A5 vs. Hurricane Irene Project!

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So while back filling the land where my parents house used to be before Hurricane Irene removed it from its foundation and scattered it over 2 miles of stream bed, a single marker was found. An old model A-5. In an effort to put to the test Tippmann's legendary rugged dependability.

Its pretty beat up, it had been buried in mud, silt, and clay for nearly three weeks before it was found. It's begun to rust and even the pictures here were taken after it had been given its initial wipe down. 

The damage is pretty good, the Cylone feed and attached air hose were ripped off, the cocking knob was broken off, the flatline shroud dented and scratched, and it was filled with rocks, and other debris. I'm going to do what I can to get it operational again using as many of the original parts as possible. it was a chore to get it apart, and it would be easy to dump the guts and drop new ones into the old body, but that's no fun. 

I want to be able to say that "This A5 was in a house that was destroyed, was thrown down river, and buried in mud for three weeks, and Its still working." 
If anything at all would be a testament to our favorite paintball company, that ought to do it. 

That, and since most of my collection was also in the house, this seems to be a good place to start collecting again. We lost an X7, a Phenom, My C3, my 68 Carbine, and a few 98s. To have found one of the original pieces is sort of uplifting, and it would be a heck of a thing to get back into service. 

Without further ado:

Clearly see the cocking handle snapped off as well as how screwed up the receiver halves are with mud and rust by now. 

Up close. Not pretty. The Harp on the grip was drilled and epoxied in, so that didn't go anywhere. 

Here's where the hard work is going to be. See the bolt head under the chamber? That's what used to secure the cyclone feed to the marker. Cyclone went away, bolt stayed. The two pins from underneath are still imbedded in their holes on either side of the bolt. The air line also went away, and you can see the rusting and debris is pretty bad here. 

The dented and messed up flatline. I haven't dismantled it completely to see if the barrel inside is damaged as well- not yet at least. 

So far, what I've done is dismantle everything, no mean feat since the screw heads were packed solid with mud, as well as rusted in pretty good. There was a good size rock jammed into the chamber too. 

I've cleaned up the recievers, I'll update with more pictures later on. I'm in the process of taking stock of the parts I need to get her back to life. 

Edited by Reb Cpl - 26 September 2011 at 5:04pm