ARES Gear Boxes, anyone tried modifying one?
 

I have a custom with 3 ARES M4-A1's that keeps blowing out sector gears. I personally own one of these as my cheap loaner and the things been GREAT even on a 11.1volt 15C Lipo, I have no idea why he keeps roasting his.

We decided to try some better gears so I ordered 3 sets of Guarder gears, always had good luck with those.

Anyway we got them installed into gun #1 and clearly the sector gear sits too high for the pistol to clear it. I can remove the quick change spring from the back of the gear box and try to push the pistons back and WATCH the back end of the piston hit the sector, not being able to clear it. I tried another brand of piston, same issue.

We have another ARES with ICS gear and some no name clear piston from RSOV.com, that one works fine but I'm having nothing but issues with these Guarder gets in this thing.

Does anyone know if it would be worth the hassle of ordering Guarder pistons or do we need to try some other gears?

I've had a REALLY! good success rate selling ARES guns so I've not had to work on only a couple of them and ARES USA has always supplied me with new OEM ARES parts but this custom wants to go with something "higher quality" part wise.

Thanks for any input you guys might have.

Try a good brand of parts such as Prometheus. Guarder parts are the bottom of the barrel "acceptable" upgrade parts.

Tokyo Marui piston bodies are really good, inexpensive and seem to fit everything.

The Guarder stuff is one of the brands we've had the least amount of problems with.

Other then this issue.

Guarder is one of the absolute worst "upgrade" parts on the market. It's just barely better than the no-name-who-knows-what-the-hell-it's-going-to-be-called-ACM-crap.

Their could be a major QC issue with the gearbox shell or the bearing/bushings may not be properly seated. I suggest taking the entire thing apart and checking AOE and fitment first before you spend anymore money. If it's not a silly alignment issue then go with a better brand of gears such as Siegetek, Prometheus, Modify.

The only modifications I ever did was lengthening the mechbox so I could meld 3 springs together...

Come on , new guys actually asking a not bad question. No need to much up the thread with sillyness.

If the customer wants "high end" then Prometheus gears would be the way to go. However, I do not recommend them for the average airsofter. Unless you are building your "ultimate AEG" you do not need to pay $75-$100 for just the gear set. That is a little too much money for the value you get.

I believe high end parts are great, but for an average build, gears in the $50-$75 are good as long as their installed correctly. $150 gear set that's installed incorrectly are going to fail not matter what. No matter how high or low end your build is, be sure to install everything correctly as things aren't drop in and go.

If you want reliability, you spend the money.

I can count the number of Prometheus gear sets I've HEARD of failing on one hand. I've never seen one fail in person.

Something like a set of Cheapy King Arms gears would be ok if you're not doing a build that's too high FPS or high RPS.

I agree with Azathoth. Guarder parts are garbage

You'll find more ears on a snake than full prometheus builds I've done that have failed
I've even seen systema parts do some really impressive stuff.

Your gears are the most important part of the mechbox, they're going to be in there the longest, and they take the most damage. Your piston is only being worn half the time the sector gear is cycling. Your best to drop $120 on a good set of prometheus gears as a base. Then as everything else breaks, upgrade it.

The top end stuff is expensive because it works and it lasts.

If you can find them, get RiotSC gears: http://forums.airsoftmechanics.com/i...p?topic=1208.0

Those are also known as Siegetek gears. I have a set in my gun, I use them for both hardball setup and standard field play. At a game early April I had a bearing catastrophically fail on me.

However the gears held together and I was able to continue playing, shooting, semi and full auto without any problem aside from the gun sounding like it was a average poorly shimmed G&G. went through about 1500 rounds on a blown bearing.

After that and about 2 years of wear including 20-30k in Hardball BBs they still look brand new. I've read on airsoft mechanics of users running guns up to with insane batteries to get 30bbs @ 750fps and not having the seigetek gears break.