I’ve got modding on the mind...

[IowaRelic]

Early in 2019, I acquired Tabman’s Gold Bug Pro. I got a cors Strike 13” coil for it. It was a bit heavy and too short on the factory rod. So I mounted the control box onto a compadre shaft. Much better, but since moving south, I have carved out a niche for the machine and only use it to dig CW bullets in high EMI areas. Nothing can touch it. It kills my wrist on the s-rod after and hour of hard swinging in the brush.
I’m thinking of removing the Omega 8000 control box and putting the Gold Bug on the pistol grip shaft. The 13” is much better on the omega. It hardly use the omega though because my T2 and kruzer outperform it. What do you guys think about changing it? Are the pistol grip setups easy to disassemble?

 

[Picketwire]

I know this is an old thread but the control box mounting is different between the two. To remove the control from the Omega, the foam must be pulled down at its top about ¾" to uncover a single screw. When this screw is removed, the control can be lifted straight up out of the grip. There are not two mounting screws like on the Gold Bug. The only way to switch would be to change the control box housings between the two but that would entail resoldering the battery wires. To disassemble the grip, remove the control box as described above, twist the foam off the grip and it will uncover two more screws under the foam. Remove these and the two holding the grip to the shaft and the grip can then be removed. I replaced a cracked shaft on my 8500 and thought it would be easy. It was after I figured out how to do it but it took quite a while to figure it out.