Bones bearing maintenance will keep your angling reels running smoothly.

Fishing Reel Side Bearing Removal

Even my old, reliable 1992 Shimano Chronarch will enjoy enhanced performance after the bearings are cleaned.

Bait-casting fishing-reel performance is based on bearings. Some bearings affect the ease and altitude of casting. Others provide a polish retrieve. Removing, cleaning, and re-oiling your reel's bearings will keep your old favorite reeling in the years. Given how much you lot've already invested in purchasing a reel, information technology's worth the time to get your bearings directly. Find your reel schematic. Manufacturers provide these free of accuse online, oftentimes referring to them as "exploded diagrams," perhaps because soon after taking a reel apart, it resembles the site of an explosion. With patience and organization, you won't need to call a bomb squad to service your fishing reel.

Generally, in allurement-casting reels, at that place are three bearings carrying the spool shaft. Muddy bearings create erratic spool revolutions, resulting in a bird'south nest or backlash. One bearing is located on each finish of the spool shaft. The 3rd is on the shaft virtually the spool, providing stability. Other bearings are on the bottom of the drive-gear shaft and at the end of the worm gear. Sometimes at that place are two on each of these, making for a smoother retrieve. Add four in the handle for a total of eleven bearings.

Maintenance Tools

A few basic tools, plus a pair of special spool-pin pliers (shown) will give yous access to the inner workings of your reel.

Bearings should exist removed for cleaning and oiling. Before starting, magnify the schematic on a copier. A white towel over your workspace will allow even crumbling eyes to see parts that might get abroad. The towel should catch them before they fall or bounciness far. Use a cellphone to have photos of every stage of disassembly. This volition help your memory and help make sense of a schematic. Use a tackle box with dividers to place parts in the slots in the club they're removed, going from left to right. And so you can reverse the order for the assembly stage. Plough up the lights, clean your spectacles, and you're set up.

Spool Caps

Lay the parts out in the guild they came off.

The main spool bearings might be as far as you take to become for improved casting functioning. Many reels also have a third begetting pinned to the spool shaft, which often require special tactics for removal. (See beneath.)

Remove the side plate opposite the reel handle. The bearing will be secured in a recessed cavity with a very thin pentagonal wire clip. Locate the open up end and insert either a straight pivot or a very pocket-size flat-head screwdriver into the gap between the clip and the recessed crenel.

Keep your pollex over the clip to forbid it from flight abroad! Slowly remove it and identify it in the tackle box. Gently tap the cover from the opposite side, and the bearing should fall out. If non, I've constructed a bearing-pulling tool from an old-fashioned sewing T-pin. Bend the tip 1/viii inch or less and insert into the bearing opening; gradually work information technology under and around until the bearing pops out.

Remove the line spool. Place an elastic band around the spool to secure the line. On the side of the reel with the handle, remove the spool aligning cap. Reels vary hither, simply for the most part, there's another prune and a bearing to remove. Accept care when removing the pentagonal retainer clip. Remove the second bearing. If you lot don't have a vise, a pocket-size punch, and a steady paw, just add a minor amount of oil to the spool-shaft bearing. Alternatively, use spool-pivot pliers, a special tool bachelor at tackle shops to remove the securing pin and then the bearing.

Soaking Bearings in WD40

A baby-food jar will concord your bearings while they soak in solvent.

Soak these bearings in WD-40 for an hour to loosen and remove rust. Babe-food jars are perfect for soaking parts. Wash bearings in lighter fluid to remove WD-40. Take them out every five minutes or so. Insert tweezers into the opening of the begetting to permit them to spin, and render to the lighter fluid. After a 15-infinitesimal rinse, remove and spin. Let lighter fluid to evaporate for well-nigh 15 minutes. Wipe bearings with a clean cloth.

Plano Box

Utilise the compartments of a tackle box to keep yous organized.

Utilise a pinhead-size oil driblet to bearings in the begetting race cover. Don't overdo it. Too much oil interferes with bearing performance. A small driblet of quality loftier-speed oil — Quantum'south Hot Sauce, Boca Bearings' Lightning Lube, or Ardent Reels' Reel Butter — will practice. The race encompass has a very small gap for oil to enter. Spin it to let oil to enter bearings. Add a small drop of oil on the spool shaft ends. Clean bearing housing areas with a reel cleaner, using Q-Tips and pipe cleaners for hard-to-achieve areas. Put the reel back together working from right to left, taking parts from the tackle box. The reel should cast equally practiced as new.

Shine Operator

To go deeper inside your reel, locate the drive shaft and worm-gear bearings. Use a screwdriver to remove the encompass on the handle nut, usually held in identify with a single spiral, to access the nut securing the handle. Remove the nut with a reel wrench. The handle should come off. Side by side, remove the handle friction washer. This is dissimilar in every reel, so take a photograph hither! Unscrew the star drag to remove the washers and the clutch roller inner tube. Locate screws securing the embrace and remove information technology. The drive shaft is the threaded part that holds the handle in place. Remove bearing(s). The long, crisscrossed, cylinder-shaped gear viewed from the lesser of the reel is the worm gear, responsible for level winding of line. Remove this to find the bearing(due south).

Clean and oil bearings using the same process every bit above. Make clean the reel and grease gears. Unless there was a functional issue, reassemble the reel. It will now bandage and retrieve much more smoothly. Retrieve to utilise the same organizing principles here. Some reels have upwardly to four more bearings in the handle paddles. Add a small drop of oil to each bearing and spin the paddles to let oil to penetrate bearings.

Consider An Upgrade

New and vastly improved bearings are now available to tighten the operation of fifty-fifty the oldest reels. Replacing bearings not but improves casting and retrieval but also lowers reel weight. Information technology's easy to bring an old classic back to life. Virtually reels come with standard ABEC 1-rated stainless-steel bearings. As the ABEC number rises, bearings perform better. To achieve such levels of reduced friction, bearing manufacturers opt for sealed ceramic bearings. They don't require oil, just periodic cleaning. My 1992 Shimano Chronarch has been supercharged with Boca Begetting Ceramic Orangish Seal ABEC 7 bearings, and it's noticeably smoother and easier to bandage. Manufactured with fewer irregularities, ceramic assurance in stainless-steel races and retainers (housings) have a lower degree of friction and can withstand estrus better than metal balls.

Bearings are critical to reel performance and longevity. Cleaning or upgrading them volition better reel performance. Whether you're bringing an erstwhile reliable dorsum to life or picking up a deal on eBay, cleaning or upgrading line-fishing-reel bearings is an like shooting fish in a barrel set for the squeaky reel!