Alutecnos 20 Veloce

[reelgood]

Hi Alan and all, I just broke one of these down, cleaned and lubed it, and put it back together taking many pictures along the way.  It says I can only post 4 attachments so if you'd like me to post any photos let me know how.  I currently have them resized down to 640x480 around 100KB per image.  BTW, it has no A/R dogs, instead a triple stack of A/R bearings.

[kamuwela]

did you use photo bucket? alan normally recomends that site for tutoriols here. thank you for the pics we appreciate all pics and input from our fellow members
                                                                  aloha                                             
                                                                  kamu

[reelgood]

Ok, this should work, they are in sort of reverse order so start at the end

http://s1080.photobucket.com/albums/j339/wishiwasfishing/

slideshow

http://s1080.photobucket.com/albums/j339/wishiwasfishing/?albumview=slideshow

I will add some more comments later.  Getting about 18# at strike (at the reel with a boga, not rod mounted) but I still need to mess around with the preset knob (it's an infinite knob governed by it's position relative to where you decide to tighten down the screw in the middle of it, same deal with the actual drag lever). The Veloce has only a single drag vs. a double for the Gorilla, otherwise they are very similar, neither have A/R dogs.  

Freespool is awesome, over 30 seconds with closed bearings, because the spool ends hold 2 massive bearings on which it rides on the shaft, the two end cap bearings are also massive but don't come into play during freespool.  I didn't open the bearings because they look expensive and I didn't want to cut the shields.  

The gears are loud but I think this is normal.  This is designed as a trolling reel with a 6.1:1 ratio, I am not sure if the lower gear sets would drop in or not but I would like to find out.  I picked this up for around $200 used, I think that's a pretty good deal it's in great shape.

The drag material is some sort of carbon fiber but softer than carbontex, though not quite as messy as dartanium.  You can see some of the black residue it left before I cleaned it.  Overall the reel is a really simple and effective design, lots of CNC machined parts and very tight tolerances.

Alutecnos recommends lithium grease which you can see on some of the screws I took out but I used Penn grease.  The schematics are on their website but it is almost simpler not use them, there are not that many parts.  I couldn't push out the A/R roller bearings from the housing using the end of a wooden pencil so left it in, but you can see in the photos there is a 1/2" roller bearing sandwiched between two 1/4" roller bearings for fault tolerance.

Also I could not loosen the upper part of the clamp mount to get grease between there and the frame as those posts are threaded in but no way to grip them, I will try to put a piece of leather around one and grip it with a plier when I have some time later.

[wallacewt]

thnx for the pics.this is one interesting reel.never seen one before.that lever drag handle is something else!what drag washer did you use?

[reelgood]

Sorry about the haphazard order of pics and there are a bunch of redundant ones in there as I took a bunch to be safe and just uploaded them all.  I thought I would be able to post them with step by step instructions but don't have the time now, this is what I do on study breaks I'm actually in pharm school, trying to be just like Alan    In reality, it's more like I take breaks from playing with reels to study, not a winning strategy so far.

To answer your question I used the stock drag washer, it's glued to the pressure plate which is keyed to the spool shaft, see picture 15 I think.  I put some Cal's grease on it and cleaned the area up, drag was in fine shape just the edges had abraded a little.  The pinion is machined right into the spool shaft and the main gear is machined into the crankshaft.  New gears would probably cost almost what I paid for the reel.  The two washers you see on the pinion shaft are bellevilles with the concave sides facing each other as usual. I would like to get a little more drag out of this thing but realistically the drag washer is not huge in surface area and the reel is not meant for digging grouper, this is really the perfect Miami reel for sails and swords where you don't need much drag, rather high mono capacity.

Notice the drag spring rests right on the left side spool bearing, another reason not to remove the shield.  The clicker cam is pretty neat, also machined, and you can see the clicker plate on the other side of the spool and the little spring loaded ball that sticks out of the cam engages those holes.  

Another interesting thing is though I don't have a scale, the spool itself seems to be well more than 50% of the reel's weight.

This is the prior generation from their current reels, though I'm not sure what changes were made aside from the new banana rubber handles.  The blue handles mean it's a Veloce, the Red were Gorilla twindrag, and Black regular 4:1.  Someone on BloodyDecks was just selling 8 of these but I did not get it from him.

http://www.panchdara.com/Panchdara/AlutecnosDetail1.htm

I would like to hear Alan's opinion on the triple A/R bearing/no dog setup...I guess if enough grease gets in there it could mean bad news but I'm not really sure about the dynamics of that.

[reelgood]

Here's the current model schematic...I think the only parts not present in my version of the reel are #'s 90 ("carter"??), 46A (false harness lug), and the 2nd bearing between the pinion part of the shaft and the bellevilles, one of the # 13's you can see on the lower diagram bottom right.

I can't really figure out the purpose of it since the #13 to the left of the bellevilles is the one that sits in the right side of the spool, and the end of the shaft to the right of the pinion sits in the right side plate bearing #11...On mine there is a circlip in that spot where the 2nd #13 is around the pinion shaft which keeps the bellevilles from moving directly against the pinion.

The A/R roller bearing #84 is shown as one piece but there are clearly 3 separate bearings inside that tube I think you can make out the separation from some of my photos of that interior space.  They call the part a "freewheel", I sure hope not LOL

There is also the explanation how to set the drag/preset, which explains how you have to account for the infinite preset knob

http://schematics.planetseafishing.com/downloads/alutecnos-albacore/albacore-12-20.pdf

[wallacewt]

that drag washer looks like it is passed its used buy date.if it was my reel i would replace it.even if you are wrong youre right.acetone,glue grease,cost is minimal!gd luck tight lines

[reelgood]

that drag washer looks like it is passed its used buy date.if it was my reel i would replace it.even if you are wrong youre right.acetone,glue grease,cost is minimal!gd luck tight lines

Thanks, not a bad idea, I will have to call smoothdrag and see if they have something I can cut one out of or maybe they already have something that will fit.

[wallacewt]

now that youre runnin hot,forget the pencil and get that bearing out and service it,grease under the reel foot,take your time,do it properly,that reel looks like it would last forever.ya only gotta do it once,after that a service is a breeze.make you feelgood reelgood