What You Can't See Will Hurt You

[DaFrogman]

Over the last two days, I received two reels from Kahar, one of my captains. One was an Ocea Jigger 4000P belonging to him and the other my Kaikon 4000 which is more or less on permanent loan to him.

The OJ according to him had suddenly become difficult to crank. I called in my Kaikon to do some overdue maintenance on it. Both reels from the outside looked just fine and both had been fitted with a sacrificial zinc anode.

Now I have lectured Kahar quite a few times on washing reels properly, but given that he is a commercial guy who fishes hard 3 times a week, the amount of wear & tear on the reels he uses far exceeds any recreational anglers level.

The OJ as I suspected was suffering from a 100% seized bearing under the drag's star knob. When I checked the handle for AR play, I had a sinking feeling that the AR bearing was a gonner too.

I did of course do a full strip of the reel down to its screws and found as suspected, the AR bearing was a gonner and the AR pawls were worn after having to bear all the AR duties of the reel for god knows how long... When I inspected the AR bearing, it too looked fine and even seemed to function ok, but out of curiosity, I took the bearing apart. What I found was interesting and worth noting.

The housing of the bearing had corroded on the inside, in each spot where the roller bearing comes in contact with the housing. The roller bearings themselves were also suffering from minor corrosion, but it was the corrosion on the housing that was the worst. There was extensive pitting and essentially that bearing was toast.

But my point here is that on visual inspection the reel looked fine, which was why when I offered to service the reel last month, Kahar said "no need" its fine. So now his reel is down 'cos I don't have the spare parts for the OJ, but luckily I do have the parts for the Kaikon which also had a toasted AR bearing.

So please, I'll said it once, I'll say it again,

"WASH YOUR REELS PROPERLY WITH WARM WATER",

"DRY THEM PROPERLY"

"SERVICE THEM REGULARLY"

They might look just fine on the outside, but who knows what lurks inside. Its also a thought worth keeping in mind when buying 2nd hand gear.

Regards,

Saimee

[LLCC]

Originally Posted by DaFrogman

both had been fitted with a sacrificial zinc anode.

Saimee,

How did you wire it? I had thought about it before - casting zinc in cylindrical form, cutting them to form sacrificial washers for the reels. But abandoned the idea as I thought the reels would be dry most of the time, and I wouldn't be able to wire up the really critical bits, which are the moving parts like gear, BB, RB.

Care to teach?

[DaFrogman]

Lawrence,

I actually did a post on it last year, when I first installed the anodes. Check it out here

A New Corrosion Killer?

As you can see, my method only requires grinding, cutting and drilling. The sacrificial anodes from boats should be pretty easy to get from just about any marine shop or if you have the right friends, you could probably get old ones free from the shipping people.

I reckon that the anode helps to prevent corrosion on the immediate area around it; in this case the reel foot and frame where the anode was fastened. I suspect that the AR bearings were insulated silghtly from the main body of the reel due to the design of the bearing and its plastic internal bearing race. I am trying to figure out a way to get a similar anode on the handles, to save those tiny weeny expensive bearings that Shimano use in their handles.

Regards,

Saimee

[tmlim]

Hi Saimee,

The correlation you made between corrosion and heavy usage on this battle hardened reel is probably correct.

The backbone of most reels, is actually the AR bearing and the 2 AR ratchets. It is due to the fact that they take the full brunt of the reaction torque applied on the spool x Gear Ratio. As corrosion is well known to accelerate on surfaces with increased stress concentration and surface exposure to oxygen, I reckon a more effective preventive measure to prevent corrosion on the outer race of the AR bearing, is to ‘starve’ that surface from breathing oxygen. That is, by generously applying grease with appropriate viscosity on critical surfaces.

On a positive note, the condition of this reel reflects money well spent on fishing equipment. How I wish my reel is in this condition than collecting cobwebs in the drawer!

Regards
TM