5501 C3 and 5601 C4 carbontex drag washer thickness

[Salmon53]

Hi everyone.  I am going to service my Ambassadeur 5501 C3 reels and will be replacing the drag washers with Carbontex.  I have about 35 reels to do and am going to get the Carbontex sheets so that I can afford to do this. 

1.  What thickness of Carbontex sheets do I need for the 5501 C3's  I think they are .5mm but I want to confirm before I order.

2.  Is the best place to get these sheets from Smooth Drag?

3.  I have some older 80's 5001c's and 6001c's from the early 80's.  I have torn apart and cleaned the 6001c and the drag washers look like they may be 1mm thick.  These reels are so old and the drag washers are well used, so I am not sure about the thickness. 

This is my 1st attempt at replacing the drag washers with Carbontex so any help will help.

Thank you.  Craig.

[alantani]

i just measured the abu carbonex drags that i have.  they mike out to 0.41mm thick.  cutting carbon fiber is a miserable task.  not sure who else besides smoothdrag would even carry this stuff. 

[pointbob]

no one's come up with an easy peasey home made method to cut the drag washers yet?

[Gfish]

Yeah. It's expensive, though. Those kits(what do ya call 'em?) that let you pound through the carbon fiber sheets with a sharp edged-round-hollow disc of various sizes.

[Donnyboat]

I use a scribe, leave one leg round & file the other flat like a chizel, if you google carbon fibre sheets on any of the auction sights, you will find them, but Dawn does a really good job with them,  she sells bearings as will, for the best casting, try ceramic bearings, as the lube in metal bearings, slows them down, good luck, cheers Don.

[JasonGotaProblem]

Get this

[ReelClean]

Get this

Yep, and you can buy single punches to fill in the gaps.  The tools in these Mayhew kits are made by Boehm and can be had in mm size increments.
Cheers
Steve

[Salmon53]

Awesome!  Thanks for the replies everyone. 

Alan - I looked at the Smooth Drag site and saw that the thinnest sheet is .5mm  If the original washers are .41 will going just a bit bigger with .5mm be ok?

[alantani]

you should be fine.  seriously, though.  punching out carbon fiber drag washers is a miserable task.   

[Salmon53]

That is what I have heard but I have at least 30 reels to do and the sheets would cut down on the expense.  Another route I could go is to buy 5 or 6 drag washer kits for the reels that I fish most and then get some stock washers for my backups.  Once I get them all serviced, I may decide to sell some of them.  For those, I might as well stick with stock washers.  Is there a good source for stock Abu washers?

[JasonGotaProblem]

Honestly there's very little difference in material between the stock abu carbon fiber washers and the thinnest smooothdrag washers. It is my opinion that it's not as much an upgrade for these reels as it is for some others.

I sent you a pm.

[Gfish]

Nice looking kit, how much Jason?

[JasonGotaProblem]

Nice looking kit, how much Jason?

Mine is not for sale. I believe theyre around $300 new. Just showing the ideal tool for the job.

These came from Keith and I've already used them a lot.

[Swami805]

I used to fish a abu 5500 a lot. As I recall back in the day a ht100 washer from a Penn 500 fit and worked fine. Might be worth looking into, it only uses one washer I think so one 500 kit is good for 3 abus if it's the same as the one I used

[Salmon53]

Thanks everyone.  I have cleaned and serviced 3 of my 5501 C3's and an old Bantam Mag Plus. 

BTW,  I have 2 old 6501c's and a bunch of 5001c's.  They have thicker drag washers.  If I double up on the Carbontex to get the same thickness, will it still function the same?