Help with reel ID, please.

[Steve-O]

Hello all, I just joined and have lurked enough to get tons of great tips, info and tutoring on reel repair.

THANKS Alan, for a great site!

Here is a reel I just bought and would love to know what I have. It appears similar to a Penn level wind and is the middle one between my 209 and 309 in the pic. The logo has fallen off at some point in the past as shown in the other pic where the glue remants are left. The only writing on it is ON and OFF near the switch and on the foot bottom where it reads MADE IN JAPAN. I took it apart and the build is also very Penn-ish appearing guts-wise. I can open it up again to show a guts image if needed. So what say ye, reel experts?  What do I have? 

Thanks in advance,
Steve-O

[broadway]

Hey Steve-o,

      Welcome to the greatest site in the land!  I'm not 100%, but it looks like a Penn knock-off... funny, it even has the circle where it would say, "Penn Senator 4/0 made in the USA pat'd" It's a 4/0 levelwind I'm sure someone will know better than I.  What kin of quality was it when you broke it down? 
Dom

[alantani]

it looks like a kencor, but i've never seen one in red before. 

[Phinaddict]

I'm 95% sure the brand is Olympic, the model is Dolphin. They came in different colors, Iv'e seen red, blue
and black.

[Steve-O]

OK.....Kencor or Olympic?.......my rookie guess?....... uhhhh, maybe. The Kencors I looked at online had star drags with a 90 degree twist on the arms. And were all beige colored. The Olympics had pointy football shaped handle grips. Penn knock-off for sure. Here's a couple of addt'l pics. The clicker side and the gear side.

Thanks for the replies. Steve-O

[alantani]

yeah, olympic!  that was the other brand i was trying to think of.  i've seen blue olympics as well.  this red one is pretty slick!

[borchcl]

Hi Alan,
I have two of those red reels setting on my bench. They both have the small round I.D. tag on the left side next to the clicker button. It says "Kmart, Satisfaction Always, 207". One is complete, but slow, the other is missing the levelwind guide. I'm not sure what I was supposed to do with them, maybe make one out of two. They showed up on the step of my motorhome down in Texas, (quite a few reels show up that way, but someone normally stops later with instuctions), but no one claimed them. They don't seem to be of bad quality, any idea where I might find parts?
As usual, thanks for the great site, it just gets better!

[Jimmer]

Google Tuna's Reel Troubles. I've gotten Olympic dolphin parts (and a lot of others) from them in the past. Great guys to deal with. Good Luck! - Jimmer

[borchcl]

Jimmer, Thanks much for the tip!
borch

[dylan]

Looks like an Olympic to me too.  I rebuilt one earlier this year. 
It was little, about like a Penn 09. . .pretty clearly a knock-off, although a fairly well done one.  I did  have a hard time figuring out some of the parts (metric or std).  There's not much difference between some of the small metric and standard screws, even when you do have a pair of calipers! 
Thanks for the hints on parts.  I looked around the net and had no luck. 
Dylan

[whalebreath]

Jimmer, Thanks much for the tip!

X2-Great resource!

[Steve-O]

Looks like borchl nailed it.  The reels were made for K-Mart Corp. by Olympic.  Mine's the 207 levelwind. They do come up on fleabay and sell cheap. The site- reelygone dot com- has several listed as rebuilds from $85 to around $110. Not bad quality seeing they're Japanese made. Thanks for the assist in ID'ing my red reel.

Steve-O

[Eric H]

Hello all! What a nice forum, I'm impressed with all the knowledge here! Found this forum the other day in my search for an ID of an old reel I accuired at a fleamarket here in Sweden a few months ago. This topic actually helped me to identify mine as an Olympic too which to me was a bit surprising. I finally identified it as an 307 LW in dark green with some help from Reely Gone.

When this was found out I want to know more about theese reels. As far as I understood they were sold at K-Mart quite a while back so how mine ended up in Sweden is a bit of a mystery. It was fitted to the lower half of an old ABU steel boat rod.
Is there any more product info on these reels? Mine is also missing the little round logo on the side so if anyone know where to gget one I'd be happy! Any pictures, info or advice on this reel is of interest. i will try to take a picture of mine tomorrow.

When I bought the reel it was full of dirt and grease. After a careful disassembly (and lining up of screws etc) I cleaned all the parts very thorougly and polished all the metal parts to almost brand new finish. With the help of some really good oil I managed to get the parts to work nicely together again (althoug some of the discs in the breaksystem should be exchanged some day) and the reel works like a clock. First I thought it was a cheap Penn knock-off but the small details inside were very well made and all wheels inside are made from brass or stainless steel.

If memory serves I think I paid about $12 for it. I was going to use it when fishing for cod in the Baltic sea but any suggestions of usage will be appreciated!

Cheers!
Eric Hejdström, Visby Sweden.

[seaeagle2]

I have a Dolphin 317 LW, with the box, schematic, "where to service" sheet, I'll copy it and post it later tonite.