As I am currently waiting on a small pile of parts to show up to complete some other builds for customers, I figured now was as good a time as any to tackle a gun that’s been sitting in the back of the room for several months now.
This is a Tokyo Marui Type 89. It’s a relatively rare gun anymore, and you don’t often see one running in the wild. It’s probably one of my favorite TM designs as well, as it offers a full metal receiver, solid build quality, that legendary TM accuracy, and an incredible 4-position mechanical selector system. 3-round bursts are what this gun is known for.
This particular Type 89 was also my very first Airsoft gun purchase when I got into the sport of pew-pew nearly a decade ago. I still remember the day I walked into our local Airsoft shop, money burning a hole in my pocket, and keenly aware that I was going to buy something – I just didn’t know what it would be.
Timmy Chang, who was the tech working the shop then, was kind enough to let me finger-fondle essentially everything on the wall(s). There were a ton of options to choose from, and I was in the beginning stages of feeling overwhelmed with choice. At that point in time, I was completely uninterested in the usual run-of-the-mill M4 platforms. I wanted something different.
An easy hour goes by, and Timmy says to me: “You know what, you don’t want any of these guns out here. Let me get something out of the back.”
So Timmy goes to the back and returns a few minutes later bearing a matte black box that just oozed of something poisonous hidden inside. “This is the gun you want,” Timmy says with his trademark chuckle as he slowly opens the box.
Before me lay the Type 89 nestled in that box of presentation that only TM seems to pull off. It was love at first sight.
Years later, my interests in Airsoft guns had changed over time, and I found myself not using the TM as much as I had before. More often than not, it sat on the wall while my other guns got the glory. I eventually wound up trading it off, thinking I just wasn’t ever going to use it again. Some little part of my brain was telling me not to do it, but c’est la vie.
Like a lot of the guns in the local Airsoft community, this old Type 89 made the rounds and inevitably found its way back into my hands via another trade – albeit, in pieces this time. At some point it had given up the ghost, and a blown piston was suspected. It was torn down to the gearbox, but that was as far as it went for a full diagnosis.
Upon finally opening up the gearbox I discovered that it wasn’t actually a blown piston, but rather, a torn up sector gear was the cause of death for this gun. This was a little more problematic as the sector gear is very much proprietary to the Type 89. Some lengthy searching on Google turned up only one source (fire-support.co.uk) for this elusive part. £24 out the door later I had it on my way to me via Royal Mail.
As it turns out, this wasn’t the only bum part in the gearbox. Upon re-gluing the bushings, adjusting the shimming, and getting everything slapped together to check for smoothness, the new sector gear was binding on the spur gear. It wasn’t terrible terrible, but enough to prevent the gears from rotating smoothly by finger. A cursory inspection of the spur gear doesn’t reveal much – it looks to be in good shape. It’s only when you look very close that you can see one tooth is just ever so slightly bent; which is enough to cause binding.
Fortunately, the spur gear isn’t proprietary, and most (I caution with this word) spur gears should fit. I did note that the quality of fit varied considerably depending on manufacturer. G&G spurs, for example, wouldn’t allow the gearset to rotate properly. An XYT spur worked, as did an A&K spur. I did find that a Real Sword or LCT spur wound up working the best. As I didn’t want to divide up a complete RS gearset, and I have lots of LCT gears on hand, I wound up using the LCT spur.
For future record, the bevel gear isn’t really proprietary, but you need a specific style of bevel – one that uses a full length anti-reversal latch catch. I found that the Real Sword bevels worked perfectly and were compatible with the AR latch. As well, the LCT steel bevel for the next-gen Marui’s should be compatible too.
There are very few resources online regarding the breakdown of the Type 89, and what little there is is written mostly in Japanese. So as such, if you ever work on one, you’ll be doing a lot of exploratory surgery. The gearbox is considered a “Version 8″ and is only found on the Type 89 series as well as the BE clones of the TM. It comes pre-radiused from the factory with 6mm steel bushings, and is very very proprietary.
The motor these guns use is a TM EG-Max Hyper 1000BT hi-torque setup with a medium length shaft. I believe I have only ever seen this motor used on the Type 89. In this gun it provides a nice and snappy response.
Since I had the gearbox open, I decided to upgrade the piston to an SHS unit. I also AOE corrected it with a 3/16” Air-Pad. I topped it off with a Lonex ported piston head. The cylinder head on this gun is of a unique variety with an elongated and slightly off-center nozzle hole, and I don’t think there exists any aftermarket alternatives for it. But it was still in really good shape and provided a tight air seal. The air nozzle is approximately 22.99mm in length and doesn’t feature an o-ring construction, but it too had tight compression so I left it alone. The tappet plate is slightly longer than a normal Ver. 2 unit, so this would appear to be somewhat proprietary. The spring guide and spring had been upgraded some time ago with a ball bearing unit and an M110.
One thing you will find with the Type 89, is there is a LOT of stuff going on inside the gearbox, both inside and out. This gun uses a purely mechanical fire control mechanism which achieves both semi-auto, full auto, and 3-round burst functionality via a 4-position selector switch. There are little levers and little springs everywhere, as well as that interesting looking trigger box that actually depresses the trigger trolley vertically. It’s gloriously complex in that typical TM fashion.
I unfortunately neglected to take a picture of some of the smaller bits inside this gearbox. But I will probably be back in there to replace the wiring with some 16 gauge EcoWire as I’m not too keen on the aluminum spade connectors TM uses. I might even consider running in a GATE PicoSSR to go easier on the trigger contacts. Even though this gun has ran 11.1v’s since day one, the trigger contacts are still in great shape.
On the outside of the gearbox, there are basically two selector switch plates on either side. These interface with a set of two selector switch gears, with the right side riding on top of two spring loaded prongs. While it may seem confusing at first, installing these is actually quite simple once you realize the gears have lines on them that you are supposed to line up with one another.
It’s a very precise and positive feeling selector setup. And unlike some guns which use external selector gears, these seem to magically stay in position when re-installing the gearbox into the lower receiver.
On top of the gearbox sits a long U-shaped piece of metal that has a metal block on one end that the stock screws into. This piece basically acts as additional reinforcement for the outer barrel block.
This gun uses a 433mm inner barrel in stock form. However, I had long ago upgraded the stock barrel with a 455mm EdGi 6.01mm brass barrel and a Prometheus purple bucking and nub. The inner barrel and hop up chamber are inserted into the barrel block assembly pictured below, and are rotated 90 degrees to lock into place. It should be noted that the outer barrel is also clamped into the barrel block too.
On a related note, removal of the outer barrel and inner barrel is actually a simple process accomplished by removing the 8 circled screws (two located on the reverse side) and pressing out the push-pin:
The barrel assembly and inner barrel / hop up chamber will slide off the upper receiver of the gun at this point:
As noted earlier, I’d really like to upgrade the wiring on this gun. I’m actually scratching my head trying to figure out why TM added spades to the front of the wiring harness as you can actually disassemble the gun without having to mess with the spade disconnects. Essentially, it is entirely possible that you can have an uninterrupted wiring assembly (with Deans!) installed.
For some reason my hands started shaking a little as I got nearer to completing this build. I decided to not to check into WebMD and discover I was self-diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy. Rather, I was excited to see this old workhorse up and running again!
And there is literally nothing out there that quite feels like the way this gun shoots. The TM EG-Max Hyper 1000BT motor lends a really unique feel to the way this gun fires. It’s not loud and snappy like some guns are, but it’s almost a rolling, crisp break. The trigger actually has a short take-up point, at which point it breaks and fires. With an 11.1v LiPo the rate of fire is a very respectable 22 RPS on the chrono. While I do have the scope mount for this gun, I simply love running this thing with just the stock iron sights.
I lost the front handguard push pin somewhere in Rilea, Oregon years ago at Operation Tradewings (lol) where this gun slayed some bodies, so I’ve used a threaded allen bolt with locking nut to retain the handguard. It works. The muzzle brake was replaced with various flash hiders at various points in time, but right now it’s running a PTS M4SDII flash / compensator. Other than some PTS EPM magazines, it’s stock externally.
Now to just leave myself a note telling me not to trade out of it again someday….
