New grease

[Scattergun2570]

Is it possible to re lube the main gear and pinion,without removing them from the reel? Do you need to get all the old grease off completely? What if I were to use a q-tip to wipe off as much old grease as possible,and regrease? Just curious if thi# would work.

[Bryan Young]

I don't use q-tips on gears.  It tends to pull cotton into the gears. 

I prefer removing the gears and degreasing with a toothbrush and re-greasing.  Depending on the age of the grease, I will sometime use a dental pick and jewelers screwdriver to clear the old grease out of the gears.

Note that after doing this, the gears sometimes feels gritty and are noisier.  The old grease added a cushion between the gears that clean grease no longer have, especially if the grease was hard.  This is normal and no amount of new grease that I have used will fix.

[Army_of_One]

There's not much to add.    The old grease might not play well with the new stuff, so it's always a good idea to de/re grease.