tcbracing

I do a lot of my riding in the woods in norther Michigan so I need to have a Forestry approved Spark Arrestor. I liked the looks of the Toomey version to go with my T-5's so I bit the bullet on the cost and ordered a set. During the process of cleaning up my Stingers and getting them ready for the Arrestors, I removed the regular tips. My first issue was that that darned Snap Ring is a pain to get off! I wrecked a pair of Vice Grip Snap Ring Pliers and ended up ordering a heavy duty pair of Channellocks before I could get them out! Man - what are they trying to hold back with those things! I bet the body of the Stinger would blow out before that tip would ever come off! So, now that I have the tips off and I go to install the Arrestors, I was faced with another problem: The Snap Ring is so beefy that there is only about 5mm of movement and in order to install the Ring over the Arrestor you would have to spread the Ring at least 25 mm to get it around the smallest diameter at the base of the Arrestor (see photo below). Even if you could get the Ring open that much you would scratch the Arrestor trying to put it on. Now guys and gals, being an Engineer by trade my mind starts working and I think - "there must be a better way". So I start Google searching for a replacement Snap Ring that's a bit more flexible or a better set of Snap Ring Pliers so I can even put the original tips back on if I needed to. Well during my search I learned a ton about Snap Rings (do you know there is a top and bottom to them?) but I also stumbled on to these little babies: https://www.grainger.com/product/GRAINGER-APPROVED-Spiral-Retaining-Ring-5EB25 These are really cool replacements for a Snap Ring that are installed... BY HAND!!! And removed with a... FLAT HEAD SCREWDRIVER!!! There are a couple of videos out there on installing and removing and I can tell you - it made it super easy to install my Arrestors without any damage. Hopefully this will help anyone that struggled like I did. If you didn't struggle and you installed the original Snap Rings on your Arrestors - I bow to your Mechanical ability - You My Friend are TALENTED!

Can someone please approve my join request? Been out there for a few weeks, Thanks, Tom