Ambassadeur brake block upgrade

[slugmeister]

After making my last post, I looked into getting a 6500 side plate for the bait clicker. At this time I did not see any that were cheap enough to justify the cost. I even considered selling the reels, and buying 6500's being as they aren't that horribly expensive.

Sunday an old friend who I had not talked to for a while, we didn't talk fishing or anything, just randomly gave me an old Ambassadeur 6000 he had. It has a bait clicker.

Today a member here offered to send me a 6500 side plate with clicker for free since he did not need it anymore. I will gladly put that on my 5500C reel. Thank you both for the generosity. I will pay it forward.

I'm really going to be set up good this year. I fully went through all my reels, fixed some things, upgraded some things. I'm soon to have 3 reels with bait clickers which will come in very handy as I hope to do a lot of trolling this year. It should save my neck a lot of strain turning around as now I can simply hear when a fish takes.

[slugmeister]

I'm not sure if I will start a new thread or not, but I am intrigued by the Ambassadeur 6000. It doesn't appear to have a C or any other designation, it just says 6000. I have not torn it apart yet, it will get carbon fiber drag washers like all my other reels. The tiny little handle will be replaced. I did unscrew the right side plate, and the brake setup appears similar, but maybe a little different than the 5500C. It's a 2 pin centrifugal clutch, but It doesn't look like the new 6 pin brake block will fit on, I'll see tonight when I open it up again. This reel doesn't have to be a bait caster, this one is probably mostly going to be used for trolling. Outside, the reel looks like most other Ambassadeurs with the exception of a knob on the left side with a dial 1 to 10. It still has a spool tension knob on the right side. What does that left side knob do?

[ExcessiveAngler]

I'm not sure if I will start a new thread or not, but I am intrigued by the Ambassadeur 6000. It doesn't appear to have a C or any other designation, it just says 6000. I have not torn it apart yet, it will get carbon fiber drag washers like all my other reels. The tiny little handle will be replaced. I did unscrew the right side plate, and the brake setup appears similar, but maybe a little different than the 5500C. It's a 2 pin centrifugal clutch, but It doesn't look like the new 6 pin brake block will fit on, I'll see tonight when I open it up again. This reel doesn't have to be a bait caster, this one is probably mostly going to be used for trolling. Outside, the reel looks like most other Ambassadeurs with the exception of a knob on the left side with a dial 1 to 10. It still has a spool tension knob on the right side. What does that left side knob do?

That sounds like an older 6000. From what I understand, the newer Ambassadeur 6000's were sold in retail stores. Not sure if that's true or not? Walked in the Walmart about almost 20 years ago and they were clearing out all the reels in their fishing section.
All of the reels, were well over 50% to 75% off and just about all gone! There were two lonely, beautiful red Ambassadeur 6000's sitting there! I paid 20 bucks apiece for those last two red Abu reels, still have them to this day, and will never get rid of them. Is your 6000 black?

[slugmeister]

For sure the 6000 is older. It is red.

[ExcessiveAngler]

That Abu have decals on the side plates?
or is it one of the really old ones that has Ambassadeur 6000, etched into the side plate?

[slugmeister]

No decals on this one.





I took it all apart and cleaned it up. There are zero bearings in this real. The spool is locked to the shaft, and the shaft spins in the end caps in brass bushings. The drive shaft has a plastic bushing. The level wind stuff is of course just plastic gears on a shaft. The internal pictures are not cleaned up, this reel had almost no grease in it, yet it seemed smooth. I cleaned and greased it. The drag is pretty spartan. It's just one washer under the gear, and one in the gear. They are some kind of hard material, not sure what, reminds me of micarta. The drag on this reel is horrible even greased, I hope it gets a lot better with some carbon fiber washers. There's no upgrading this brake setup. It's a 2 pin setup that should work fine for what it is. It's a fairly slow 3.8:1 gear ratio that should be perfect for what I plan to use it for.



It turns out what I thought was a typical ambassadeur spool tension adjustment was really just a cap for the bushing so you can oil it easier. The caps have some felt in them so they should stay well oiled. The right side cap I fully tightened. The left side cap with the numbers matches up really good that way. 10 is pretty dang tight, and 1 is free spool with minimal side play. The level wind setup looks just like todays ambassadeurs, The bait clicker is kind of a cool looking thing that ratchets off a gear on the spool.



Here it is all cleaned up with a better handle on it. This reel has some neat features you don't see for some reason. One being a drag clicker, which you almost never see on a baitcaster. I've never seen another ambassadeur with one, and most bait casters, even really fancy low pro ones do not make any noise with the drag.

[ExcessiveAngler]

No decals on this one.





I took it all apart and cleaned it up. There are zero bearings in this real. The spool is locked to the shaft, and the shaft spins in the end caps in brass bushings. The drive shaft has a plastic bushing. The level wind stuff is of course just plastic gears on a shaft. The internal pictures are not cleaned up, this reel had almost no grease in it, yet it seemed smooth. I cleaned and greased it. The drag is pretty spartan. It's just one washer under the gear, and one in the gear. They are some kind of hard material, not sure what, reminds me of micarta. The drag on this reel is horrible even greased, I hope it gets a lot better with some carbon fiber washers. There's no upgrading this brake setup. It's a 2 pin setup that should work fine for what it is. It's a fairly slow 3.8:1 gear ratio that should be perfect for what I plan to use it for.



It turns out what I thought was a typical ambassadeur spool tension adjustment was really just a cap for the bushing so you can oil it easier. The caps have some felt in them so they should stay well oiled. The right side cap I fully tightened. The left side cap with the numbers matches up really good that way. 10 is pretty dang tight, and 1 is free spool with minimal side play. The level wind setup looks just like todays ambassadeurs, The bait clicker is kind of a cool looking thing that ratchets off a gear on the spool.



Here it is all cleaned up with a better handle on it. This reel has some neat features you don't see for some reason. One being a drag clicker, which you almost never see on a baitcaster. I've never seen another ambassadeur with one, and most bait casters, even really fancy low pro ones do not make any noise with the drag.

Yep, got a 5000 exactly like that one!
 It also has a drag clicker as well, actually thought that was pretty neat.

[slugmeister]

So I've got some bad news to share, my "upgrade" might not actually work. The 6 pin brake block does snap right onto my old 5500C spool no problem. The reel goes together no problem. The reel operates no problem on the bench. The issue is when casting, it doesn't seem the spool can always release. I took my reel apart again to investigate, made sure everything was correct, no better. I put the old 2 pin assembly in, problem fixed. Put the 6 pin in again, problem returns. What I think the problem is, the 6 pin block has the inner pins set pretty high which engage the slots in the gear. The gear does not retract far enough to fully clear those pins and allow the spool to freely spin. It's really close, it can cast, but you can tell it is catching. I do think it's possible either I could slightly file the pins down, or tweak the assembly that retracts the gear to make it retract a smidge farther. I decided to just put my old 2 pin setup back in for now. Since this reel is mainly going to be for trolling duties, I'll just run it with 2 brake blocks and probably never adjust it again anyway.

[ExcessiveAngler]

Well, you can always find bigger brake blocks. You can also make different ones or double them up on each side, if that's what you're looking to do? Also, very easy to control the spool, with different viscosities of oil and grease, if need be.

[Gfish]

I had an old 9000 with that same problem. Darned if I can remember how I fixed it. Vaguely, I remember thinking it was something to do with the Kick lever system, but found something(?) out of place in the drive/drag system. Maybe it will come to me...

[slugmeister]

There's nothing wrong with the reel, it turns out I just bought the wrong part.

So what I bought was a 6 pin brake block assembly, the same as what comes on brand new Ambassadeur's, such as a 5500C3. It uses two round pins in the assembly to engage to the gear. That part snaps right on an old 5500C spool, however those pins are too tall to fully disengage and slightly rub during a cast. I don't know what exactly the difference is with the new reels, different gear, different parts inside to pull the gear farther off, I'm not going to go through the trouble to figure out what.

Anyway, while looking to buy a couple brake blocks (since it's impossible not to loose them) I found it turns out there is another 6 pin brake block assembly, the one I was supposed to buy in the first place. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to link to ebay here, but I see some from seller SDS custom reels, they are nearly identical to the 6 pin block I bought, however, it uses a flat plate just like the old 2 pin assembly to engage the gear. Assuming what I get is exactly what is pictured, I guarantee this one will work. It's the same price as buying a couple sets of brake blocks, and you won't loose them. Oddly it says this assembly will also work on new C3 and other reels, so it's kinda odd they aren't all like this.

I'm going to attempt the link. If it gets deleted, oh well. This is the part you need if you want to use a 6 pin brake block with retained blocks to replace an old 2 pin setup.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/255889844501?var=555826658367

[ExcessiveAngler]

Well, not sure where you're located my friend?  But don't think, I'll be trying to order anything from the Ukraine.

[slugmeister]

Well, not sure where you're located my friend?  But don't think, I'll be trying to order anything from the Ukraine.

You know what's really messed up? I bought from SDS already this year the same day I bought some other stuff from another seller, and they got my parts from Ukraine to here in South Dakota in less time than it took another company to get from Florida to South Dakota by USPS. Our shipping in the USA is an absolute joke.

That's the part you need though, just have to find another seller. I'm sure someone in the usa has them.

[DougK]

thanks for the update and suggestions..
I have a 3500 which has the tiniest brake blocks, have to use my reading glasses to do anything with them..
now looking to see if there's a replacement assembly for the 3500. I'd guess a 2500 one would also fit, as most parts are interchangeable between those models.
I can't take that spool out in the field as the brake blocks seem to self-launch into oblivion as soon as the spool clears the frame.

[ExcessiveAngler]

Not sure what happened to my post again, I'm trying to post a video!
Let's see if the video comes through and then, I'll reply to it