I was re-arcing my TAF's ramp diverter last night and decided to check the coil return spring to make sure everything's kosher since, when shot up the ramp with enough speed, the ball either seemed to be leaving the habit trail early or getting stick where the diverter meets the plastic chute leading to the habit trail.

Well, after re-arcing it, I looked at the diverter assembly underneath and while everything looks fine, one thing stuck out to me. The plunger looked fine and all with the return spring nice and strong, but the end of the plunger had a second, mini spring attached to it that was then attached to the diverter arm(or was, the attaching arm of the spring broke off). Is this normal? I looked in the manual and see no number or description for any kind of spring that would go there.

My guess is that one of the ops before me didn't have the proper bit to remove that set screw from the plunger end and opted for the spring as an intermediate attachment. I've re-bent an end of that spring and reattached it and everything works great now, but I think I'm right in assuming that I don't need that spring to be there and I am going to take it out unless I hear different from the experts here.

Wow! Awesome as usual, Lloyd.

But why the short spring? Why not one of those plastic type link joints like they use in the trough solenoid? Hmm...

Well, off to buy the spring! (I'm sure I can find that kind of spring in many other places, local places.)

Really? Eek.

I just hate to spend $7.95 on shipping for a 95¢ part.

Haha! That's what I did on the last parts order I made with PBL and Marco a couple months ago(each one had parts the other didn't). I go them both up to about 30 bucks so it would a better deal with the shipping. The problem was, I was buying future "work" for myself(color matched bumper skirts being the latest).

Thankfully there's a great hardware store directly on my way home from work that has a very eclectic range of parts and hardware and I was able to find a spring that has the same tension as the factory one. I bought the 2" version so I could cut it down a section at a time if any other diverter plunger springs go out on me. I haven't installed it yet because I may have accidentally repaired the original one too well.