Daiwa magnetic seal service

[t303]

G'day all.

As I hinted in another post, I have developed a process and product to replace the oil lost when servicing these reels.

I have a fair bit to type (and that is one of the few things I am not good at ) and some photos so I will do it in several parts. If you wish you can give me a chance to attach all the rest of the thread below before you chime in with comments or questions. (Alternatively, feel free to throw bouquets and cash anytime )

Before we begin, to head off any claims by any person or organization that some sort of intellectual property has been misappropriated, let me set forth a few facts:

I have been interested in this feature for a while but have avoided owning any of these myself because I repair/upgrade reels and (like all my other devices eg motor vehicles) I trust very few people (actually; no-one ) to work on them. I have previously attempted to purchase the magnetic oil from Daiwa and was told that NOBODY, including reel repairers, can purchase this product. It actually sounds like it could be construed as some sort of restraint of trade to me . Anyway, the reel I bought had the dried crusty remnants of what I assume was once magnetic oil and the seal fluid had either dried up or was washed out.
So Fact One: I have never seen nor handled any of this fluid, I have not reverse engineered their product. This is NOT a Daiwa product or copy thereof!

This technology has been in existence for decades now, in fact Daiwa themselves have boasted in their advertising that NASA invented the technology and they adapted it for their use.
Fact Two: The concept of magnetic fluid is widely used across a plethora of industries, well understood, and not proprietary to Daiwa or anyone else.

In the event of a malfunction of any product whilst under warranty, the manufacturer cannot deny a claim for an item properly serviced with suitable products and techniques unless it can be proven that the aftermarket product or technique contributed materially to the failure. That is the LAW.
For example, your Nissota RangeCruiser blows a piston, but you have had it serviced by a suitably qualified person using Valtrol oil of the recommended grade and viscosity for your vehicle. Unless the manufacturer can prove that the oil caused the failure the LAW says that the claim must be accepted. Similarly, no manufacturer can mandate that any particular product must be used in theirs to the exclusion of all others, eg you cannot be compelled to use Nissota oil. Despite this legal protection, it has been the common experience across all manner of goods that the manufacturer will take all measures and means to avoid their obligations under Australian consumer law. If you are worried about having to argue a warranty claim with Daiwa, then send your reel to Daiwa service. Judging by the posts on the matter on this forum you have about an even chance of a satisfactory outcome in an acceptable timeframe. Personally, I like the odds in my favour (and maybe I am a little arrogant, because I don't believe that anyone else will do the job as skilfully, carefully and completely as I will ), hence my endeavours in this area.

I hope that some of you are as interested as I am in this topic. I would NOT advise you to grab a sixpack, sit down and stare at this screen for the next few hours, but do check back later and I will get the thread up as soon as I can. I have no idea how to post photos, so I have some homework to do!

Thanks for your attention, please stay tuned for more news on Unobtainoil

[t303]

As I intimated, I have cleaned, repaired and upgraded a large number of spinning and baitcaster reels over the years, but have until recently avoided the later Daiwa reels due to the difficulty of dealing with the magnetic fluid seals. Recently I decided to bite the bullet and bought off ebay a used '10 Certate 2506.
It came without an exploded diagram and parts list so I proceeded to carefully deconstruct it for a full clean and service (I have since found a schematic online; ain't it always the way ). Upon removing the rotor nut and rotor I discovered that the fluid seal was gone, with only a few smudges on the magnet plate, AR sleeve and bearing; and some reddish, muddy debris. Apparently as the surfactant in the mixture ages this can happen as the particles clump together. I cannot tell whether it dried up or maybe washed out or dried by water or a solvent, but there was no liquid portion left to form a seal. A lot of pulling apart and reassembling of the rotor/AR bearing parts led to a few observations:
The AR bearing sleeve (the inside part that the pinion shaft runs through) is the inner surface, the bearing retainer plate you can see contains the magnet on the inside circumference. On the first photo you can see the remains of the fluid on the green AR bearing outer.
It was during this breakdown that revealed the first difficulty with this reel. To actually inspect the seal you need to lift the rotor because the bottom of the rotor has only a poofteenth clearance from the top of the bearing plate. This is all fine and good as dirt etc cant get in, but there is a snag! The chrome bearing sleeve that you can see actually locates around a flange on the bottom of the rotor with a light grip such that when you remove the rotor the AR sleeve comes out with the rotor and destroys the fluid seal. Additionally, if you try to return the AR sleeve back through the bearing plate it drags magnetic fluid into the AR pawls with it. I don't know whether this is a common trait or just unique to this model reel, I suspect I will need to service several different models of Magseal reels to find out. Alan Hawk did not mention it in his review of the '10 Saltiga. At present I haven't devised a way to stop the rotor dragging out the AR sleeve, so to reassemble you need to wash all fluid out, lube the sleeve and place in the AR bearing, replace the bearing plate and then replenish the magnetic fluid seal. AFAIK at the moment that is the only way to get the fluid to stay where it should, but I will ponder some more and may need to work on a few different models to nut it out.
REQUEST: from you kind folk, if anyone can supply pdfs or scans of schematics of Magseal reels it would help the development. They are few and far between yet, but as far as I can tell the system is common on all these type of Daiwa reels. Has anyone pulled one apart and seen similar to this? Any help is appreciated

[t303]

Okay,

I suspect this is the part you have all been waiting for:


and a picture is worth a thousand words, so........

Here is my first attempt at replenishing the fluid. I actually overdid it a bit and have since refined it and use less fluid. It didn't seem to matter as the stuff seems to coalesce no matter what, but I decided to lose some to avoid the chance of splatter.

Folks, please allow me to introduce Unobtainoil in it's first service.

Daddy is so proud of his baby

[t303]

OOOkaayyyy

I'll let you say something now.........

Please......

Anyone????

[Piscateur]

Impressive stuff.

[manno]

Baby oil and pencil sharpenings?