Wha Happen to my Kraken?

[Dusti69]

ok so i dunno what could possibly be wrong with my ak.
i got a bunch of parts in the mail today and started working on my kraken putting the parts in the gearbox

chromium plated gaurder cylinder
action bearinged spring guide
action bearinged aluminum piston head
action airseal nozzle
action hard piston with half metal teeth
systema m120 spring

everything fit in fine yet of course it took an 11.1v lipo battery to make the gearbox fire. fired it a couple times like that and decided it was bullshit. i didnt wanna run my baby off that evil battery. so i took it all apart and put the krakens stock spring back in it. now its not as powerful as it used to be it wont even go through one side of a soda can and heres the even more messed up part... when i shoot the bbs at distances they curve to the left sharply right out of the barrel like i was shooting .12s or something and when they dont do that they fish tail or fly like a snake in an s pattern changing direction at least twice while in flight. now i didnt even touch the front set with the inner barrel or the hop up and the bbs are the same theres nothing magically wrong with them either

so what might the problem be?

[cbcsteve]

Best thing to do

1. Make sure you got the spring on right
2. Check your piston head and airseal O-rings to make sure they are lubed and no knicks (Could be losing air thats why FPS down)
3. Check your gear teeth for any problems

Also big problem is that Action Parts I find did not seem to fit to gearboxes as snug as TM parts or Modify parts so I am guessing is the Action, I am biased cause Action parts did not fit properly in my version 3 TM box

If anything see if you can return or exchange for store credit, and try going for Modify parts, the polycarbonate ones saved me where Action could not

[Dusti69]

i dunno if its the action parts fault. i dont see where the spring guide and piston would affect fps and bb flight but the action piston head fit rather nicely inside the gaurder cylinder and the action air nozzle went on just as well as the krakens stock one.
i can see how things like that would account for decreased fps but everything as far as compression goes there it seems like compression is better... or should be better. and i dont see how any of that would make the bb's whizz all over the place like that

when i had the m120 spring in it it shot a little more powerful and as normal as it did before yet like i said i didnt wanna be running an 11.1 lipo in my set up and i blew 6 or 7 fuses that ranged from 20 to 32's

and also i almost forgot. when i test fired it before putting it back in the gun a mist of cylinder grease shot out the nozzle. i never seen that happen before

[BORDENSNIPER]

#1 no point of having bigger spring since that will cause u to modify more...if ur using a strong spring buy the gears that will prevent future breakage.

#2 your bb's might be flyin off to the side since somehow u either twisted the inner barrel causeing the hopup rubber to twist so now the bucking is sitting a bit off the center and on the lfet side. I know this cause i did that 2 times to my krakens.

#3 wtf did u buy a ahlf tooth for?...im guessing for future upgrades for gears...for now use something more lightweight such as a polycarb piston withour metal.titenium teeth

#4 change the hopup to A&K

also, I second that about the spring positioning.

get a new hopup, get a polycarb piston no metal tooth shit, DONT USE LIPO its unrealistic...the fire rate...ur notshootin a minigun.

[Dusti69]

no its a full teeth piston. half are metal
guess i should take the hop up apart and see if i notice anything strange and put it back together. been wanting to get a metal hop up for it for a while and maybe one of those gaurder clear sleeves. id rather just solve the problem than have to spend more money right now

[Coma]

As suggested, check that the inner barrel is not twisted inside the hop up unit. You shouldn't have a spend a dime to fix this.

For the FPS issue, you should be able to run that 120 spring simply on a standard 9.6v battery. Try to find 3600 mah or greater. It currently sounds like the spring is backwards, but check your compression too just in case.

[Drake]

For FPS make sure the Action Piston Head and the Guarder Cylinder actually manage to form a seal when the piston compresses.

• Make sure the O-Ring on the piston head is lubricated
• Make sure you didn't gunk up the intake ports on the face of the piston head
• Manually push the piston down the cylinder while blocking the cylinder head nozzle (without the actual airseal nozzle installed) with your finger; you shouldn't be able to compress it.

Mixing and matching parts is a great way to ask for trouble, specially when dealing with lower tier brands (going into a lower tier mechbox to begin with). The money you save is paid forward through grief and effort.

Also, no gun (asides maybe a handful custom built by gurus) should need 10+ volts to crank, AND end up blowing high amp fuses to boot. Don't just keep putting in new fuses and upping the amps, you'll end up damaging your motor; the fuses blowing are a huge clue you should pick up. And here's a freebie: you added a bearing spring guide and bearing piston head, each takes up space from the spring. If you spring was long enough you might even jam your mechbox doing that.

And no offense, but you may want to take your gun to an actual gun doc.

[m102404]

As said:
1. Check barrel/hopup alignment. With the hopup attached to the barrel, but not in the rifle, point the muzzle at a white/light-coloured wall and look down it. If you have the hopup off, there should be little to nothing protruding into the barrel. With the hopup on halfway, you should have a nice semicircle of hopup rubber protruding down into the barrel. If it's skewed to one side, gently try to rotate the barrel until it is centered. If you can't rotate it enough to correct it, disassemble the barrel from the hopup and reseat everything. If that still doesn't do it, try a different hopup rubber, hopup nub and/or a different barrel and/or a different hopup unit (tip: change one thing at a time and test before changing another part). While you're at it, with a light source directly above you (not off to the side), sight down the outside of the inner barrel and see that it's straight (rolling it on a flat surface works too...but you have to have a nice flat surface that is at least as long as your barrel...i.e. a marble countertop).

2. Clean your barrel...if you greased/oiled the sh*t out of it and saw a mist of grease come shooting out...where does it go? all over you hopup rubber and down your inner barrel. It gets on your bbs and they go wonky. Disassemble and clean it all up then fire you mechbox while it's disassembled to blow out any excess (put a towel/rag over the nozzle to create some back pressure).

3. Do the compression tests. But use a chronograph to test velocity...everything else is just guessing and half assed. If the compression checks out but the velocities are really low, you've probably got a mis-match at the nozzle/hopup.

Run lipos if you want...just don't expect crappy parts to work for long with them.

With a long AK tightbore barrel, good compression, good parts and a solid setup...you'd be surprised at how well you can get a M110 or even M100 spring to shoot. And with the benefits of less wear and tear, longer battery life and general peace of mind.

Best of luck.

[Drake]

Originally Posted by m102404

With a long AK tightbore barrel, good compression, good parts and a solid setup...you'd be surprised at how well you can get a M110 or even M100 spring to shoot. And with the benefits of less wear and tear, longer battery life and general peace of mind.

Totally.

From experience, a stock TM box with a PDI 140% and tightbore was putting out in the 370 range as I recall. M120 works out to about a PDI 170% (the old ones), so you can definitely set something nice up with a softer spring.

I currently like Prometheus a lot for springs.

[ShelledPants]

Does the gun turn over with the weaker spring and the regular battery in the new setup?

[Dusti69]

yea i took the systema m120 out of it and put the krakens stock spring back in and it shoots fine as far as turning over and working the way a gearbox is sposed to and i do get a pretty strong puff of air coming out of the air nozzle. also with the new parts in there the gearbox isnt as loud and rough sounding as it used to be. but anyway how do you know if the spring is backwards? its just a regular one

thanks for the replies and all this information sounds very useful. it sounds like theres a couple dif things i can try to fix the problem. im going away for about a week but when i come back im gonna re-read all this stuff and take apart the gearbox and check the parts and disassemble the hop up and look it over and put it back together. i may end up just buying a metal one

i think i should probly get a gaurder cylinder head for with the gaurder cylinder. i mean i should have bought it when i was buying all these parts.
i should have

[m102404]

A linear spring has all of its coils evenly spaced out along its length.

A non-linear spring has "bunches" of coils. Almost always, there will be a closer spaced pack of coils at one end of the spring. That end goes at the "back", ontop of the spring guide. If you reverse it, you should see a large FPS drop.

If all things being equal there is no front or back to your spring, then it doesn't matter which end goes where.

[Dusti69]

ok well the krakens stock spring is linear then so youre saying its not in backwards. the systema was non-linear and i did have it in backwards like you said and it shot fine but i took it out and put the krakens back in like i said before i think

i did take a swab and put it down into the hop up today before i left. there was a whole load of yellowish brown oil in it and i dont understand that cuz i know the gearbox keeps shooting out the cylinder grease but that stuff is clear. i probly need a new hop rubber now

i really dunno why it keeps shooting out the cylinder grease. ive never had a gearbox that shot its own lube out

[Drake]

My first guess would be because you over lubed the cylinder.

If lube is shooting out the nozzle it's also a safe bet that the intake ports on the piston head are all gunked up now, so the O-ring won't expand properly (probably gunked up, too) during compression resulting in an improper seal, resulting in pressure loss, resulting in low power.

The grease darkens are it picks up dirt, btw, thats why it's brown now. I use white lithium grease in my gearboxes (which, yes, is white) and it eventually gets dark grey.

I suggest you take the piston assembly apart, clean everything with warm water and a mild dish washing soap, carefully dry everything and reassemble with proper lubrification. Use White Lithium or Teflon Grease in the cylinder, don't use anything running like silicone oil. Apply a thin film with a cloth (something that won't leave lint), you don't want a buildup of grease. You can lightly grease or oil the o-ring, same with the o-ring on the cylinder head and nozzle. You can lightly grease the teeth on the piston.

Perform a manual compression test.

If it's sealing properly you can then reassemble the box.

[Dusti69]

thats funny cuz i had already cleaned it before i had made this thread and thought there might not be enough lube in the cylinder. sounds like i gotta lotta crap to clean out of stuff when i get back home

....ive been using g&p's cylinder grease but its more like an oil