How to clean & rebuild a Graco Contractor II gun. Graco Sprayer Tips.

going to be going over um how to rebuild a contractor 2 gun and how to clean the filter on the gun itself. And the guns that we use on all of our pumps are actually the great go contractor 2 gun. And the reason why I actually like this gun is this gun is actually a two-finger gun. And it only takes two fingers to actually spray. And I like this gun itself cuz I have a lot more control of the gun cuz I got two fingers right here that actually and my thumb that actually hold onto the gun itself and I'm squeezing with two triggers with two fingers. There are guns made by Titan. This isn't a Titan gun, but this Titan makes um their guns and they're four finger guns and you squeeze with four fingers and I don't like a four-fingered gun because I don't have as much control of the gun itself cuz I'm not holding the gun with anything. But my thumb, my four fingers are actually squeezing the trigger. So I use totally great contractor 2 gun. And this gun itself to actually clean the filter with this gun. It has the trigger guard right here. This trigger guard just comes undone right here. And then this arm swings right here back and forth. This arm is the actual tool that actually undoes the housing right here to get to the filter. So, I can take this tool, grab onto the gun itself, get this tool engaged with the nut on it right here. Once I get it engaged, I can just turn and and it'll release. And then it starts to pop up. And now you can start spinning the top off. And you have to get it released with the tool to a certain height cuz there's a little um catch right there. there. And it has to get above that that catch till it actually will the top of the gun will spin off. Once this gun the top is spun off, that exposes the filter right here. And this filter, we try to clean these filters at least every 3 to four paint jobs. And we take them outside, take them with a high pressure um hose and nozzle and spray these things out. If you clean this filter often, you won't very rarely ever have to replace it. if it gets too clogged and um it's trying it builds up too much pressure and it'll actually break the filter to get the paint to go through. It'll destroy the filter. So, clean those filters, you know, approximately every three to four paint jobs. That filter just it's no tools. It just sets back in and then the gun will spin and it spins back down till it gets to the height of that catch and then the catch will fit in. There's a little notch that actually fits in there. And to fit in that notch, now you can use your tool, your trigger guard to actually tighten it back up. Just tighten that good and snug. Put your trigger back guard back on. And that gun is ready to go again. Very important to keep keep that filter clean. Keeping the filter clean keeps the pressure up as high as it's supposed to be. If the filter starts to get clogged, you start to lose pressure and it won't spray properly. You'll start to get fingering and other issues and you'll start to get spits. So, make sure you clean that filter. Another thing you want to do with this gun, I about every 2 years I take the guns apart and clean them. If the guns are running fine, I don't ever want to take and clean take the actual gun itself apart and take the needle out cuz what's uh not broken. Don't attempt to fix it cuz they invariably will leak out the needle when you start messing with them. But eventually you'll start to get a little bit of paint start seeping out that needle and because the needle begins to wear out or get scars on it. And so to replace replace the gun housing or replace the needle, it's really important you start off you got to have a crescent wrench. And then you want to start off by squeezing this trigger. If you don't squeeze this trigger, if you're just taking it apart to clean it, you'll ruin that housing. When you put the new housing in, you could scar that the new seat by screwing this back on if you're not pulling the trigger. Very important. Pull the trigger. Hold the trigger down. Now I'm going to just attach a crescent wrench onto the front of the gun. right there. And then I release that. I'm still holding the trigger down tightly. Once I pull this off, now the needle is exposed. I can release the trigger. You can see the needle inside there. And that's the that little balls. That's what stops the paint from coming out of the gun. When you pull the trigger, it allows paint to go through. You release the trigger, it stops. And it's seating inside this thing. There's a little rubber O-ring on there. And that O-ring, when you're uh servicing this gun, it's a good idea to just put a new O-ring on there. So, now I got the needle exposed. There's the back of the gun. You're going to just release the back of the gun. This is where the spring is housed. And I'm going to release the back of this thing here. Unscrew it. And this is what gives you your tension on your trigger. um that gives the trigger the the tension to squeeze. It makes it hard to squeeze. So, you can release that and there's your spring. The spring comes out. Now, the needle is exposed on both sides. And great sells a needle, the replaceable needle, and sometimes that that needle should just push right out. If it doesn't push out your finger, then you're going to have to knock it out. If um if you're not replacing the needle with a brand new one, if you hit it with something, it could scratch that needle. So, be really careful. I usually use a piece of wood. I just took a stir stick right here, took a hammer, just knock the piece off, the stir. Just like that. Now, I can use that little piece of wood to just cap that little needle out. It gets stuck in there sometimes and so you want to drop it free with hammer or a piece of wood. Piece of wood will scar the needle. We just set it on this box. Now we just knock that needle and there's your housing inside the gun. And there's a little another rubber O-ring on there. You can replace that O-ring if if the gun's not leaking and you just want to service it. You can replace the O-rings. take a look at it, clean this, and put it back in. Um, sure sells this this little part replaceable. This ball's leaking. It's about $55 for this part. Once you get the new one, just clean this gun out really good. Then you'll just set it back inside there. You want to make sure it goes through. You'll see the the two rails and they'll fall through. Once those rails fall through, we're just going to stick our spring back in. And you're just going to tighten this all the way down. It's good and snug. Never fails. Phone rings. Won't ring until you do a video. Crazy. Now you just take and screw this thing down. Now it's tight. Now we're on the end of the gun. Make sure, very, very important, actually squeeze that trigger. If you, if you don't squeeze that trigger, you will ruin the end of the ball. You'll scratch the ball and the gun will leak. You'll scratch the end of a brand new ball and the gun will leak again. Keep squeezing the trigger. Screw it back on till it's just tight. Release the trigger. Put the gun back together. The gun is ready to go. So, you can take that whole thing apart. What we actually do is we clean it with lacquer thinner. We'll soak the whole gun in lacquer thinner and clean a toothbrush. Put it all back together. And if the gun is leaking, we'll actually put it back together with a new housing. And that's your Graco Contractor 2 gun. How to service the gun, how to clean it, repair it. There's any problems with it. new filter. But this is my favorite gun, Chris. One tip with the contractor 2 gun is what we do is every single day after after we're spraying, when the sprayer is all cleaned up, we actually spray our whole gun with WD40. And the WD40 works its way down inside these rails and it keeps the the paint from gumming up the rails and keeps the the gun working smoothly. We'll spray it down inside here. Spray the the threads. Paint won't stick to the threads and it's always it just comes right off. So at the end of the day, we spray the whole gun with WD40. Very good tip. And once when we started doing that with our guns, our guns will go two three years without having to take them apart and service