ICS not firing.

[Ghillie973]

Ok my gun's cycling and loading the bbs properly but it doesn't fire the bbs out of the barrel. When switched to auto it will cycle a few time and then a few bb's will just roll out the barrel.

I noticed this the other week at a game and I've finally gotten time to take it apart. From what I can see, everything looks good in the uppersection of my gearbox (where the piston is). I've tried turning off the hop-up and still no difference.

Anyone have any ideas of what could be wrong?

Thanks

[mcguyver]

did you take the upper mechbox out? if so you may want to look at the cylinder head area and make sure everything moves correctly. if you push on the nozzle, does the tappet move? is the tappet broken or intact?

[Ghillie973]

I've stripped down the upper and everything looks good. The tappet moves when I push the nozzel and it's not broken.

[mcguyver]

what have you done as far as mods go?

[Greylocks]

List everything you have done to this gun; what you took out and put back, what changed, etc.
A similar thing I saw was because the piston head had separated and stayed stuck in place.

[Kokanee]

Originally Posted by Greylocks

List everything you have done to this gun; what you took out and put back, what changed, etc.
A similar thing I saw was because the piston head had separated and stayed stuck in place.

Particularily since the ICS piston in the M4's can be of dubious quality.

[Ghillie973]

As of now no upgrades have been done. I have a new spring, bushings, and a tightbore ready to install but I want to get the gun running first.

The only thing I've taken apart is the upper. When I put it back together the first time I realized the cylinder head wasn't in the proper place but i caught my mistake and fixed it.

I don't think it's the piston head cause it was still attached to the piston when I checked it.

As far as I can tell everything is put back to where it is supposed to be.

[mcguyver]

your loss of compression screams "nozzle/tappet" but if you say it's ok, well look elsewhere. is the nozzle moving when you fire the gun in semi? turn it upside down and look into the feed tube on the hop chamber and fire in semi. the nozzle should move. also, is the piston head o-ring still in place. if you can take some pics of it and pm me i can see if something catches my eye.

[Ghillie973]

I'm just guessing everything is alright cause I don't have anything to compair it to since this is my first AEG. I don't have a digital camera but I'll try to borrow one this weekend.

I'm going to take it apart again tonight and really look carefully at all the parts to see if I can notice anything you guys have said.

[markedman]

I had a problem like that. I tried everything I could think of and finally took it to ken @ 007 and had him look at it. Turns out the problem with my ICS was the o-ring on the piston wasn't sealing very well. When I had looked at the o-ring before it looked fine to me. What I didn't check was that the piston was actually compressing air when it was pushed in. If you hold your finger over the end of the brass nozzle on the cylinder head and push the piston in it should be hard to push in (on account of the air inside being compressed) If the piston slides in easy then the o-ring isn't sealing

[Slick]

Considering how easy it is to take the upper mechbox out and apart just try that again. When you take out the upper, pull out the hop up and barrel too. Make sure the spring on the hop up is there and in place properly. This is the long spring that pushes the hop up towards the mechbox to insure a proper seal. Also make sure that you fit in the hop up in the proper position when putting it back into the gun. After you fix it my next advice would be to sell the gun. Parts Ive seen broken in the ICS M4 with a 140% spring or stock.

1. Motor - The metal colar between the gear and the motor snapped right in half. I still have the motor sitting in my bin of airsoft parts.
2. Piston - First tooth on my piston broke off.
3. Tappet plate - Arm that holds the spring snapped off.
4. Selector plate - Snapped in half. I know the TM ones are supposedly the same but after I put in a TM one it wouldnt fire properly. It was sorta in between each selection of the switch. So to get the gun to fire properly you had hold the switch between settings. Then full auto would sometimes fire full auto, sometimes fire semi. Sometimes this would screw the gun right up and you had put it back to safe or push the forward assist to reverse the gears. Speaking of the anti-reverse latch.
5. Anti-reverse latch - Little piece of metal broke off the arm thats attached to the anti reverse latch. Theres two little peices of metal that stick out and keep the two pieces(arm and anti latch) from moving freely from each other. So with one of these peices broken off the anit latch would get stuck out away from the gears. This means that latch stopped working all together. I was able to fix this problem by cutting the arm off completely with my dremel. Basically this would make the anti latch now work like any other latch. Easier that replacing it with a TM one.
6. Got to see an M4 right out of the box with missing parts. Missing hop up barrel clip and mechbox screw.
7. Mag feeding problems - Both with the ICS hicap and starmags. Would fire the first few shots then stop. Or would work when it was in a good mood but I must have had one pissed off gun. Broke at every game I went to. No wonder they released it with a split mechbox.
8. Im sure Im forgetting something. Worked on 3 of these M4s now... so ya alot of problems.

Sorry to crap in your thread a bit here. But Im just a former ICS M4 owner trying to give some honest advice. Ive seen alot of people on here saying the gun is great so I guess it cant be all that bad. This has just been my experience.

Heres the gun I built after my ICS experience. Parts I built it with are.

Magpul stock
Guarder body
CA front end(1 piece barrel)
Reinforced mechbox
eg1000
OK tightbore
all the rest is upgraded as well except for the gears, piston and head, cylinder and head which are all TM parts.

[Kid]

8-O
Bahaha, what version of ICS was that thing?
Sounds horrible. I own one myself but haven't put many shots through it yet.
No problems so far... except my damn crap ass homemade battery!

[Slick]

They were all second version. The first version didnt have the forward assist reverse latch thing. You have to admit one thing even if you own a ICS M4 and it works great. No mater what you do to the thing it always sounds like crap. Makes a unheathy sounding whhring noise. I can always tell which guys are using the ICS on the field just by hearing them firing. Im like "Eh man I think somethings wrong with your...... Oh wait thats an ICS. Nevermind"

[Ghillie973]

Originally Posted by Slick

"Eh man I think somethings wrong with your...... Oh wait thats an ICS. Nevermind"

I think you said the exact same thing to me at my first game.


Anyways, I've finally had time to open it up. I checked it by putting my finger over the cylinder head and there was resistance. It wasn't a complete seal because the piston very, very slowly moved forward.

when I tried it with the nozzel on it moved forward over three time as fast. Could this be the problem? Are the nozzels supposed to have an oring on it?

[Ghillie973]

Ok I'm still having a problem but I just noticed that when I turn the gun upside down and load one bb at a time, the bb drops into the chamber after the first shot. When I take a second shot I can see about half the bb. The hop-up is all the way off but something seems to be blocking the bb from firing. Anyone have any suggestions on what this could be?