Soooo late to the party with one of these… 
But I does love me dinosaurs… the question I have for the brains trust is…
Has anyone successfuly transplanted solid brass spring loaded pins into these to alleviate the twisted mag terminal spring syndrome with these units? 
Yup, this was a mod I did on many Blasters that were factory fitted with the flat blade style contacts.
There’s plenty of spring terminals available on the market, with the only thing to keep in mind is the diameter of the coil springs in relation to how much room is available to get them to fit and clear everything properly.
I’m sure that the only reason the manufacturer’s chose blade type contacts over spring terminals is simply because of how cramped and close together they are due to the small spaces the designs called for.
The later version of the j12 did away with spring terminals and just went with fixed terminal, no more catching the spring when slotting in the mag.
J12 also has a nice bit of extra material around the bevel gear that the J11 box didn’t for a bit of extra flex resistance. Might be worth seeing if any retailers have the later J12 box.
I was going to say this same thing… that the J11 might be cool, but the J12 AK74U is where it’s REALLY at! 
No argument here on the J12 issue. 
X-Force and iHobby have J12 gearboxes with the improved mag terminals in stock… same price.
Easy enough solution. 
Hey, how’d you go with the pull down.?
Apart from the terminals, any upgrades.?
Was it in standard conditiion.?
Any piccies.?.?
Pulled it down today. It’s not standard… had some upgrades.
Metal iner and outer barrels, upgrade cylinder and alloy cylinder head / nozzle, big spring, about M95. Had good compression but threw a new o ring in it anyway while I was there.
Weird fire select, trigger and trolly set up and the detent block that holds the upper on is a moulded part of the gearbox, so no obvious options for a better V3 transplant.
While it’s apart I’m going to go all Tony Stark on the mag terminals to see if I can come up with a better arrangement that doesn’t bend Chinesium springs before buying a J12 gearbox. One of the downsides to the AK rock’n’lock mag insertion if the setup’s Jin Ming janky.
That’s tomorrow’s job.
wow…sounds like you’ve got your hands full.
Sounds like an interesting project…
Lotsa piccies, please.!.!
I figure i’ll have a crack at my Ak, fresh on a full day…
Time and patience available…
Still got three shop GBBs on the bench too…
A Webley, a Vietnam era 1911 and a weird arse pink thing… dunno wtf it is.
Two dumping gas, the Webley slow leaking 
hence my preference for EBB.
Good old gas…
Too bad ABF seized my M92.
Looks like they won’t release it…
Not much point putting up a complete thread on the tear down and modification of these old AKs…
It’s been done before years ago by Low Guido and RPM Tech Shop. The latter is very comprehensive.
No need to reinvent the wheel.
Didn’t you hear Iron Man retired. That was funny 
Better be carefull what you pull I’ve been told off before
I actually yanked too hard and some skin came off… oooooops
Bloody soft-as-shite JM silicone wiring. 
All totally rewired now with proper silicone wire.
Stroke it more than twice you are playing with it 
Swapped out the pison spring for an M100 this morning… with Armourtech greens.
Looks like I’ll be swapping it out again tomorrow for a smaller spring. 290’s the target FPS.
That longer barrel bonus fps! M90 would probably still be just over 300, but I’d run with it
All this JM AK action is reminding me I should give my J12 a service… but it’s run countless games for 4 years now and isn’t broken somehow!
Worth noting it has an m100, 13:1 gears, gold chihai… I’d bet the motor is going to be the reason it fails first because that poor little chihai has been so hot so many times!
That’s the one… yeah, it’s got 1911 on the case label.
Need Polaroids to look at it.
Maybe I’m weird, but I get a kick out of these old school blasters… they’re just good fun and reminiscent of a time when the hobby was still fresh and novel.
When a well sorted Gen 8 was the pinnacle of performance and we all waited with baited breath for Jin Ming’s next offering.
Good times.
