Pinion Gear Shot

[vudo]

The pinion gears on both of my Convector CV 20 DLX are shot.  Main gears don't looked too bad, but do I need to replace them also?  Any advice on how to prevent this in the future?  Also, anyone have a source for these besides Okuma?  Thanks.

[Bryan Young]

Wow, those are damaged.  Are those the drag washers in the background?  Those look shotty as well.  Replace them with greased carbon fiber drags and replace both gears. 

You are probably fishing these reels beyond the limits of the reel, and that is what can happen.  Either get bigger reels or allow your new smooth drags to work for you.

[alantani]

damage to the gears is always aggravated by sticky drags.  always replace the main and pinion gears as a set.  upgrade the drags to greased carbon fiber at the same time.  to damage the gears afterwards, you would have to deliberately crank the drags pressure past 10, 15 or 20 pounds.

[vudo]

Thank you Bryan and Alan.  These reels belongs to a friend who used them for albacore here in Oregon which only average less than 20# so they should be fine once I replace the drag washers with carbon fiber?  Also, any good source where I can get the replacement gears?

Thanks again.

[alantani]

here you go!  https://www.okumafishing.com/resources/customer_service

[Makule]

My guess is that the majority of times, worn gears are a result of people trying to use the reels as winches, instead of pumping and cranking.

[Jimmer]

On all Okuma star drags, disabling the auto trip function by grinding off the little pin on top of the AR ratchet gear will increase pinion life by about 5 times. The auto trip pushes the pinion to the side and it gets chewed up. Do these reels use the plastic hold plate? under heavy drag this can flex and let the gears grind too. The only fix I know of for this is to install the old metal hold plate. I'd take a good look at the main gear and replace them as well, if you put a bad main gear with a new pinion it won't last very long.