Old Trinidad 20 drag surprise

[UtahTuna]

Hi Anglers.
Today I was quite surprised while replacing drags on an old Trinidad 20 that I've used many years.

I was seeking more drag and in reading posts on Alan's website I decided that installing new Smooth Carbontex drag washers was the answer. I bought a few sets of them and decided to start with the Trini 20.

I opened it and removed some old Smooth drags, think they were called Super Smoothies. The best drag I could get (with a full spool) was 14 pounds. I wanted more because I use this reel for wahoo jigs.

The old drags were not greased and were still in decent condition. I removed them and cleaned up the reel.

The suggestions were to use Cal's drag grease and install the Carbontex washers. I did exactly that and when I tested the reel I was disappointed. The drag couldn't be made higher than 12 pounds. Bummer.

I tried everything such as checking the installation, making sure the parts were in correct position and etc. Nothing helped. I even removed the drag parts and cleaned all the grease off them and even that didn't help.

Now the surprise. I remembered that long ago when I installed the old Super Smoothie drags, I also installed a Cal Sheets improved upper drag metal washer. This was said to vastly improve drag. I started to wonder if I had the energy to open the reel again and put the original drag washer back in. I decided to try and POOF! suddenly I had 20 pounds of drag instead of 12 pounds. I had tried Cal's upper washer with each side up and it didn't make any difference.

Now I'm thinking of using the reel exactly as it is now, without the grease. It is smooth and strong. There might be a little grease left in the carbontex washers.

So my conclusion is that Cal's upper drag plate for Trinidad reels was a failure. If anyone has one of these installed I'd suggest you replace it with a Shimano stock part.

UtahTuna

[fIsHsTiiCkS]

I have never gotten the chance to use that since by the time i got to one of those reels it was already upgraded by shimano. Good to know that experience you had with it. In my opinion I would still use the grease though really helps with smoothness underload.

[alantani]

i have had a problem with the full carbontex drag set because i've found the drag washer under the main gear is too thin.  what i do is put a penn #6-113h drag under the main gear.  if you want, i can mail one to you.  that will likely fix the problem.  send a pm with your address if you want one.  alan.