or bottom of the bolt kit, then take either a light hammer or an adjustable wrench and give the other end of the swab a few taps. The bolt kit will start moving. Then I just alternate my placement of the swab tip until the bolt kit falls out.

Remembering to place lube on the external o-rings of the assembly will make it a little easier to back in as well. I personally use planet eclipse grease.

As for o-rings, o-ring monkey should be able to hook you up if you don't want to buy in bulk

Hope it helps!

[Djzapz]

Yes I was referring to having difficulty moving the bolt as it normal would during normal operation. When I remove the barrel chamber, the tip of the bolt sticks out and it's tough to move back and forth, although I can only grab it by the tip of my fingers (this all sounds so wrong). Anyway, I kind of figured if I can't move it, it probably takes a lot of air to move it. But if that's normal then I won't worry about it. Thank you for your help I'll look into oring monkey.

[RAPER]

the bolt should be able to move somewhat easily while it is in the bolt assembly. if you cant grab it with two fingers and easily move the bolt then there is excessive drag. from my general experience, generally the inner oring in the top hat at the small end and the oring from the center of the bolt will cause excessive drag. Also check out the two on the tail of the bolt. Personally I only use DOW 33 for all my matricies, but lube can also attribute to your problem as well.

[Djzapz]

I guess I misunderstood the first response actually, somehow.

I can't easily move the bolt. I've removed the entire bolt assembly (including the 2 pieces that are still in the gun on my picture), removed most of the old gunk with microfiber and put on fresh Hater Marmalade but the bolt is still hard to move when assembled.

I've shot the marker in my backyard and it's not very accurate, I assume it's because it has trouble cycling because of this excessive drag you speak of. On the other hand, I have no idea how to disassemble to LPR and HPR on this thing, so they may not help either.

I looked into oring monkey and it costs $17 +$8 to ship for 5 sets of o-rings x_x. The whole marker's probably worth $100-ish by now if that. It's hard to justify as is, so I want to be sure it'll fix my issues.

[BonesJackson]

The bolt should slide smoothly. Because the bolt is the only moving part, it comes into contact with a lot of o-rings, so it's hard to tell which one is the culprit. I will say the most LIKELY o-rings are the o-rings on the bolt itself: the bolt sail and the two tail ones.

This does not guarantee it is either of those, but in my experience those are the most common. I recommend swapping them out or trying a smaller diameter:




edit- if it's not any of those, then it has to be one of these:

[Djzapz]

Thanks everyone. I still have a few problems though and would very much appreciate some help.

If anyone knows how to disassemble an Aardvark Trinity LPR I would appreciate! I've been trying to research it but I can't find anything. As of now I have no idea how to get inside it. I can remove the adjustment knob and see the "coin", and I can remove it from the Matrix's body. I've also removed the 3 small screws from the LPR, but how do I push the internals out? Is it safe to push out from the back or can I break something?
Also, I'm about to order new sets of o-rings, I was wondering if perhaps slick honey would be more suitable than hater marmalade for the bolt assembly - or should I really go for DOW33/white lithium?

[BonesJackson]

There used to be diagrams of LPR disassembly on Matrix Owner, but that site is defunct now. I should make some sort of guide. You've basically got it right so far, but the LPR is a thing you want to reassemble very carefully. This isn't because of inherent fragility of parts, but because if you put things in backwards it just won't work.

It's very easy to put things in backwards. I'm not even sure I could reasonably describe the parts well in mere text format. You know what? I'll give it a shot.

Once you've taken off the three set screws at the base of the LPR, the thing will come apart in two large pieces. The 'base' piece will be where the spring and the needle are. The 'body' piece will be where the piston, spring, and seal are.

Oh man I just remember that ZDSPB guy made a diagram of the PBC LPR which is a copy of the Trinity. Boy are you in luck:



The blue piece is the base. The orange piece is the body. On the base, notice the spring and yellow 'needle' or 'pin' and in which direction it points. The only tricky part in assembly is making sure the needle is facing the right way and doesn't fall out of place when you're putting it back together. That's what I actually have to hold the LPR pieces upright and lower the body onto the base when I put them back together.

Anyway, you're going to want to take the piston (the large blue block in the orange body) out and lightly lubricate that o-ring. In order to do that, take the reg apart as I've indicated so far. You've already taken the knob off the front and hopefully the giant metal spring. Once you're down that far and the body is separated from the base, you need to carefully push the piston out the front of the LPR. I do that gently with a small allen key usually. It may get hung up on the threads at the front. Be gentle but wiggle it out.

Make sure when you put it back, it's facing the right way. Also, something not shown very well in the diagram is a small but thick rubber ring with a little hole in the center. It's called the reg seat, and it sets in between the yellow needle and the blue piston. It MUST be put back in place for reassembly, because it likes to fall out sometimes when you take the LPR apart. In the diagram is the slightly lighter colored yellow block resting on the right of the needle.

[Djzapz]

Wow thanks, good explanation and the diagram was very helpful. I managed to service it. I hadn't realized the blue piece and the orange piece came apart.

Just to make sure I did everything correctly though, when I disassembled it, the pin and the orange ring were "stuck" onto the base (in blue). This is why the orange and blue parts didn't come apart when I removed the 3 screws. Now that I've reassembled it, the spring pushes the two pieces apart, so I had to hold them together until I had one of the screws back in. I guess it was way overdue? x_x

[ventturei26]

i remember before i started working on my guns back in 2003 i sent my matrix to TMC for some repairs. they sent it back and it didnt work. they had actually reversed a piece inside the trinity and blamed it on a bad bolt piece.

one of many bad experiences from TMC

[Djzapz]

I've always done my maintenance myself, which is probably why I've had so many problems... that, and buying used equipment from shady people. Besides my first steps into paintball many many years ago, with cheap guns (plastic brass eagle, viewloader entry level stuff), I've only bought one new marker and it was an impulse without ACEs. Even with an empire reloader B, that thing chopped like crazy. I even spent money on stuff like the tapework and a delrin bolt because I was told it could help, but never got the eyes because the board was $200+. I was a kid back then too, so that was like a year of saving up for a complete disappointment.

$650 is what it cost me and I got about 3 days of play out of it. Bad ones too, because I was constantly on the sidelines with a squeegee. Can't play too well when you're pissed off either.

All that aside, I've contacted oringmonkey, hopefully they'll be able to make me a custom kit. I'd just pick up one of their actual configs but all the stock HPR and LPR o-rings would be useless to me.

[Djzapz]

Hey guys, I know I'm not going through the proper channels but I don't want to make him bad publicity or anything.

I received my order from oring monkey, it was supposed to contain 3 items: 5x matrix rebuilds, 3x hyper 2 rebuilds and 2oz slick honey tube. 2 mistakes were made... I got 3x hyper 3 rebuilds instead of hyper 2, and the tube of grease just wasn't in the package I received.

Are they pretty good at fixing those kinds of mistakes?

[Vegard]

He replaced a screwup in my order free of charge. Not to say that he /will/ do that for you aswell, but from my experience they're very good at CS.

Even though their prices on gear (hoppers etc, not the o-rings) and what not are higher than other, larger online stores I go to them for the CS and can-do attitude.

[Djzapz]

Looks like everything will get fixed up for me . Cheers for oringmonkey. The guy I talked to was great as well.