Reel maintenance info

[jb2020]

cheers mate

Originally Posted by nagz

Jb2020,
I use oust oil for bearings that need to run smoothly and freely, for long casts with lighter lures on a bc reel.
Cals reel grease for small bearings that require corrosion resistance and marine grease for largerer bearings, coz its cheaper than cals.
U can use oil on large bearings if you like also

Steve, schematics are your friend

L-fish, yeah it won't be a smooth as it was, but over time the grease will settle into nooks and crannies and you'll find it frees up a bit. You can also be confident that you will get longer life out of your gears and bearings

[nagz]

This should keep me busy for a while
Thanks double-n

Anyone wanna send their reel up for a quickie

[steve anderson]

Thanks guys , i did strip it down as far as the rotor , then chickened out , it works fine as is , just thought I might get a UTube link for dummies to help get past the rotor stage.
Schematics it is then .

[nagz]

Opened up a shimano torium today for a mate

Looks like it was lubricated with hard butter

Must have caught some decent fish though, the drag washers were screaming for a tune up, one was even in pieces.

Another good reason to upgrade your drags, and not just the felt ones

[nagz]

Took me so long to realise what that hole in the shaft is for, but when I finay found out, I was kicking myself in the junk with a pair of footy spikes

[Birdman]

Ok I wanna say a big thankyou to nagz, mate your posts have been very helpful to me, not only did you put the seed in my head to tear apart my luvias 1003 once and for all, but your photo of the greased inside and your explanation of what you would do with my reel was very helpful.

So I figure I would share what happened in case anyone else finds it funny/useful. I got this luvias 1003 a few years ago from bass.jp and have used it probably 20 times. It was starting to feel a little less smooth to me, but I asked others and most couldn't tell, but it has been playing on my mind as I was using it and I was worried I was causing further damage to it by using it. I was always worried about the little retainer wire that first comes off when you strip the main shaft. Yep sure thing I was taking it off so carefully, I even tried to take it off under a tissue so I could catch it. I couldn't see it so I stopped that, I tried gently levering it off and it went flying. Looked for ages and even with help it could not be found, but I did find a staple and I bent it into a pentagon shape, and whaddaya know? With a little bit more bending it was perfect.

Ok now once that was taken care of, the rest of the stuff and the rotor came off easily. Then I sorta looked at it for a bit and realized there wasn't that much to look at, so I just stripped it all down, everything came off easy. Inside it was in relatively perfect condition, I was worried this reel wasn't greased in the factory properly but it appeared to have a fair amount of grease in the right places. What I did notice was in the grease and inside the rotor and basically everywhere, but particularly in the area near the bottom gear where the superficial bottom plastic plate is there was a lot of fine sand/salt crystals. So it felt awesome to clean all that out and regrease it and clean the bearings and re oil them. What I did notice was that upon closer inspection the bearing in the handle area and main bearing were slightly corroded on the edges but they seemed to spin ok. I had a feeling this was the case but I am meticulous with my gear and it is cleaned after every use.

So then I put it all back together. Pretty easy actually. Now it spins well, a little better than before but that lack of smoothness is still there but now after taking it all down and cleaning and regreasing I can be pretty sure it is the bearings. Pretty easy to replace and I was planning on getting the boca upgrades anyway, it seems the go. All up it took just under 2 hours to complete and that is including the half hour spent looking for the wire retainer and forging a new one from a staple. Cheers once again nagz you saved me a bunch of time not having to wait for daiwa and more importantly saved me $$ thankyou, I owe you one.

[nagz]

No worries mate
I'm glad to hear it

Give those bearings a soak in shellite for a couple hours then let them air dry for a day, lube em up and you may be further shocked

[Birdman]

That's a hot tip I'll be sure to try the shellite then thanks. I have a well used '09 caldia 3000 that has been punished and neglected, but still looks and feels as new. Will try and take that one apart to clean and hopefully will have some photos to put up of anything good I find. Scared of losing the wire retainer still haha.

[Danmaso]

Tip for removing the retainer clip.

Do it inside a plastic bag, catch's it everytime!

[nagz]

That's an awesome tip mate, ill be doing that next time for sure aye

[brunsbreambo]

What sort of oil does everyone put on their line roller?

[Loags]

inox mx3..superb oil, comes with injector needle for precision application.

[needy1]

First of all, good post Nagz

I will re-write what i wrote on the other post so that people may read it.

I have been servicing reels for quite some time now.. doing for many people here in Brisbane ranging from Sols to Exist branzinos & saltigas, stradics to stellas, calcuttas to torsas, a few Alutecnos reels, jigging masters & some more. So I have had a bit of experience when it comes to servicing a reel and can safely say i can pull apart one of these reels & put back without a parts diagram.

Like most people .. i recommend experimenting a little bit with different types of grease and oils for yourself rather than listening to what others say on the forums. There are too many people who actually may give false information. Also when you experiment with the greases and oils for yourself, you begin to develop an understanding of the differences & know what is best in which application.

For example, i may use up to 4 different types of grease on a reel:
1) grease drag washers
2) worm gears
3) main gears
4) only on offshore reels i would use a good sticky grease to line the walls of the reels.

So you get the idea, as i have found what works best for what application.

Ofcourse use the forums for recommendations but don't restrict yourself to bias information. Also, when you servicing a reel its always a good idea to clean it down to the last screw to prevent any specks of dust & dirt meshing between the gears & bearings which results in those annoying little bumps when you wind the handle.

regards

[nagz]

Well written mate

Great info

I've been asked and am now considering doing reel maintenance more regularly as a bit of a side income.

Is there anything to consider before heading into such a venture? I have the actual reel side of things sorted, just wondering if there was anything else to take note of?

Cheers mate

[needy1]

there will always be people out there who expect you to make miracles with the service, doesn't matter how good you are at servicing and how good the grease is... it can not repair stripped gears .. lol

So yeah, just be mindful of these situations. Giving the customers the choice to replace the parts or just try to look after the "not so good" parts from now on is always a good idea to keep a happy customer. But Sometimes i feel that my service hasn't done the reel any benefits due to the poor condition of the reel that i don't end up charging them anything. So these are the times when i make an absolute loss on time, effort & materials.

I don't see it as extra income on the side because unless you are rough as guts with the service & do it in 30 min (similar to the complaints that people are having about Daiwa & even Shimano), its hard to make money when a service can take 1-3 hours sometimes on extremely bad reels.

I see it as a hobby... something that has improved my understanding of reel parts & functions.

regards