Diana 35 replaced leather seal

[pgritty]

Replaced the leather seal in my Diana 35. The original seal had failed. Bought the 28mm replacement seal from Vortex and it is shooting much smoother.
The point of this topic is to clear up some of the mysteries about replacing the piston seal in this model. There is a blind pin holding the screw in place on the piston. What little I could find online seemed to suggest that this pin is hardened, on mine it was not and I was able to drill it out with a cheap harbor freight titanium drill bit in a hand drill. Also taking the gun apart, this gun has the two part/three ball bearing trigger mechanism that you should probably not take apart unless you had at least minimal experience working on air guns. What I found that worked for me was to use a 3/8 socket with a small diameter front (like 3/16) to insert into the rear of the trigger mechanism while pressing it in with your spring compressor to have better control taking it apart and going back together.

When putting the trigger mechanism back into the tube there are to important issues.
1 The small spring that keeps trigger in compression does not have to be stuffed into the slot for this to go back together. The rear part of the spring that has the cap does go into the slot but the front part actually catches in a ridge in the outer sleeve. Not a very good explanation I know but if you were fiddling with it then the picture would be clearer.
2 Go slow pressing this all back together so you can keep everything in line. Even stick a pin or punch to hold things in alignment as it goes together.
Pat

[Mark 611]

Good info thanks for sharing

[pgritty]

Thanks Mark.
I forgot to add a link to Tom Gaylord's disassembly blog for the 35.
https://www.pyramydair.com/blog/2019/06/diana-35-part-4/
Pat

[Hammarhead]

Thanks for the information, seems fairly straight forward to rebuild. My Model 35 still shoots very well so not ready take it apart just yet, but this will be very useful information for anyone that needs to.

[lizzie]

Thanks for the info Pat!

[Yogi]

Replaced the leather seal in my Diana 35. The original seal had failed. Bought the 28mm replacement seal from Vortex and it is shooting much smoother.
The point of this topic is to clear up some of the mysteries about replacing the piston seal in this model. There is a blind pin holding the screw in place on the piston. What little I could find online seemed to suggest that this pin is hardened, on mine it was not and I was able to drill it out with a cheap harbor freight titanium drill bit in a hand drill. Also taking the gun apart, this gun has the two part/three ball bearing trigger mechanism that you should probably not take apart unless you had at least minimal experience working on air guns. What I found that worked for me was to use a 3/8 socket with a small diameter front (like 3/16) to insert into the rear of the trigger mechanism while pressing it in with your spring compressor to have better control taking it apart and going back together.

When putting the trigger mechanism back into the tube there are to important issues.
1 The small spring that keeps trigger in compression does not have to be stuffed into the slot for this to go back together. The rear part of the spring that has the cap does go into the slot but the front part actually catches in a ridge in the outer sleeve. Not a very good explanation I know but if you were fiddling with it then the picture would be clearer.
2 Go slow pressing this all back together so you can keep everything in line. Even stick a pin or punch to hold things in alignment as it goes together.
Pat

So Pat,

Do I have this right, you replaced the leather seal with a modern synthetic one?

thanks,

-Yogi

[pgritty]

That is correct Yogi. I could have purchased a replacement leather seal from England but cheaper and quicker to get the synthetic from Vortex. Also bought a tune up kit for my Berman R1 in 20 cal. I will report on it when it gets installed.
Pat