TOP M249 rebuild and converstion to Canadian C9

[jakster]

Ongoing project that I thought I would document and share with anybody that maybe interested. Let me know what you think and if you want more details I have bunch of photo's of the TOP M249 in various pieces in case you need any referance shots. I also have this article in .pdf and word, if you want a copy just PM you e-mail address.
Thanks for reading

History:
Picked up a used TOP M249 from out west a few years ago in a trade + cash. It arrived in sorry state with a bent body, a box mag that was dead and a number of other smaller issues. A fixer upper but not a lost cause with a little TLC. First stop was master gun man Vondnik who straighten out the bend and did some re-wiring and cleaned up the mechbox. Luckily the mechbox was completely upgraded with Guarder parts so the internals where pretty solid.
I got it back from Vondnik and tried it out on a few games and everything worked fine but thought that I could get more out of it and wanted to make sure that I would not have any problem with the wiring in the future.
Sooooo I took a big step and grabbed a screwdriver and had at her. FYI I had never soldered before and never opened any mech box before. This was some serious on the job training but I’m very happy with the results.

Pictures of some of the major problems



Also missing where the feed cover latch buttons which are an item that is no longer being made and took some hard detective work to find. But thanks to Google, a piece of wire from a cloth hanger and a cut spring we were back up and running.



Wiring project
Trigger switch and wiring
- Switch is available at any good electronic component store for about $3 and a couple feet of new wiring
- Plus changed the plugs and connections
Before


Trigger switch and wiring
- New Switch, wiring all shrink wrapped for neatness
- Soldered new wires and color coded for easy ID.
- Blue = To Motor
- White = To Battery
- Yellow = Box mag, allowing the box mag to feed BBs on each trigger pull
- Dean connectors added for the battery connection and mini connection to work the box mag all heat shrink wrapped.
After


Mech Box Project

Original Mech Box opened with old wiring and Guarder gears
- Removed all the shims and gears
- Cleaned everything and then greased and oiled all the parts


Cleaned up mech box and added the new wiring bundle
- Note scratch marks on the screws this was to make sure everything was replaced correctly.
- I added clear heat shrink wrap for strength on some of the wire.
- Shimming was very important and should not be rushed, really a trial and error process.


Closed Mech Box with an example of wiring connection
- Soldered all connections and then used multi coloured heat shrink including clear heat shrink for strength
- Colour coding helped keep all the wires going to the correct place.
- Note the double red wire, 1 from the motor and 1 going to the box mag
- Be very careful when soldering all the wires that everything is correct. I reversed the wires going to the motor and took about 2 days trying to figure out why the gears where always jamming. Reversed connection meant the motor was turning in the wrong direction. D’Oh…



Protection project

And once I finished everything I started a project of protecting everything
I used this site as a template to everything I did. http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.htm...=292695&page=1
Step 1
- Buy a Pelican 1750 Case or similar, got one for $350ish from LaBaron Sports in Montreal
- I like the Pelican case for it’s name and it’s life time warranty but it does weight a ton.
Step 2
- Get a foam cutter
- 2 Options here
o a) Build your own rig, this is another project that you can use the above site to build.
o b) Buy a propose built foam cutter like this one http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.htm...=292695&page=1 which I did but it’s a little light weight for this type of work and will more than likely go with option A for future projects.
o Or you can use an electric knife like the one dad uses on the turkey, easy but messy.
Step 3
- Get some THICK, 1 to 1 ½ mm thick, cardboard, I got some from a local art store at $4 a sheet
- Trace out your gun in pencil and them make all the lines straight and even & clean with a sharpie

- Cut everything out with a sharp knife and scissors

- Once everything is cut out lay them out how you want them to appear in the case. Make sure not to place things to closely, it’s best to have a few inches around items to have strength and protect the items.

Step 4
- Tack and tape everything to the foam so that the items don’t move, I used normal tacks and packing tape.

Step 5
- Feed the wire from the foam cutter thru a small hole and start “tracing” around your template

Step 6
- Sit back and enjoy you handy work, everything from start to finish took about 3 hours


Extra info on the case and foam
- Here is a Canadian store that you can order cases from also, there good & quick http://www.customcaseco.com/home.html
- If you want you can always get more foam from here http://www.foambymail.com/packaging.html

Box Mag Project
Got tired of winding the box mag after every burst so I decided to wire up the box mag to wind everything when I pulled the trigger so I turned that into another project.

Step 1
- Look for the small box inside the box mag once you open it that houses the motor that runs everything
- MAKE note of where the wires go, as you can see here the white wire has a red dot. Look at the colour of the wire as your marker for when you solder everything back together later. Photo on the right is the original button that I removed.

Step 3
- Solder on the new wiring using only the black and red wire.
- These wires need to lead back into the battery area, in this case I used mini connections to plug into the main wiring harness that I built above

Step 4
- Carefully reassemble everything
- Be careful of how the gears are sitting and a little lube doesn’t hurt when putting everything together.


Hop up project

While I was at it I also rebuilt the hop up and feeding area

What I did was disassemble the whole hop up including removing the barrel


Once everything was cleaned up and lubed up I reassembled everything, a little trick that I used to make sure that everything lined up correctly was to stick a loading rod in thru the BB loading port and line up everything on the loading rod. Once lined up tighten evenly on all the screws, best to leave a little slack so the nozzle has some room to move a little



Finished product


The Canadian collection



TOP M249 converted to Canadian C9
JG M16 converted to Canadian C7 with Canadian trademarks
Tanaka Browning Hi Power with Canadian trademarks


Price list

Just for the fun of it here is a rough estimate of the cost of my little project
M249 parts
1- TOP M249 = Approx $1,500
2- CA Box mag = $80 USD
3- KA Soft box mag = $80 USD
4- Feed cover latches = $40 USD

C9 parts
1- Real steal rear grip = $75
2- Real steal Elcan scope = $150
3- Real steal rear stock (not installed yet) = $75 USD
4- Real steal bi-pod (not installed yet) = $50 USD
5- Issued Sling = Free
6- Real steel “live” black box mag = $50

Project parts
1- Pelican case = $350
2- Foam Cutter = $100 USD
3- 25 Feet of wire black and red = $25
4- A lot of heat shrink wrap = $25
5- Template supplies = $15
6- Blue beret = 6 Months of hell and life time of memories
7- Dog tags = 16 years of fun


Left to do projects

1- Wire up the battery to work from inside the box mag rather than from under the battery with a larger battery.
2- Install the real steal parts which will involve a lot of grinding especially for the rear stock.
3- Find new seal for all the seals, this is actually the hardest part and I am having trouble locating small O-Rings.


Need to thank a few people for letting me pick their brains and for getting me started on this rebuild.
Thanks for Vondnik for starting on the foundation of this project and for CDN_Stalker who help point me in the right direction on techincal points

[JamesBond_007]

I really like them all - awesome job!

[jonney.]

Thats a sweet build looks great, however if you are able to get a hold of one try getting a real steel C9 front sight. Correct me if I am wronge, but I think the C9's front sight is a non Hooded version of the M249 front sight.

[jakster]

Thats a sweet build looks great, however if you are able to get a hold of one try getting a real steel C9 front sight. Correct me if I am wronge, but I think the C9's front sight is a non Hooded version of the M249 front sight.

Yep your right, just haven't found that part yet and I don't think that I will but good eye for spotting it. There's also the little "peep hole" site for the rear sight but that one to might be a little hard to get also. Slowly but surely I'll get all the parts but overall think it came out pretty good.

[Rousseau of March]

I have to replace my feed cover latches as well but they dont seem to exist on this planet. where did you get yours?

[THe_Silencer]

Very impressive work! I admire a man who jumps right in! Pretty impressive that you went from not knowing how to solder to rewiring a very uncommon AEG.

[S_Okita]

very nice job! but how the hell did the previous owner twist the body that bad??

[AJ457]

Man that is a great convert. Props to you on that. You see a lot of C7 and C8 builds but not C9. Very well done.

[Boyso]

Aarhem. Check the date.

(Still an amazing build Jakster)

[Amos]

At first I was like "Oh god why all the work for a top?!?!"

Then I noticed the date