XP 65 Pressure leak repair

[XCALIBR8]

I'm new on the forums here, but have checked out the main page quite a bit the last few Summers. I found an old trusty XP 65 at a thrift store last summer but it wouldn't hold any pressure and dumped water out of the handle when I pumped. Being a computer tech guy, I thought this would be a fun analog repair job. With some help from this site and SSCentral, I took it on. I tore it down and filled up the bottle to do some tests to isolate the leak. It was right at the meeting point where the water enters the pipe. to the nozzle.

I was ready to get this baby back in action as I really like the old Soakers the best. After some online research and intuition I settled on something I thought would work. The crack was just a hairline crack so I decided to use good old E-6000 glue. I let it dry for 24 hours and wrapped the pipe with tape to use the dried glue as a water sealing gasket. I gave it an extra day to dry. I was very eager to test the gun at this point.

That did it! The leak was sealed and it held pressure. Many testing sessions later the old XP 65 is still going strong. Hope this helps anyone working on some of the older blasters. E-6000 dries with a strong bond, is water proof, and has just enough elasticity act as a tension seal. Here's a pic to show the XP65 torn down. The red circle indicates the cracked area. While open, I cleaned and greased all the springs, reinforced some of the other seals, and cleaned and greased the pump.



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P.S. If you glance at my arsenal, he only reason I have a Thunderstorm is that it was very cheap second hand as it needed a simple internal repair. The Saturator... well, I loved Entertech guns as a kid. I'm an old school water warrior who goes way back

[wetmonkey442]

Congratulations on the successful repair, and welcome to the forums! It's nice to see someone who appreciates the older blasters (and isn't scared to crack one open for repair).

[martianshark]

Good job. It took me years to learn how to do repairs like this. It a crack appears in one of my water guns, I'll try to remember E-6000.

[XCALIBR8]

Thanks for the warm welcome guys. I felt compelled to share since it actually worked. I don't think E-6000 would work in a larger AP gun or CPS gun. I still think you guys have hit it on the head by using plumber's epoxy and liquid 2 part epoxies to do larger repairs on heavier guns. For older very minor cracks on older plastic though, E-6000 seems to work great as it strengthens the break point and provides a small amount of elasticity. Luckily that spot in the XP 65 is entirely braced by the case.

[HBWW]

The fake film grain done in paint is amusing, haha.

Nice job on the repair and welcome to iSoaker.net.

Haven't heard of nor seen E6000 glue. I just use epoxy/epoxy putty dogmatically now. Unfortunately, some brands/types I've used have had problems, but the latest I'm using (Devcon Plastic Welder, good for metals too) seems to hold up well. For non-sealing repairs, Gorilla glue works fairly well unless it's rotting out.

[XCALIBR8]

Good to know CA99. I'll keep both in mind for future repairs. The picture was taken with an Android phone and effects app. I thought it gave it a good 90's look