Back in the saddle again... an annual service on 5 Tiagra 130s

[Tightlines667]

I just took in 5 Shimano Tiagra 130 reels for complete service.  I'm trading reel work to have my set of Rainshadow Stub80 rods wrapped.  These reels were bought new 10 months ago, but have 550hrs trolling time on a force 20 (wet boat).  They have all caught many large 100lb + fish and sharks (incidental) and the customer complains of sticky 2 speeds, hard cranking, and some drag surge.  

Its been over a year since I serviced a customer's reels.  Hopefully, it's like riding a bike.  Got my workbench cleaned off, now I just need to find the time to get them done.

John

[Brendan]

All in no warm up. You'll be fine.
Brendan.

[Rivverrat]

I hope your not even giving thought of doing a service on these without posting pics of the innards ?

That would be the an indescribable shameful thing at level not seen here before   

Just post some pics please.... Jeff

[Tightlines667]

Well I finally found time to dissasemble, clean, debur/polish the 5 Tiagra 130 reels.

Overall they were in good condition.  Some corrosion in shift buttons (3 were frozen, 1 required new push button shaft and handle nut), clicker assemblies (1 required a new pawl, spring,&pin), minor surface spots on gears, cams, antireverse pawls, minor wear on antireverse pawls, cams, drags.  Bad/seized drive shaft bearings (replaced all 10, 2 were merely worn and may have been salvagable?), bad pinion bearings (all 5 were rough and worn but spinning), and 1 tail plate bearing (very rough), Worn clicker ratchet plates, (3 were much more worn/rigger reels?), decided to replace these, 3 drags were more worn, but none need replacing.  

I cleaned the drags w/simple green soak/sonic cleaner/stiff brush, then brake cleaner, then soft cloth, then reapplied cal's and wiped clean.  Bearings soaked in mineral spirits, ran through sonic cleaner, blasted with brake cleaner, compressed air, dropped in corrosion X, then packed w/penn blue.  All other parts were soaked in 50:50 simple green:water scrubed with 0000 steel wool, stiff brush, tooth brush, used dremel with wire brush to debur a few metal parts, all were rinsed liberally in fresh water and allowed to air dry.  

I lubed all metal working surfaces and the outter headplate and washers with penn blue.  It was diluted slightly with corrosion X in the 2 speed mechanism, and antireverse pawl mechanisms.  The exception was, I used cals drag grease to lightly grease inside the drag chamber, and the left spool bearing was packed with Cals.  All screws were greased, I used a drop of blue loctite on the 4 clicker ratchet plate, 2 clicker pawl retainer, and 5 drag plate screws.  Also, I left the reel stand screws in place for fear of damaging them.  They are installed with loctite at the factory and should really be preserviced before any use and greased IMHO.  Damaging these screws or the frame inserts is a serious PITA, which I chose to avoid on this bunch.  At least this generation of Tiagras have stand screws, and much stronger stands.  The earlier versions without can be quite problematic when/if the stand is bent/damaged/or electrolsysis sets in.

I replaced the following parts:

3 clicker plates
1 clicker pawl&pin&spring assembly
3 clicker plate screws
1 shift shaft,bushing(handle retainer nut)&retainer clip
6 large bearings
10 small bearings
20 belleville washers*
Maybe a few shim washers

*I probably don't need to replace these, but have gotten in the habit of always doing so.  It only costs about $5/reel, and it ensures the reel has its factory-correct drag curve restored, and that they don't corrode or lose their anodizing (as they are prone to do) and cause problems with the right spool bearing.

It took me 6 hours to disasemble, run though sonic cleaner, clean/debur/polish as needed.  I expect they will take another 5-8 hours to lube, reassemble, tune.  I damaged 3 ratchet plate screws, but got them out with a driver, and may have lost one tiny c clip (shift shaft) and 1 tiny spring (preset clicker pawl).  I keep the smallest parts in stock just for such occasions.

These reels would have benefitted from pulling the headplate, cleaning/lubing the clicker pawls, and pulling the handle shaft and relubing it and the drive shaft bearings mid season, or even just getting some fresh corrosion X on the push button shaft.
The ratchet plates could have waited another year, but they aren't that expensive and the clickers will now be good and loud.

John

[Tightlines667]

I take photos of the shim locations when I dissasemble and start with this shimmingbconfih on reassembly.

Basically all of the reels had 3 shims under the main gears, 2 outside the drag spool bearing, 1 outiside the pinion side spool bearing, and 1 on each tailplate bearing.

[whalebreath]

....the clickers will now be good and loud...

LOL-to many people that's all that matters.

[MarkT]

Do the bearings come without shields or did you remove them?

[Tightlines667]

Do the bearings come without shields or did you remove them?

They are shieldless ceramic hybrid bearings.  

BTW, there is no hydro device (to prevent drag fade) on the 130s, only on the 80s.

Also, these reels really didn't have much salt intrusion despite constantly being pounded by spray.  Corrosion and salt were only observed on the drive shaft, clicker pawl assembly, and a small amount on the main gears, and tailplate antireverse pawl mechanisms.  There was trapped water and a small amount of salt, of course under the plastic bridge, but it hadn't caused any noticable damage or corrosion to the anodizing or drive shaft retainer yet.  I will grease the outside of the headplate on these.

John

Here are a few photos depicting the only visable damage:

Typical clicker pawl-inflicted spool damage
Minor corrosion under the antireverse pawl assemblies
Minor anodizing damage where the click lever spring rides

[Brendan]

You still have eyes. Im impressed. I have to get my cunado on the big island to have you sort his gear out.
Tight lines, Brendan.

[Tightlines667]

Minor marring on the spool shafts, where the bellevilles ride
Minor anodizing damage where the click lever spring rides, and bridge support or screws engage
Corrosion inside the shift button shaft retainer, and inside the adjacent drive shaft.
Minor anodizing/corrosion damage under the harness lugs

[Tightlines667]

Minor scratching on the outter surface of the drag plates
Minor wear/glazing on the drags, and a bit of loosening outter weave.  3 of 5 reels, and outter drags had visable wear.
Minor corrosion on the reel seat bolts

[Tightlines667]

Ended up with a total parts cost of $396.89,
I charge $50/reel service fee, so the total bill was
$646.89.

Over 550hours of use, that works out to about $1.20/hr in reel maintainance cost.  

I supose they depreciated about $1500 too in their first year, so that puts it up to ~$1.90/hr in ownership/maintainance costs.  Of course your talking a $6300 initial investment for these puppies. 

Reinvesting less than 10% per year to keep them on good working condition seems like a no brainer to me!

John

[Rivverrat]

John, Thanks a bunch for doing posting this. This is of course a brand I'm not fond of. However these seem to be doing a very admiral job. It is such a great thing to see reels that have been put to use in a heavy manner... Jeff

[54bullseye]

Good job John !! Boy they look complicated compared to the good old 130 and 130 ST Internationals though. It certainly pays to go through them like you did and I would imagine you used a lot of grease as a rust protector inside them. Does the owner at least clean them with fresh water and use corrosion X on out sides ??   John Taylor


PS  You work cheap  !!!

[Tightlines667]

Good job John !! Boy they look complicated compared to the good old 130 and 130 ST Internationals though. It certainly pays to go through them like you did and I would imagine you used a lot of grease as a rust protector inside them. Does the owner at least clean them with fresh water and use corrosion X on out sides ??   John Taylor


PS  You work cheap  !!!

The owner would push the lever drags to full, rinse throughly with a low pressure fresh water hose, then back drag levers all the way off after each trip.  I encouraged him to use some corosion X as well. 

There is always alot of work before and after an offshore trip, so it can be difficult to stay on top of all the maintainance.  He services his rods and reels annually, and rinses everything with freshwater after every trip, thats bassically my routine as well.  Though my reels are likely in much worse shape since they havn't been serviced since I bought them used and put them into service this spring.  My aluminum rodJohn butts are suffering from galvanic corrosion despite a through freshwater rinse after every trip, and servicing them (dissasemble all rollers, clean, lube, grease on rod butts) twice in 1 year since new.

These reels are the #1 choice for offshore trolling here.  They are more complicated, with tighter tollerances then the older Internationals I fish with, but they do have many good features.  A sealed drag chamber with a good floating disc design is one of them.


John