Penn 12/0 Clicker Broken

[Zoomie Juice]

So I just bought a new Penn Senator 12/0, fished it 3 times, and the clicker broke. I opened it up and saw that the 2 rivets that hold the "C" spring in are broken. The actual spring was just loose flopping around inside. I do not see how I can replace the rivets? Does anyone have a work around to fix this besides ordering a new side plate?

[alantani]

josh, if you are really careful, you might be able to drill out the rivets and tap in a couple of very small stainless steel sheet metal screws.............

[Zoomie Juice]

Alan,

OK, I'm not careful or patient. I tried to "carefully" drill out the old rivets and of course cracked the side plate ! I did get a reply from someone on a different forum and they said that Penn has acknowledged that this is a design flaw and all the new sideplates no longer use the rivets and have screws instead. Apparently, they will send the new sideplate for free if I just give them a call. I will keep the forum updated as this seems to be a fairly common problem. Thanks!

[alantani]

very nice!  hope this works out. 

[Zoomie Juice]

OK, so here's the deal for "ALL" Penn senator reels: If you have a senator reel that has the riveted click spring and it breaks, call pennparts and they will replace the left side plate sub assembly for free. Only the 113, 114, and 115 click springs have been redesigned from a riveted click spring to a user replaceable, screw in one. I could not get a straight answer out of them why they did not do the same with the other models. I'm sure it has to do with the fact that they are not that popular. Nevertheless, you can still get a replacement sideplate for free, the least they could do to make up for a small disaster in engineering.