Riptide 6/0

[Clipper]

Ok so I have one of these that I bought in France in 2001 that I never used but was under saltwater during hurricane Ivan and only rinsed in fresh water afterwards.  It has sat unattended to since 2004. For sentimental reasons I took it upon myself to open up this reel to see if I could get it running again, since I seem to be able to rebuild my Penn conventionals alà Alan Tani et al. Ze reel, pardon, the reel is in amazingly good shape and I am impressed with the improvements they made with the Penn senator design.

So my real question is probably a more generic reel maintenance one.  After putting it all together after a thorough cleaning and greasing, all seems well except that when I tighten the drag, the handle becomes hard to turn.  The tighter the drag, the harder the handle is to turn.  What did I do wrong?   Please help me so I don't spend another 3 hours trying to figure it out by trial and error.  Thanks guys!

[redsetta]

G'day Clipper,
I've done a bunch of these over the years - they're nice reels.
Is there any chance the spacer/bearing/spacer combo (#43/44/45) has been reassembled incorrectly?
If so, the star maybe bottoming out against the side plate.
Schematic here for reference: http://www.nutterrodandreel.com/pdf/Mitchell/2001/riptide%206-0.PDF
Cheers, Justin

[Clipper]

Redsetta, thanks for the detailed schematic.  The schematic that came with the reel is condensed into a number of boxes with no parts description and is not helpful. On the ones you referred me to it looks like the wide spacer is inside of the handle bearing whereas on Penns the wide spacer abuts the star. Is that how you see it?  Anyway, now I have some reference points.  Thanks for taking the time to help.  Clipper

[redsetta]

G'day Clipper,
Yes, exactly - the spacer sleeve presses directly onto the drag stack.
The bearing is above, on which sits the last spacer, then the star.
Let us know how you get on.
Good luck, Justin

[Clipper]

Redsetta, it was a quick fix and all is well.  Thanks again for your help.  Happy Independence Day!