Reel Servicing / Cleaning / Maintenance

Personal Service Centre

As a reminder, using bait-caster reel requires higher maintenance since the casting mechanism mostly depends on the mechanical performance of the reel itself. Having regular service will helps to prevent poor casting performance e.g. loss of distance and the smoothness of casting.
The basic for servicing the reel is to clean the reel thoroughly and re-lubricating the parts with the right type of lubricant.

One of the Popular Lubricant

 Basic Items Needed:
1. Tools for dismantling the reel:
Use10mm hex full socket instead of normal spanner. It holds the nut perfectly. 

Tweezers are also important as it helps to hold fine component. 

Art Brushes helps to spread the grease evenly throughout the reel.

Small Circlip Pliers helps in removing circlips.

2. Degreaser.

Consult bearing supplier for proper degreaser. Normally bearing manufacture recommends their own degreaser. As example SKF bearings uses Krown Degreaser. 

However, some bearing uses plastics or teflon retainers that could be damaged by heavy duty degreaser.

Other than that, you could use any light oil, kerosene or Isopropyl based alcohol degreaser.

3. Air gun in a can.
Air dusters helps a lot in removing dirt and grime in tight spaces. It also helps to dry up bearings after degreasing it.

4. Detergent 

WD40 helps a lot as it could be use as a cleaner (not for lubricant) for plastics parts. It also helps to create a layer that resist water during cleaning the reel.

5 Lubricant (bearing oil, grease)

Bearing oil can be important as it helps improving the bearing performance.

However the lesser viscosity of the bearing oil will effects on prolonged usage.

That's why getting the right bearing oil for each trip can save from hassle of relubricating the bearings.

Grease with higher viscosity helps in protecting gears, while lower viscosity is suitable for other moving parts.

Spreading the grease on reel body case and screws will help to prevents water from entering.

However always clean after every trip as it saltwater tends to crystallize with the grease when its dry.

6 Case and Compartment

Make sure to do servicing on a very clean place. Remember a small grain of sand might cause scarring on gears thus resulting performance issues. Proper compartment make assembly easier.

Lurebox can be use to sort out parts