Help me diagnose reel issue sealine 300h jumpy drags

[alantani]

it's actually part of the gear, and an unnecessary part at that! but we still don't know exactly what tom's situation is. 

[Alto Mare]

you would have found it by now , if you had the reel in hand, going back and forth with suggestions takes a little time.
Yeah, that gear doesn't make sense .

[Bryan Young]

It's part of the gear.  That is how it was machined.

[Tom McKinney]

Okay, I switched the spools around and now think I have I figured out.  The reel now turns great in free spool, but there is rubbing, sounds like frame and spool., when in gear.  And the drag happens at the same relative spool position on each rotation.  So I think it's the spool rubbing on the frame. 

But I'm confused because now I'm  thinking its a bent spool shaft. But when I stare at the gap between the reel frame and the spool I don't see it change as the spool spins. Wouldn't the irregular spinning from a bent spool cause the spool to appear to be out of round? Or maybe the spool is out of round?

New spool?  A little file on the spool?  A file to the frame?

[Bryan Young]

Before you take a file to anything, take a little white grease and coat the edge of the spool.  Then reassemble reel and simulate the function where you think the spool was rubbing.  disassemble the reel and look for grease marks.  If none, that that is not the problem.

is the star contacting the sideplate when turning the handle?