new gears for a tld 15?

[alantani]

Sorry to bother you, as I have used the search feature and you are the one that seems to have the answers. I am putting together a batch of tuna rigs for this season and have purchased several TLD-15 reels. After servicing them I still have a couple that feel a bit rough on retrieve under load. My question is do I need to replace the drive and pinion gears or do you think just the pinion gear alone would do the trick. The wear looks to be mainly on the pinion, but it is hard to tell. Or am I totally wrong and there is some other option I should try. Love the tutorials you have posted, helps us DIY type of people stay out of trouble. Oh and if I do need to replace some parts do you have any recommendations on where to get them? I am located in Portland. Thanks in advance.  Terry

hi, terry!  first thing, check the right main side plate bearing.  that is ALWAYS the first thing to go.   any roughness at all and it will have to be replaced.  if you are lucky, you will have to replace only the bearing. 

now, if the bearing is good, then lets look at the main and pinion gear.  sorry, but there is a general rule and it's a good one.  you always have to replace gears as a set, both the main and pinion, never one or the other.  and before you replace the gears, you have to look at why the gears got shredded to begin with.  the reason is usually a sticky drag.  that means that you have to upgrade the reel to greased carbon fiber (carbontex and cal's grease from smoothdrag.com) or your old stock drags will cause damage to the new set as easily as they did the first set.  if you don't want to go through the expense and trouble of replacing the drags (and i understand that), then i'd just leave the gears as is.  rough gears function fine.  they're just rough.  check the right main side plate bearing first and let me know. 

hope this helps.......