Star L85a2 Disassembly Guide

[cjfield1129]

I wanted to do some upgrade work on my Star L85 and figured I'd make a disassemby guide complete with a review of the internals. While reading, keep in mind that the gun is pretty new but has seen some good action -it has about 5000 rounds on the stock (or equivalent) spring running on a 11.1v lipoly the whole time.

 

I have read/seen a couple disassembly guides which were seeming vague about certain steps or just failed to mention certains steps altogether. Anyway, without further ado...

 

1.) Take out the main sling strap/foregrip screw and slide the front handguard off. If you need a picture for this, do not continue as you should not be doing this alone. LOL

 

2.) Take off the buttstock pad and support pin:

 

3.) Take out the four screws on the front of the metal top frame:

[cjfield1129]

4.) Take out the pin just in front of the mag well. It does not unscrew but rather is punched through.

 

5.) You can now remove the top metal frame and expose the gearbox:

 

6.) Remove the hop up/outer barrel support bracket:

 

7.) Remove the gearbox mounting bolts. There are two of them -one on each side. The are positioned behind the magwell. The are screws and have standard threading. Turn CCW to unscrew. They may be tight. I had to carefully use pliars.

[cjfield1129]

8.) Remove the mounting bolt opposite the selector switch lever. It unscrews to reveal another bolt used to secure the lever. Remove the screws and disassemble the selector lever taking note of the assembly pattern. Also be careful not to lose the spring and ball bearing used to provide positive locking between firing modes.

 

9.) The gearbox is now ready to come out. Gently lift up on the rear of the gearbox. The very front of the gun's frame as a hinge-like movement capability.

 

10.) After lifting up on the gearbox, removed the screw that secures the trigger bar to the gearbox. After that, slide everything (gearbox/hopup/barrel) out of the outer barrel and gun. The hopup is integrated with the gearbox.

 

I will complete the gearbox disassembly and internal review at my next opportunity.

[cjfield1129]

Please let me know if you have any questions thus far.

[Stealthbomber]

Please let me know if you have any questions thus far.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yeah. Why'd you post this 3 times?

[cjfield1129]

Accident. Sorry. My computer was having connectivity issues. The inadvertant posts have been deleted. Thank you.

[Leeb]

Good guide i have the afv and lsw and have always been too scared to strip it as it looks complicated but your guide helps.

Look forward to seeing your gearbox guide.

What upgrades you fitting?

 

+1

[cjfield1129]

Review continued...

 

11.) Once the gearbox is out, watch out for a few of the unique mechanisms:

The electrical switch actuator/mechanism:

 

The selector switch mechanism with enables full auto:

 

12.) Aside for those the gearbox separates pretty easily. The screws have nuts on the opposing ends instead of screwing into the sides (b/c the plastic/polycarbonate mechbox material). Before splitting the mechbox halves, remove the spring via the quick spring change in order to relieve the spring’s tension. Here’s a few internal pics:

 

On my gun, the internals were nicely lubed and the gears/piston looked in VERY good shape for using the 11.1v lipoly for it’s whole life so far. Notice how perfect the teeth are:

[cjfield1129]

13.) Although there were some good things, there were some bad areas to note. I’m not sure if it was the previous owner (it probably was b/c I doubt it comes stock this way), but bearings were installed on the bevel gear. I don’t like bearing/bushings b/c they explode…and that’s what happened on one of them. Amazingly, no further damage occurred to the gears’ teeth or anything else in the gearbox. In addition, the shims themselves were of very poor quality. The ones on the spur and sector gears looked ok, but the bevel gear’s ones were misaligned and bent.

 

Another area of “concern” was the poor compression and hard impact surfaces of the piston head/cylinder head combo. I can easily see why the gun was so loud; the ‘buffer’ material on the cylinder head was more plasticy (shiney too) that it was rubber. Accordingly, it did not offer very much impact absorption. I was also surprised at the poor compression btw the piston head and cylinder; I though it would have been better given the high stock FPS. I venture to guess that an additional 15-20 FPS could be attained by fixing the compression issue there.

[cjfield1129]

14.) There were a few unique specs to a few parts that will make replacing parts difficult. The gears, piston, piston head, motor (short type), and cylinder are standard parts. However, the tappet plate, nozzle, hop up unit, and cylinder head are unique. Other gearbox versions may be compatible but I cannot not say for sure due to my lack of familiarity with other versions (ie V1, V6, etc). Here are a few pics:

 

The bevel gear is one of the newer type that features a long ‘neck’ for the anti-reversal latch to hook into. Other types should be compatible though.

 

The hop up unit is unique b/c it is connected to the gearbox. It has a lip that locks it into place with the cylinder head/nozzle in place. I forgot to get a pic of this one but I’ll grab one later. Anyway, you will need to open the mechbox if you had to remove the hop up unit but I don’t see this as ever being necessary. Even if you are changing barrels, you can do so with the hop up unit still attached. The unit itself is very basic and reminds me of the AK hop up style.

 

I plan on upgrading the piston head, replacing the ‘buffer’ material on the cylinder head (probably have to do something custom there), replacing the bushings on the bevel gear, installing a new hop up bucking, and installing a tightbore barrel. I guess that’s it for now.

[Stealthbomber]

The ball bearing bush fitted to the bevel gear is a factory part.

 

No offence, fella, but this gun is over a year old now and you're re-treading old ground with this review and these pictures.

 

While I'm at it, I don't think you mentioned that you need to desolder the wires off the motor before you can take the gearbox apart. I thought that was a poor idea.

 

If your gun is 2nd-hand then this won't be an issue but these guns were famous for having brass swarf clogging up the hop-up from the factory. Given that you need to pull the gearbox to bits to remove the hop-up and clean it out, this was a bit of a bugger.

 

Oh, have you put yours back together yet?

I thought it was a real *badgeress* to get the trigger follower to stay in place in the gearbox.

 

Which reminds me; check out the rating on the trigger microswitch. It's only rated for either 5 or 8 amps.

[cjfield1129]

I was unaware of such an indepth review. I thought I would contribute as I have had several members PM me with various take down and internal questions.

 

If ball bearings (on the bevel gear) are stock, then that was poor QC judgement in my opinion. Surely the bearings would explode with the strong stock spring Star used.

 

You are correct on the wiring to the motor. The (-) wire must be unsoldered/removed from the motor to split the gearbox. I may see if I can rewire it to avoid the issue in the future, but I'm not sure at this point. Or... I may consider wire connectors instead.

 

There was some build up in the hop up unit, but nothing that couldn't be cleaned up without opening the gearbox. If you are opening it though, you might as well clean it up real well.

 

Do you have any recommendation on the microswitch amperage issue? Would the lower rating would just make it more susceptible to contact corrosion?? I have not had any issue thus far using the li-poly but what would there be any durablity issue with the switch unit?

[Stealthbomber]

If ball bearings (on the bevel gear) are stock, then that was poor QC judgement in my opinion. Surely the bearings would explode with the strong stock spring Star used.

I dunno.

When I first opened one I was surprised to see bearing bushes on the bevel gear.

They're obviously there for a reason. If they were just there as "eye candy" they'd be fitted to all the gears.

 

The bizarre thing is I would have thought the bevel gear would be the gear LEAST suited to the use of bearing bushes.

With the motor creating a side-load on the bevel gear the forces on the bushes are going to be twisted all out of line.

 

The two possibilities are:-

1) that Star were worried about the plastic gearbox and figured it'd be better that a replaceable bush overheated and self destructed rather than a bronze bush get hot and begin to melt the gearbox shell while adjusting the motor.

2) It was discovered, later on, that the Star motors were pretty poor. The bearing bushes might hve been fitted to try to take some of the load off the motor.

 

I assume that the bearings were fitted only to the bevel gear simply because this was the only gear-interface an owner could mess about with. If the owner screwed the motor in so tight that a solid bush would cause the plastic gearbox to melt then a bearing bush would self-destruct instead.

 

Do you have any recommendation on the microswitch amperage issue? Would the lower rating would just make it more susceptible to contact corrosion?? I have not had any issue thus far using the li-poly but what would there be any durablity issue with the switch unit?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

TBH, there really isn't a problem with the switches that I've heard of. The Star M249 uses a similar set-up and several people have reported switches dying. I assume this is due to them using the guns for sustained fire.

 

Personally, I think we should never forget that the people who make these guns for us consider them toys and novelty products. When I see stuff like the switch not rated even for the running current, never mind the start-up current, it brings this into focus.

All airsoft manufacturers will take short-cuts if they think they can get away with it.

 

*EDIT*

I don't mean to turn this into a "versus" thread but looking at all these pictures of the Star L85 has actually made me feel a lot better about my G&G L85.

I know the Star gun works but it's a right bodge-up of bits. The G&G gun is MUCH more elegant in design.

Just a shame you have to bin a bunch of the G&G parts and rebuild it before you can actually get it to shoot.

[Ghost_Rider]

TBH, there really isn't a problem with the switches that I've heard of. The Star M249 uses a similar set-up and several people have reported switches dying. I assume this is due to them using the guns for sustained fire.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I replaced my micro switch on my CA 249 because it fried - I was lucky that my local branch of maplin stocked various ratings of the correct switch.

 

I don't know how common the one in the l85 is, but it might be worth investing in a backup one.

[AK74M545]

Well hopefully the army code l85a2 is better than both.

[D-O-C]

cjfield1129, please, it is possible to post new pics?

[cjfield1129]

Go right ahead.

[D-O-C]

thank you CJFIELD1129 ;-)

[cjfield1129]

The links have gone bad due to my rearranging my account. The link for all of the pictures is: http://s19.photobucket.com/albums/b166/cjf.../L85/?start=all . The pictures may be out of order though. Unfortunately, I am unable to edit the posts to reflect the new links.

[greebo_Brat]

The links have gone bad due to my rearranging my account. The link for all of the pictures is: http://s19.photobucket.com/albums/b166/cjf.../L85/?start=all . The pictures may be out of order though. Unfortunately, I am unable to edit the posts to reflect the new links.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

That link is asking for a password

[cjfield1129]

I will look into things and see how I can get them displayed.

[cjfield1129]

I'll take care if it tomorrow.

[PrettyBoi]

Could you make the pics available again? I am currently trying to get my L85 gearbox assembled, and i seriously need a little help...

[cjfield1129]

Sure, here we go. Let me know if you need any specific internal pics.

 

 

 

 

 

[cjfield1129]