US113 Handle Going Backwards

Rivverrat · July 18, 2015, 04:18:16 PM

I am convinced at this point that this failure happened based on 2 reasons. 1: the soft material the dogs are made from 2: the inability of this set up to line up the dog & it's respective gear properly under stress.

I guess I am in essence agreeing with what Fred others have all ready stated about this reel.

Rivverrat · July 18, 2015, 04:32:33 PM

Ya Sal, you can clearly see from my pic & on the anti reverse gear from wear marks that the dog is only making contact with 1/2 of the gear. Then to make matters worse the teeth on this gear have been beveled/radiased. Removing more precious needed contact between the two. That right there I think is showing that some one is aware of an issue. Because if the dog stayed on the same plane as the gear there would be no need for doing this to help engagement of these two parts.

Possibly the quick & simple fix is over sized, thicker dogs. Made from better material. Just thinking out loud as I go along here.

Rivverrat · July 18, 2015, 04:53:41 PM

Quote from: steelfish on July 18, 2015, 05:57:25 AM
Is this the New baja you just bought?
Or do you have. US senator (which is the same reel)

Sorry, didnt catch your post until now. Yup it's my brand new Baja.

Rivverrat · July 18, 2015, 05:06:34 PM

Sal, after some quick thoughts I believe your idea of a better ratchet gear is going to be the ultimate fix.

Meanwhile I think shimming with washers will help greatly. In the pic you can see there is plenty of room for washers & the dog is flush with top of pin.

Rivverrat · July 18, 2015, 05:07:25 PM

I wish my pics would post right side up!

Rivverrat · July 18, 2015, 05:11:34 PM

John brought up Abu style dogs. Sal I know you are not a fan of them. BUT that would work also.

Newell Nut · July 18, 2015, 05:22:29 PM

A few months ago a friend of mine bought a new US 113 and asked me to service it before putting on the new rod that I built for him. I reported to you guys back then that I would not recommend that reel to anyone. Those dogs are tiny and the springs that work them are also tiny. It is not as tough as the old 113 and no where close to one of Sal's tanks.

johndtuttle · July 18, 2015, 05:39:52 PM

Stop panicking.

The Baja Special design unchanged has landed many thousands of times the fish any "tanks" have. This is real world testing with hundreds of guys and reels and big fish. Thousands of roosters and far tougher fish have been landed by this design.

This older Baja Special has had some reports of deformation of the dog (I have seen 2, maybe 3), possibly a result of some error in the molding process...out of thousands sold.

Any reel mass produced will have occasional trouble.

I'll sick the Penn guys on this thread and my guess is they have a replacement dog from a known good batch sent out to you in a couple of days. If any redesign is necessary this Made in USA reel can be fixed nearly overnight. However, after selling a few thousand of them I am pretty sure Penn is comfortable with the design....though anything can be improved.

When I had mine apart I did wonder about the "balancy" nature of getting the dogs back on until the main gear acts as a stop on the studs.

But I promise you, deformation of the dog is a QC issue, not a fundamental problem, but overall the positioning of the dog could be more robust...the trouble is that you want them right under the main gear where the ratchet is, but you don't want anything to score the gear, so a retainer of some kind would have to take that into account.

Before I ever drink the Tank koolaid the problems with handle slop have to be addressed (like it is addressed in the Baja Special). Handle slop is gonna be a big problem at higher drag loads used on multiple fish over time.

Take a look at a Penn International 50W and see the frame and gears that Penn puts in a reel that is actually designed to hold up to 40lbs. See how much handle slop there is (zero). Handle slop = gear alignment slop. We are not talking about a little play of the handle on the stud in a tank based on a standard 113h. We are talking about an insufficient support of the stud that causes the gears to miss-align. This is because the standard Senator has no bearing support of the gear stud. The Baja Special/US Senator has two bearings to support the gear stud.

Real testing of a reel mod takes a lot more than a few fish. The jury is completely still out as to whether tanked up 113H will survive much higher than base drag year after year. After a few hundred guys report back their success we will have more information (like we do with the Baja).

The basic design of this dog and ratchet in the Baja Special is unchanged over something like 15 years in hundreds and hundreds of reels. I am pretty sure that Penn would have found any true trouble with it by now.

Rivverrat · July 18, 2015, 05:45:29 PM

Newell Nut,
Yup, I read that thread. While I understand & agree with your points of complaint I do not at the same time wish to completely toss something that has some very redeeming merits.
In fact some of these merits are unmatched by any other reel made in it's class.
Because of this, for the time being, I choose to work with this reel & see what can be done to improve it...Jeff

Rivverrat · July 18, 2015, 05:59:23 PM

I really like the Tank the whole idea of it & what Sal & others have accomplished with it. But there are valid reasons why the Baja/US113 are to be desired over the Tank. I believe Sal fully understands this.

johndtuttle · July 18, 2015, 06:34:45 PM

Quote from: Rivverrat on July 18, 2015, 05:06:34 PM
Sal, after some quick thoughts I believe your idea of a better ratchet gear is going to be the ultimate fix.

Meanwhile I think shimming with washers will help greatly. In the pic you can see there is plenty of room for washers & the dog is flush with top of pin.

Taking a look at your picture I wonder if a simple fix (on the Penn side) might be flipping the ratchet over and press cutting it in the opposite direction.

Keta noted that the ratchet is "stamped" out and you can see the slight bending of the teeth with a rounded edge pointed down in the direction the dogs could float. If they only catch on the "tip" of one edge of the dog then a think we see some of the reported deformation.

If the rounded edge were on the gear side there might be better and more perfectly consistent engagement of the dog and ratchet.

Or, the shimming with washers

. This will make them even more balancy to get back on though.

Keta · July 18, 2015, 09:45:15 PM

I sent out a few water cut AR ratchets but as of now haven't heard back from the testers. If I had a reel it would be easier.

johndtuttle · July 18, 2015, 10:15:51 PM

Quote from: Keta on July 18, 2015, 09:45:15 PM
I sent out a few water cut AR ratchets but as of now haven't heard back from the testers. If I had a reel it would be easier.

Send me your address Keta and I'll ship mine to you for testing.

Tightlines667 · July 18, 2015, 10:26:22 PM

The torque star series reels have similar AR ratchets. I wonder if these might be susceptable to the same failure if the ARB fails. May take several years until we see any issues here though.

johndtuttle · July 18, 2015, 11:15:32 PM

Quote from: Tightlines666 on July 18, 2015, 10:26:22 PM
The torque star series reels have similar AR ratchets. I wonder if these might be susceptable to the same failure if the ARB fails. May take several years until we see any issues here though.

If you are referring to the current Torque reels then no, they do not use the same system. The older Torque reels may have, but all in all they have been extremely reliable.

My first genTorque 300 did have trouble with it's AR and they were fixed by a change to the side plate but I never looked into the details of what the change was.