Hey everyone,
It's pre-season, and I'm some people may have reel maintenance on their mind. Was talking with Robalo123 about it and figured I'd start a thread so people with more experience than me could really provide some info. Please add info, links, pics, whatever to thread if you please. Conventional or spinning reels - for trolling or jigging - all brands.
I'll start with some info on conventional reels. That is where most of my limited knowledge lies. What I'm thinking about at this time of year are the following general maintenance tasks which can be done to good reels OR can be done to recondition apparently wore out or busted up reels:
1. Replace old / bad line
2. Replace and/or grease drag washers
3. Grease internal parts as needed
4. Replace dog spring (Penn reels)
5. Look for wear on gears and other parts
6. General rebuilds as needed
My hope is that I only need to do #1, #2, and #3 only (and #4 just because I'm in there and it's easy to do during reassembly on the Penns I have). Luckily for me I fish a friend and mostly abuse his equipment, so I don't generally have much to do each year. Actually most of what I've done lately is reconditioning cheap reels purchased at flea markets.
Here is where I would start: http://alantani.com/ Go to the "Reel Rebuild Tutorials and Questions" section to start, but look through the entire website.
This forum has a bunch of great threads. There are a bunch of "stickies" at the front of each brand's forum which goes over general rebuilds for various reels. My favorites for Penn are:
113/114h senator - short version
330 gti
penn 209, which has the good pictures for how to get the dog spring back in
310 gti
Alan Tani has also posted on TF. Most his posts are in the "Fishing Tackle" forum, but some are in "The Original Board" - aka, Chesapeake Board. Here is a link to "all threads started by alantani" (username).
One favorite (which is also probably on his site, but I just found it on TF first) is: 2/0 penn senator rebuild
Where to order parts? Again, I have limited knowledge, but for Penn Reels, www.pennparts.com aka (http://store.scottsbt.com/Penn-Parts-Home-Page-W7C1.aspx), aka Scott's Bait and Tackle in NJ is where I go.
One other important thing to note for amateur reel fixers like me. It seems easy, and it actually isn't that bad. But it can be time consuming. If you are like me and try and limit my time in the basement/garage/shed/etc. so I can fish more, you may want to check out the people on TF who do this. There are many, and I hope their names are brought up by others. ReelSmith (username) on this board has helped me out a lot. He's given me some pointers and looked at a couple reels for me. Hopefully he'll chime in. But again, there are many local people who will do this for a reasonable price, and I'm sure would be willing to provide some pointers.
Again, everyone please add what you want here. I am by far no expert. Also, if the links don't work, sorry, it's late and I'm not gonna check them.
It's pre-season, and I'm some people may have reel maintenance on their mind. Was talking with Robalo123 about it and figured I'd start a thread so people with more experience than me could really provide some info. Please add info, links, pics, whatever to thread if you please. Conventional or spinning reels - for trolling or jigging - all brands.
I'll start with some info on conventional reels. That is where most of my limited knowledge lies. What I'm thinking about at this time of year are the following general maintenance tasks which can be done to good reels OR can be done to recondition apparently wore out or busted up reels:
1. Replace old / bad line
2. Replace and/or grease drag washers
3. Grease internal parts as needed
4. Replace dog spring (Penn reels)
5. Look for wear on gears and other parts
6. General rebuilds as needed
My hope is that I only need to do #1, #2, and #3 only (and #4 just because I'm in there and it's easy to do during reassembly on the Penns I have). Luckily for me I fish a friend and mostly abuse his equipment, so I don't generally have much to do each year. Actually most of what I've done lately is reconditioning cheap reels purchased at flea markets.
Here is where I would start: http://alantani.com/ Go to the "Reel Rebuild Tutorials and Questions" section to start, but look through the entire website.
This forum has a bunch of great threads. There are a bunch of "stickies" at the front of each brand's forum which goes over general rebuilds for various reels. My favorites for Penn are:
113/114h senator - short version
330 gti
penn 209, which has the good pictures for how to get the dog spring back in
310 gti
Alan Tani has also posted on TF. Most his posts are in the "Fishing Tackle" forum, but some are in "The Original Board" - aka, Chesapeake Board. Here is a link to "all threads started by alantani" (username).
One favorite (which is also probably on his site, but I just found it on TF first) is: 2/0 penn senator rebuild
Where to order parts? Again, I have limited knowledge, but for Penn Reels, www.pennparts.com aka (http://store.scottsbt.com/Penn-Parts-Home-Page-W7C1.aspx), aka Scott's Bait and Tackle in NJ is where I go.
One other important thing to note for amateur reel fixers like me. It seems easy, and it actually isn't that bad. But it can be time consuming. If you are like me and try and limit my time in the basement/garage/shed/etc. so I can fish more, you may want to check out the people on TF who do this. There are many, and I hope their names are brought up by others. ReelSmith (username) on this board has helped me out a lot. He's given me some pointers and looked at a couple reels for me. Hopefully he'll chime in. But again, there are many local people who will do this for a reasonable price, and I'm sure would be willing to provide some pointers.
Again, everyone please add what you want here. I am by far no expert. Also, if the links don't work, sorry, it's late and I'm not gonna check them.