Tippmann Pneumatics has been one of the forerunners of paintball markers in the industry pretty much since the inception of the sport of paintball in the 80's. They were the first company to provide paintball enthusiasts with a semi-auto marker. Tippmann markers are known for their die hard function no matter what type of weather and how much you abuse it. The phrase, "You could run it over with a truck" is commonly used to describe their almost indestructible resilience to abuse but I'm not quite sure that they were designed as speed bumps so let's just shoot paint through them and leave the tall tales to the brothers Grimm. The 98 Custom has probably been Tippmann's largest distributed marker and a great starter marker for the novice paintball player. Durable, inexpensive and is available at about any pro shop, sporting goods and large department stores. Not the most simple to field strip and clean though. I will show you how to break this Sherman tank of a paintball marker down and clean it in this article.

Disassembling The Tippmann 98 Custom

I will instruct you how to tear your 98 down enough to do a simple field strip but will also take it a step further to a complete takedown short of the valve as well for those of you that like to go the extra mile. I would not suggest removing or disassembling the valve, line and bottom line ASA unless absolutely necessary.

• Remove the feed elbow by simply pushing the front site down and pushing the feed elbow assembly back and the pins will slip out of the holes in the right side body half.
• Using a 5/32" allen wrench, turn the velocity adjuster all the way in and push the safety in to the 'safe' position as well.
• Using a 1/8" allen wrench, remove all 8 screws from the left side of the marker starting with the 2 that hold the bottom line ASA to the bottom of the trigger frame. When removing the front screw, the forward grip will just slide out of the body halves.
• Lay the marker with its right side down and separate the 2 body halves. Try to keep the rear spring cap in place so it won't go flying across the room once the rear portion of the body halves have been seperated.
• At this point, it should look like the photograph at the top of this article.
• Remove the rear site and dovetail. 
• Remove the rear spring cap, o-ring, spring and spring guide from the rear of the marker.
• Remove the bolt handle from the rear bolt.
• Turn the rear bolt slightly and remove the linkage arm from the front and rear bolts.
• Remove the front and rear bolts.
• Remove the plastic ball latch detent from under the front bolt area. Make note of the way it's installed so you don't put it in backwards when you reassemble the marker.

For those of you that just want to perform a basic field strip and cleaning, this is as far as you need to break the 98C down. For those of you that would like to continue to break it down all the way, proceed with the following:

• Remove the front site, spring and short pin from the front of the body. Keep track of the position and order in which it's installed so there's no doubts about how to reinstall it.
• Remove the safety, trigger guard, trigger assembly, trigger spring, sear and sear spring. Take notice of the manner and order in which they're installed so there's no doubts about how to reinstall them as well. Also take notice of the manner in which the sear spring is attached to the sear and sear pin.
• Remove the 6 long pins from their corresponding body holes. No need to take notice of which goes in what hole as they are all the same diameter and length. The only different pin is the short pin that the front site pivots on.

Cleaning And Lubing The Tippmann 98 Custom

Now that you have partially or removed all of the internal and external components, clean the old oils, dirt and paint if you had an accident with an old cotton rag or piece of paper toweling. If you want them really clean, you can use rubbing alcohol and use q-tips for those hard to get at places.

• Use a decent paintball oil such as Gold Cup to lubricate your 98C. I choose to use Dow33 as it's a great lubricant that lasts long and can withstand the sub-zero temperatures of C02, you're choice. Put a light coat of lubrication on the body halves where the front and rear bolts ride and the area above the valve that the linkage arm rides.
• Lubricate the o-ring on the front bolt, the outside surface of the power tube that the bolt rides on, linkage arm, whole inside and outside surfaces of the rear bolt and rear bolt insert, spring guide pin and the end of the bolt handle that inserts into the rear bolt and insert.
• For those of you that went the extra mile; put a light coat where the trigger assembly and sear are in contact with the body halves. Put a light coat on the body halves where the front site and spring are as well.
• Coat the front site, pin and spring, metal trigger slider on the trigger, sear, o-ring on the safety and all of the body pins.
• You can lightly lube the trigger spring, sear spring and rear bolt spring as well if you feel so inclined.

Reassembling The Tippmann 98 Custom

Reinstall everything back onto your 98C in the reverse order in which you disassembled it. Hopefully you paid close attention to the way you took everything apart. The long cylinder head screw attaches the foregrip to the body halves and the 2 rounded pan head screws attach the bottom line ASA to the bottom of the trigger frame. The rest of the screws attach the body halves together. Be sure to put the spring in the front site in the correct manner. The first time I reassembled my 98C I thought it would be tough to get the body halves back together because of the pins in the trigger area and there are so many points on the body in general to fit together but they actually fit together quite easily as long as you have everything put back in their right places. Don't force the body halves together or you may deform a part. They should fit together fairly easy. You don't need to torque the screws down extremely tight. If you tighten the screw in the front site area too tight, you'll have a tough time moving the front site up and down when trying to lock the feed elbow latch to it. Just depress the front site up and down while you're tightening the screw and you'll sense when it's tightened enough. Air your 98 up and test it to be sure it's functioning properly. You don't want to get to the field and find out there's a problem that you should have taken care of when you had some time at home. Some people clean and lube their 98 Custom very infrequently because of the durability rapport that they have but I clean and lube all of my markers that I use after every day of play. It just makes sense that if you take good care of your equipment that it will last much longer and always work for you when on the field.

Technical Information