Penn 330 Gti Gear noise

[FatTuna]

Hello everyone, I'm new here but have been reading this forum for quite some time. I am a big fan of this site.

Anyway, I picked up a Penn 330 GTI the other day and it is making a noise. It is hard to define but it just sounds a bit rough to me. Also, there seems to be a little bit of extra play under the main gear. The previous owner said that he upgraded the drag stack. There was also a HT-100 washer under the main gear which looked pretty beat up. Do you think that could be causing my gear issues? I feel the main gear is moving around. Or could it be a loose gear sleeve? How do you fix a loose gear sleeve? Thanks.

[Bryan Young]

Probably the gear sleeve shaft is no longer fixed and has to be re-peened,  welded/brazed, or the entire bridge assembly needs to be replaced. And the gears too as it may have some unusual wear due to the loose gear sleeve shaft.  When I say gears, I'm referring to both the main and pinion gear.

[FatTuna]

Thanks for the advice Bryan. Yikes, that sounds expensive . I'm about to open it back up and play with the gear sleeve shaft. Should I be checking to see if there is too much lateral movement?

I previously looked at the gears with a magnifying glass and couldn't find any signs of excessive wear on the main gear. The pinon gear looked like it had some wear but I could tell if it was excessive or not. I'm not an expert. To me it looked okay but I could be wrong.

If the previous owner put the wrong drag washers in could that cause gear movement?

[akfish]

Many of the 330s that come into my shop need a new set of gears. The problem is that while the 330 is a large reel and has a good drag, it was made for mono, not spectra and really can't fish 80# line -- as is often the case up here. Almost as common as shredded gears is a loose gear sleeve on the bridge. That doesn't have a cheap fix either: Expect to pay more than $20 for a bridge and $24 for the gears.

[Bryan Young]

I would start with the shaft first.  If that is wobbling,  then you can try to peen the shaft by using a nail punch on the outer edges of the mushroomed end.  If you are able to get the bearing out of the bridge, I would braze it.  Last option would be to replace it.  If you can live with the noisy gears for now, you can bypass it for now. 

[FatTuna]

An update on this reel. The shaft does not seem to have any wobble when the gear sleeve is removed. There is a little bit of play when the gear sleeve is installed; I would say it's a little more then normal.

I'm pretty sure the problem is due to either the wrong drag washers being installed or the washer under the gear has been flattened or is the wrong size. When I shift the reel as I'm reeling, the tone changes and I can see the gears moving up and down the gear sleeve. Has anyone experienced this?

[FatTuna]

For anyone reading this in the future, I figured out the issue with this reel. The other posters were correct. The reel needed a whole new set of gears. I went though this reel probably 10 times and finally I coughed up the dough for a new main and pinion gear and it feels normal now. Hopefully everything else is in order and I will be able to get years out of it.

I now know what to look and listen for when I'm buying a used reel.

[alantani]

glad you got it figured out.  yeah, the brass gears in this reel are pretty soft.  if the drags get sticky, it's easy to damage them. 

[FatTuna]

Thanks, Alan.