Frankenreeled two Abu 4600

[festus]

My stepson bought this 4600 size Royal Express from Bass Pro Shop several years ago.  It was his second baitcasting reel, he also had a low profile Mitchell he'd used for bass fishing.

He told me his first cast with this reel was successful, no backlash, no other troubles.  However on his second cast the reel backlashed very badly and locked up completely. 

It sat in his garage for fifteen years or longer, I traded him a fairly new spinning combo for this nonfunctional reel and the BPS Bionic Blade rod it was mounted on.

I took it apart a few weeks ago, got it working again, but didn't give it a complete maintenance service. Last week I took it to the pond and cast it about half a dozen times, then the thumb bar locked up and the crank quit working.

Saturday I took it completely apart, gave everything a good cleaning, re-lubed it and put it back together. It was missing one drag washer which I replaced.  Other than that, I didn't see anything wrong. (This isn't the same black reel I was having thumb bar problems in my other post).

It worked ok for about a dozen casts, then the thumb bar wouldn't engage again.

Then I noticed there was a gap between the thumb bar and brake plate.

Took it apart one more time, didn't see anything I could do to correct it.  Cast it a couple times and the thumb bar went haywire again.

So the only thing I knew to do was swap frames with another 4600 as an experiment.  Late yesterday afternoon I cast both reels at least an hour at the pond, caught a couple of puny bass, they seem ok.

[festus]

Now I have two fully functioning Frankenreels.

My question is can this cause problems for both reels in the future?

Another thing, does anyone have any suggestions how to eliminate the slack between the right side of the thumb bar and left side of the brake plate without completely replacing the frame?

[oc1]

I don't know, but it is always a bad sign when the schematic shows the thumb bar as part of the frame and it does not have its own part number.

That lateral play in the thumb bar may be the problem.  If it shifts to the left the pin might not make contact with the release gizmo.  Are there scratches on the pinion?  That could indicate it only partially releases and the pinion does not fully engage.
-steve

[festus]

No scratches on the pinion, I'm almost positive the play in the thumb bar is the problem.  There has to be something better than designing a reel where the entire frame must be replaced when there is a thumb bar issue.

My three favorite low profile baitcasters have trigger releases instead of thumb bars.