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Renovating and Modifying a Mares Mirage

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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Diving Gecko

shooter & shooter
Jun 24, 2008
1,698
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Hey Guys,
I am taking my Christmas present for myself apart - a nice 80/84 Mares Mirage.
Everything has come apart nicely, except for the power regulator bulkhead which seems to be quite stuck.

As far as I know, it should just be a press fit due to the compaction of the o-ring, right?

But what are the tricks to get these out? How do you do it? Push from the muzzle-end with a long broomstick/spear/what have you?
 
I managed to get it out.
I used the inner barrel and placed it in the one space on the bulkhead that has beef enough to handle it. It's not easy to explain, but makes sense when you have it in front of you. (The Mirage bulkhead is littered with holes and they need to stay unharmed.)

Once I had placed the inner barrel (Jegwan uses an old 8mm spearshaft with a flat end on it), I turned it around, so that the bulkhead was towards me and pressed on the outer barrel steadily increasing the force with my weight.

It popped out, perhaps for the first time in two decades as the o-ring was almost rectangular in cross section.

Now, a few quick mods awaits this beauty before it will see tropical Thai waters in a few days' time.
 
Here is a diagram, if you would need it.
 

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Next issue!
The pump valve has developed a leak but what is worse - I have almost stripped the nylon bushing at the rear of the valve to try to get to the o-ring and service it.
Do you guys know if these are Locti'ed in place?

I don't have high hopes of getting a new valve in Bangkok in the two days left before I head to the beach.
Worst case, I drill out the nylon bushing and have a new one lathed, but would rather avoid that.

Any tricks here?
 
Here is the detail of the pumping section for the "Mirage". Just which part are you talking about? The one-way ball valve is trapped by the vertical face located behind it which has a small bush inside it, part 35, to provide a small bore hole. In my gun that part is red plastic, everything else around it is black plastic.
Mirage page 5 detail.jpg
 
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A slightly simplified drawing that shows the pumping barrel inlet ball valve sitting on the bush, you don't need to remove the bush as the "O" ring sits in front of the bush.
Mirage page 2 detail.jpg
 
If you are referring to the rear inlet valve then the plastic retainer is just screwed in without anything being used to glue it in place. It should be replaceable with the retainer from any of the other Mares pneumatic guns. Here it is marked as part 18, there are two of them used in the "Mirage"; one for the rear inlet valve and the other for the over-pressure valve that prevents too large a pressure differential to occur between the separate chambers of the gun. The over-pressure ball valve uses a stronger coil spring, part 34. Note that these numbers change on the later version of the gun as they are just indicators for the diagrams which are slightly different due to some minor component changes.
 
I managed to get it out.
I used the inner barrel and placed it in the one space on the bulkhead that has beef enough to handle it. It's not easy to explain, but makes sense when you have it in front of you. (The Mirage bulkhead is littered with holes and they need to stay unharmed.)

Once I had placed the inner barrel (Jegwan uses an old 8mm spearshaft with a flat end on it), I turned it around, so that the bulkhead was towards me and pressed on the outer barrel steadily increasing the force with my weight.

It popped out, perhaps for the first time in two decades as the o-ring was almost rectangular in cross section.

Now, a few quick mods awaits this beauty before it will see tropical Thai waters in a few days' time.

To remove the power regulator bulkhead you just unscrew the rear inlet valve housing from the inner barrel and then pull the inner barrel forwards out of the grip handle, it is as simple as that. But before pulling the inner barrel out you need to remove the trigger and pull the trigger transmission pin out as that small diameter pin passes through a hole/slot in the inner barrel wall. The "Mirage" power regulator has no cylindrical chamber behind it, instead the gun's pre-chamber is formed by open spaces inside the rear grip which are revealed by the holes you see in the front face behind the regulator bulkhead. This makes for a much smaller pre-chamber volume than you would find in say a "Sten" or "Cyrano" where the bulkhead is spaced forwards from the rear handle component by stand-off legs or is part of a cylindrical moulding that forms a sub-tank. The reason for this very small pre-chamber is the "Mirage" internal pumping barrel system is designed to drop pressure in the inner barrel, which you eventually have to muzzle load against, to a very low value after 5 pumping barrel strokes as the pressure equalizes between the pumping barrel internal volume and the pre-chamber volume in the rear handle (which is combined with the inner barrel volume) before you perform each pumping barrel stroke. Thus by minimizing the "rearward" volume to be equalized across the pumping barrel inlet ball valve to not much more than the inner barrel volume (due to the very small pre-chamber used in the "Mirage") more air molecules can be transferred from the rear of the gun into the forward chamber surrounding the two barrels with relatively few barrel pumping strokes, the 10 mm ID pumping barrel being a smaller volume than the 13 mm ID inner barrel which is also longer than the pumping barrel. Think of it as bailing out a boat, the bigger the bailing bucket and the smaller the volume of the boat then the less times you need to use the bailing bucket.
 
If you are referring to the rear inlet valve then the plastic retainer is just screwed in without anything being used to glue it in place. It should be replaceable with the retainer from any of the other Mares pneumatic guns. Here it is marked as part 18, there are two of them used in the "Mirage"; one for the rear inlet valve and the other for the over-pressure valve that prevents too large a pressure differential to occur between the separate chambers of the gun. The over-pressure ball valve uses a stronger coil spring, part 34. Note that these numbers change on the later version of the gun as they are just indicators for the diagrams which are slightly different due to some minor component changes.

Thanks Pete,
Sorry, my lingo was a bit off. Yes, it is the rear inlet one which the pump screws into.
The retainer in that one is completely stuck - though the other one, in the over-pressure valve., came out easily enough.

I'll have to give it a last try. Maybe some heat-freezer treatment will help. Fingers crossed.
 
Btw Pete,
Thanks so much for your years-old, elaborate write-up on the Mirage. It's been very inspiring in the past and even better to have now that I actually have a Mirage in my hands:)

But the more I look at the power regulator bulkhead, the less I'm inclined to think that the low power shot position (#2) works in the normal way blocking the main chamber from the smaller one behind the bulkhead.
I think position 2 works by throttling the airflow as it looks to me, like the power regulator piston only fully blocks the hole in the bulkhead in #1. The difference between #2 and #3 is basically just that in #3 the piston is even further back from the hole but even in #2, there is passage.

It was easy enough to see and I verified by blowing air through the bulkhead which was doable in both position #2 and #3.

MIRAGE_POWER_SETTINGS_01_1000PIX.jpg

The first pic shows the piston with the power regulator in position #1

MIRAGE_POWER_SETTINGS_02_1000PIX.jpg

This pic shows the piston with the power regulator in position #2. Notice how there is a passage open.
MIRAGE_POWER_SETTINGS_03_1000PIX.jpg


Last image shows the piston with the power regulator in position #3. The passage is even wider

BTW, the green o-rings are 2.0 x 38mm (CW x OD) and they seem to do the job. I've only had the gun up to 10Bar to check on the rear inlet valve, so let's see how they fare once we reach proper operating pressure;-)

_______

And here is a short video showing the same.
PASSWORD IS: mirage
 
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Also, here is my latest little project.
I've begun fooling around a bit with carbon fiber and made a quick camera mount over a shaped polysterene foam core.

I just tested the practical buoyancy of it in the sink in my little hotel room and it can lift a Sony Actioncam as well as the medium sized reel from LGSub.
As I am quite offended by heavy guns, this is great news;-)

CAM_MOUNT_WING_01_1000PIX_800PIX.jpg
CAM_MOUNT_WING_02_1000PIX_800PIX.jpg


The buoyancy could be even higher as I used quite a bit of heavy filler on the core. The whole core could be dissolved with acetone if one so wish, or a female mould could be made off of this one, or a later version, and then new ones made without a core at all.
 
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Next issue!
The pump valve has developed a leak but what is worse - I have almost stripped the nylon bushing at the rear of the valve to try to get to the o-ring and service it.
Do you guys know if these are Locti'ed in place?

I don't have high hopes of getting a new valve in Bangkok in the two days left before I head to the beach.
Worst case, I drill out the nylon bushing and have a new one lathed, but would rather avoid that.

Any tricks here?

Just wanted to let you guys know that heat didn't work, but 20mins in the freezer did the trick. It was the very last chance as the insert had chipped and stripped badly. I had to file down a new groove for the screwdriver to put it together again.

The culprit was a severely deformed o-ring (the second one, I have come across now). I suspect under very high pressure it would be tight but since the gun was recently emptied, I just lost all the air I tried to put in it as it did not want to seal at the lower pressure.

Luckily, I brought more than a handful of spare o-rings;-)
MIRAGE_01_1200PIX.jpg


MIRAGE_04_1200PIX.jpg
 
Btw Pete,
Thanks so much for your years-old, elaborate write-up on the Mirage. It's been very inspiring in the past and even better to have now that I actually have a Mirage in my hands:)

But the more I look at the power regulator bulkhead, the less I'm inclined to think that the low power shot position (#2) works in the normal way blocking the main chamber from the smaller one behind the bulkhead.
I think position 2 works by throttling the airflow as it looks to me, like the power regulator piston only fully blocks the hole in the bulkhead in #1. The difference between #2 and #3 is basically just that in #3 the piston is even further back from the hole but even in #2, there is passage.

It was easy enough to see and I verified by blowing air through the bulkhead which was doable in both position #2 and #3.

View attachment 40079
The first pic shows the piston with the power regulator in position #1

View attachment 40080
This pic shows the piston with the power regulator in position #2. Notice how there is a passage open.View attachment 40081

Last image shows the piston with the power regulator in position #3. The passage is even wider

BTW, the green o-rings are 2.0 x 38mm (CW x OD) and they seem to do the job. I've only had the gun up to 10Bar to check on the rear inlet valve, so let's see how they fare once we reach proper operating pressure;-)

_______

And here is a short video showing the same.
PASSWORD IS: mirage


Tromic mentioned that throttle opening at position #2 when he dismantled his "Mirage" and at the time I thought that it may be a change in the revised version of the "Mirage" gun as the number of "O" rings were also reduced and the number of seating grooves for them were changed accordingly on the plastic components. I said that I would check when I next dismantled my "Mirage", but have never got around to doing it. The gun is an early one because it has the lighter bronze coloured tank and it has no ridge on the top of the folding lever in the rear handle which you can push down with your thumb to swing the lever open. Instead you have to pull it open from the bottom of the lever. I have dismantled that gun so many times I lost the incentive to do it, but will now check as I don't recall seeing any side hole in the transfer port. Hot weather makes the "Mirage" slightly easier to take apart as the alloy tank expands in the heat.
 
Well I pulled the "Mirage" apart and everything was super-tight just as I remembered it, at the last millimetre or so of inner barrel travel available to belt the muzzle nose with a hammer and the nearly unscrewed muzzle to reach the bottom of the recess in the nose cone the rear handle assembly finally popped out of the rear end of the tank and fell off the inner barrel. Then I had to push the bulkhead out as it decided to stay in the tank until I drove the inner barrel right through the nose cone after unscrewing the last thread of the muzzle remaining engaged on the inner barrel nose. The nose cone will have to poked out of the tank with a large diameter drift as its double outer "O" rings don't want to let go of the tank. Any tighter fit of the plastic end bosses in this gun and there would almost be no need to use "O" rings!

The bulkhead is definitely different from the one in the later edition, but what I never noticed many decades ago when I first examined the gun is that there is a slight step in the transfer port hole, you can see the shadow which makes it look larger than it really is. The "O" ring on the brass piston that acts as a bulkhead plug is not really tight in there until it pushes past the step, so I guess air could leak around the "O" ring after all when the cursor/control lever is in position #2. However there is no window cut into the side of the transfer port or even a shallow well cut into the rear of the bulkhead, it is basically flat and has only one alignment peg, not two. I don't remember it making much difference to the shot in either of the two forward gate positions, but then I never tried it out at 40 Bar. Once I had the "Mirage" to 40 Bar it was full power or nothing.

While I am at it I took some photos of other parts of the gun, they are also attached. Now the oily parts and work area need to be cleaned up and I might as well repair the power regulator (again!) before putting it all back together, but I will need some new "O" rings, especially for the power regulator shaft. While the instructions say there is one "O" ring on the shaft, there are actually two with one buried under a second metal sleeve in the handle which is not shown on the parts diagram. Fishing that out needs a thin probe with a tiny hook on the end, I made one years ago but have yet to find it again.
Mirage power regulator dismantled.JPG
Mirage regulator bulkhead front.JPG
Mirage regulator bulkhead rear.JPG
Mirage regulator shaft & floating spacer.JPG
 
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Next issue:
Inside the nose cone, just in front of the pre-loading, smaller barrel I have a small washer. I think it is supposed to keep the small piston from jamming against the nose cone.
But... in my case, the piston seems to really jam itself tight inside this washer. So much so, that when putting in the first pre-pump, I really, really have to use brute force to get the piston to move at all. Also, the washer is rusting a bit.
I think it is #60 on the diagrams.

The OD is 12mm, the ID is about 9mm. I am thinking of either replacing it with a SS 12x7.5mm or put an extra Delrin/POM washer on top of the older one. I will rig this Mirage for freeshafts only so I can go smaller on the washer ID and this will hopefully help the piston stay in place.

If I keep the steel washer in place and put an extra Delrin one on top of it, I think the steel one will support the Delrin one quite nicely.

Does this sound like a plan?
 
Next issue:
Inside the nose cone, just in front of the pre-loading, smaller barrel I have a small washer. I think it is supposed to keep the small piston from jamming against the nose cone.
But... in my case, the piston seems to really jam itself tight inside this washer. So much so, that when putting in the first pre-pump, I really, really have to use brute force to get the piston to move at all. Also, the washer is rusting a bit.
I think it is #60 on the diagrams.

The OD is 12mm, the ID is about 9mm. I am thinking of either replacing it with a SS 12x7.5mm or put an extra Delrin/POM washer on top of the older one. I will rig this Mirage for freeshafts only so I can go smaller on the washer ID and this will hopefully help the piston stay in place.

If I keep the steel washer in place and put an extra Delrin one on top of it, I think the steel one will support the Delrin one quite nicely.

Does this sound like a plan?

Hi David,

The OD of the shaft tang on an 8mm shaft is 9mm and it's 8mm on a 7mm shaft. You will only be able to use nude shafts if you replace it with the above SS washer.

The length of the outer barrel and the pre-loading barrel fit each other. So you have to make the outer barrel the thickness of the Delrin washer longer if you add an extra Delrin washer.
Next thing is if the Delrin washer will be deformed due to the pressure.

Is the pre-loading piston the metal or the Nylon version? You could consider to "reshape" the top of it - if it's because it's top edges have become a little rounded or conical...
The OD of the pre-loading piston is 10mm (as I recall).

Edit: just a thought: Have you tried if the pre-loading piston can pas all the way through the opening of the pre-loading barrel - it might be that the thin end (reduced diameter for the "O"-ring) of the barrel is a little out of shape or has a narrowing/oxydation.

Jégwan
 
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That small washer part 60 (it used to be part 65 on the original diagram, see attached) is there to protect the face of the plastic socket in the lower rear of the nose cone that holds the front end of the pumping barrel. Otherwise the pumping piston on its return to the nose cone after each pumping barrel stroke would hammer the plastic socket face and damage it, particularly for the first couple of pumping barrel strokes where the pressure in the rear of the gun is still high. The pumping piston sticking at the start of the first pumping barrel stroke is normal, especially if the gun has not been used for a while. The same thing occurs with the main piston as the sliding seals tend to stick on the barrel's inner wall if the piston has not been moved for a long period, especially if the gun is at 40 Bar initial pressure. You don't need to change anything. If you add another washer then the pumping barrel becomes a tiny bit longer and may affect the clamping of the gun, remember the "Mirage" is only held together by the off-axis main barrel sitting above the pumping barrel; the gun tends to "banana" slightly at the ends as is, so no need to exacerbate that effect.
Mirage detail.jpg
 
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It's a good idea to press the pre-loading piston #49 to the front (up against washer #65) when assembling the gun. Otherwise will the pre-loading piston at some point, while pumping/pressurizing the gun, move to this position at a possible high speed.

Jégwan
 
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