Ok so my dewalt 20v cordless framing nailer has been wanting to kick the bucket for a good couple of month. Jamming like crazy, sometimes spool up and no shots fired. The solenoid to drop the firing pin on to the spinning flywheel would actuate and nothing. I would fiddle arround and it would work again and then i pick it back up and it wouldnt work. It was hell. Always at the worst time.
Anyways, i pulled the top off to look at the firing pin and found a return spring broke so ordered one ( dewalts service kit for the nailers is discontinued. You need to hunt for the springs themselves now)
Replaced springs and no difference. Still spools up. Solenoid drops but no pin fire but now only consistantly broken. Not a shot here or there.
So now i pulled the whole thing apart. Firing pin some wear but nothing crazy. Ive seen worse. The springs to pull down the bearing a little slack on the mechanism that pushes the pin onto the flywheel. So i made them a little tighter by winding it round once.
Dug a little deeper and took out the magnet in the belly of the tip and found bits of my return spring and tons of nail shards getting in the way down there so made a point to clean that out. I was shocked how much there was. You think its bad when you look at it from the cassette side. Take a look inside.
Anyway after these two things and a clean up with electrical contact cleaner i was certain it would help so reasembled and tested and the same. No fire. No fire no fire.
However the guns way more solid. The solenoid pop is so sweet. Theres no crunchy sounds. Just no fire.
So that pretty much rules out it all. I need a neq firing pin and they are so expensive. Almost $150 dollar and half the price of a new gun.
Heres the fix, or at least something that will keep you going if you know you got a worn pin. Take the black plastic cap off the back of the gun. The one with the 3 torx screws. You will see the rear of the firing pin. Try firing a nail with a small amount of pressure on the back of the pin. Dont use your hand. Use something hard. I used the black cap you just removed.
If the gun fires and fires perfectly then a quick fix was so fold some duct tape into a square that will fit the indentation of thw black cap you removed. Then apply a piece of tape over the entire back of the cap to hold it in place. Then screw the back cap back onto the gun.
What you are doing is creating a pillow behind the firing pin which is also giving the firing pin a new home/starting point to fire from, which means that if you have a worn firing pin its going to mean some new contact areas to grip onto the flywheel.
As the pin becomes more worn just keep making your ductape pillow a little more thicker and thicker. I would add a bolt but i prefer a more softer thing for it to return on.
Since ive done this ive gone from depressed to incredibly happy. The thing hasnt skipped a heartbeat. And it feels like brand new. The kickback is back. The solenoid is solid. And no more jamms.
Im waiting to see how many adjustments i can make till its totally toast and how frequently. Theres a small possibility i could be screwing up my flywheel by not replaceing the pin but all the parts are so darn expensive so whats the point. The spooling up of thw flywheel isnt crunching so why worry.
Il worry about it all again when it refuses to sink nails. Then its time to get a new firing pin or a new gun.
Ive got milwaukees cordless framing nailer as well and it makes the dewalt look like a childs toy. Milwaukee good for framing and the dewalt is surprisingly good for sheathing but be prepared to go through em. Now i got the milwaukee to frame with im happy to use this beater dewalt as my cordless sheather. Milwaukee isnt good for sheathing as it has a themal overload protection so you do 1 row of edge sheathing and have to wait about 15-20 seconds for the thing to stop flashing at you.
