Part 3- Fitting the Systema Parts

 

The first thing to do is to remove the piston/spring/cylinder set. This is the brass cylinder, and the white piston inside it, with a spring attached. There will be plenty of grease around, all over the gears and on the cylinder, so I'd recommend keeping a roll of kitchen roll handy, to wipe it off your hands, as it makes it very difficult to handle things. The brass cylinder will have a black plastic nozzle attached to the end, and a long plastic lever along the bottom of it. Keep the black plastic nozzle handy, you'll need to put it back later.

You can now remove all 3 gears from the gearbox, and place them to one side. You won't need them, as they will be replaced. On the underside of the lower of the 3 gears you'll find a small spring loaded leaver, note it's position (including the spring) then remove it, as this too is replaced by a better Systema part. The next thing to replace are the bushings (there are 6 of them). These are basically bearings, that the ends of the gears revolve in. The replacements are metal, whereas the originals are nylon, and simply not up to the job of higher speed and power -they melt if used with advanced gearing. Simply 'punch' out the old ones and snap in the new ones.

Now is a good time to construct the piston. For some reason Systema ship this kit with the piston in parts (unlike a G3/MP5 kit). The piston consists of a piston head (red faced), a piston, a screw mounted in a black plastic end, 2 washers and a 'ball-bearing race'. You'll need a bit of patience to do this and a long No2 philips screwdriver. Now take the black plastic piece with the screw in it, thread a washer, the ball-race then a washer over the end of it. The idea is to screw the 3 washers, onto the inside of the piston, through the small whole at the end and into the piston head, which is outside. It's a real bummer to do, as you need to balance the lot on the end of a screwdriver inside the piston, and then screw it onto the pistonhead outside.

Make sure you screw this in fairly tight, you don't want the piston head coming off while in use, as that will make a mess. Good luck.. it took me 5 attempts to get it right. When that is done, u can place the new spring, inside the piston (it'll butt up against the washer assembly you have just screwed inside). Then you place the guide rod end into the other spring end (i.e. the one not in the piston).

Now the next bit is fairly complex so I'm going to rely on a few pictures, much more than normal, to show you what I mean.

There are 3 gears to put in and a small non-return lever with a spring on it.

Assemble the cylinder set, this is made from the ribbed cylinder, and the solid brass end. The brass end needs coating in silicon grease where it will touch the cylinder, and around the rubber grommet. Then place the brass end inside the end of the cylinder that does not have a flared end.

Now for an important bit of information: In the Systema FTK there would have been a bag with 2 teenie tiny washers in it. Carefully open this bag, the two washers are of different sizes, one is larger (and thicker) than the other.

(The following directions are in relation to the gearbox images shown below) The small washer goes on the top of the main drive gear (this is the one that drives the piston) . The large washer goes on the UNDERSIDE of the main drive gear between the gear, and the new metal bushing you recently put in. This washer needs to go under a small lever you'll find there, simply slacken the black screw that holds the lever down, slide the washer under that lever, then tighten the screw back up; but make sure that the lever can still pivot easily, so don't over tighten it.

Before the next set (the adding of the gears) you need to grease EVERY moving part with silicon grease. The bushings need plenty of grease too, as do all the contact points where the gears either touch, or get close to each other. Don't worry about the mess the more grease the better (within reason). Coat the inside of the new cylinder with grease, and the piston head, the nozzle and the piston itself - specifically the gearing on the piston side where the drive gear will mesh with it.

The first gear to put in is the one that goes in the middle (large flat and thin), place it with the large flat side to the bottom. The next thing to add is the spring loaded non-return lever, exactly as the original was., While holding this back, place the next gear in (the one without holes in its side). The last gear to add is the main drive gear, this should be inserted as shown in the picture, in this EXACT position. In this position its just ready to draw the nozzle back, via the large black lever, and pull the piston back. When you are certain the gears are in, turn them (they'll only turn one way) a few revolutions to make sure that the gears are free. When you are sure that they are free moving (there should be very little resistance) set them back so that they are in the same position as the image to the left.

Now you have all the gears in the correct position, you need to put the replacement cylinder and piston set in, after you have attached the new nozzle movement lever, and the return spring that goes with it. You can see the return spring circled on the image to the right in red. This spring is attached to the gearbox by a protruding pin, and to a leg on the nozzle arm. The black nozzle arm, attaches to the black nozzle (small back cylinder) and goes over the end of the new cylinder end (the brass cylinder with a hole in each side). In this position, when you move the arm back and forth the black plastic piece should move back and forth in turn over the brass pipe. You should find that the head of the cylinder fits nicely into the gearbox, and that a protrusion from the gearbox face, fits into a hole on either side of the brass nozzle end.

With the cylinder in, you can place the spring, with guide end, into the end of the piston - obviously the guide rod, goes at the opposite end to the piston. Now comes the difficult part, you need to compress the spring, and locate the guide rod end in the hole at the back left of the gearbox (you should see a thin rectangular hole where you poke the metal protrusion from the guide rod. It takes a bit of practice, but it's easiest if you keep the cylinder held down onto the gearbox with a spare thumb, otherwise it may fly out if the spring breaks loose and/or slips. It's normally easier to handle the spring, after you have cleaned your hands of silicon grease. =)

When the spring is in the right place, you can attempt to place the other side of the gearbox on, while holding the spring down. It'll take a bit of tweaking, as the gear axles need to be located in the correct holes, as does the cylinder etc., so you may need to poke a sharp thin screwdriver in to poke things into the correct place.

When the 2 sides are together, fit the screws, and secure the 2 sides together, then attach the replacement top cover for the gearbox, and slide it on, from the cylinder end first. I found I had to tap mine (LIGHTLY) with a small tac-hammer to get it to slide on. You may wish to grease it a bit to ease it on.