Shimano Calcutta Conquest 401 drag problem

[retiredandfishing]

Have Conquest 401 in my shop.  Max drag is very weak.  Serviced the reel per Alan's procedure.  Cleaned up the drags as there was way to much grease on them.  I believe these are the old Dartanium drags.  Put it back together and the drag was fine.  Let it sit over night in my cold shop.  Next morning the drag was again as weak as it was before I serviced the reel

I am going to do the carbon fiber upgrade and hope that takes care of the problem.  Also going to see how the drag reacts after it warms up. Thinking that maybe cold weather is affecting the grease remaining on the drags by changing the resistance coefficient of the grease.

Has anyone run into this problem.

Thanks, Steve

[alantani]

any chance that you have braid that is slipping on the spool?

[retiredandfishing]

Let the reel warm up a bit inside the house.  Picked the reel up and the drag is fine.  Pretty sure the problem is temperature related.  It got down fairly low last night in the shop.  House is at 70 degree's.  When I first tested it the reel was still at the cold shop temperature of the night before.  Maybe 40 or so degree's.

Steve

[retiredandfishing]

any chance that you have braid that is slipping on the spool?

Braid is fine.  Line has been used for fishing as well.  No slippage that I can see. Thanks.

[retiredandfishing]

Forgot to add.  According to the owner of the reel, it has never been serviced since he bought it brand new. So I am assuming the grease I removed was stock Shimano drag grease.  Since the drag was having problems already I decided not to regrease the drags as they had some residual grease already in them after cleaning.  I clean with isopropanol alcohol.

[jurelometer]

Let the reel warm up a bit inside the house.  Picked the reel up and the drag is fine.  Pretty sure the problem is temperature related.  It got down fairly low last night in the shop.  House is at 70 degree's.  When I first tested it the reel was still at the cold shop temperature of the night before.  Maybe 40 or so degree's.

Steve

Shibs (Gobi King) had some reels that started braid slipping when the weather got cold, with the symptom being losing some drag. So he did an experiment: stick the reel  in the freezer for a few hours and the braid slips.  Warm it up to room temp and the slipping stops. Repeat and the same thing happens.

The symptoms match what you are seeing, and you normally won't notice braid slipping a bit unless you mark the spool and line and look for it.

My theory is that braid slips this way due to a unique property of gel spun polyethylene fibers.  Unlike the semi-crystalline molecular structure of unmolestd UHMW polyethylene which shrinks uniformly as temperature decreases, the long chain molecules that run lengthwise to form the fibers shrink so much linearly that the diameter actually expands.  I believe that this jams the fibers together more, and turns the line fill into more of a puck, and therefore more likely to slip in the spool until the line warms again.

I'm with Alan here.  I think it is worth checking for a spool slip by using a felt pin to make witness marks on the line and spool and see if the shift in relation to each other.

-J

[retiredandfishing]

Thank you.  I'll try it.

Steve

[retiredandfishing]

Let the reel warm up a bit inside the house.  Picked the reel up and the drag is fine.  Pretty sure the problem is temperature related.  It got down fairly low last night in the shop.  House is at 70 degree's.  When I first tested it the reel was still at the cold shop temperature of the night before.  Maybe 40 or so degree's.

Steve

Shibs (Gobi King) had some reels that started braid slipping when the weather got cold, with the symptom being losing some drag. So he did an experiment: stick the reel  in the freezer for a few hours and the braid slips.  Warm it up to room temp and the slipping stops. Repeat and the same thing happens.

The symptoms match what you are seeing, and you normally won't notice braid slipping a bit unless you mark the spool and line and look for it.

My theory is that braid slips this way due to a unique property of gel spun polyethylene fibers.  Unlike the semi-crystalline molecular structure of unmolestd UHMW polyethylene which shrinks uniformly as temperature decreases, the long chain molecules that run lengthwise to form the fibers shrink so much linearly that the diameter actually expands.  I believe that this jams the fibers together more, and turns the line fill into more of a puck, and therefore more likely to slip in the spool until the line warms again.

I'm with Alan here.  I think it is worth checking for a spool slip by using a felt pin to make witness marks on the line and spool and see if the shift in relation to each other.

-J

You are correct.  Marked the spool and pulled the line out and spool is not moving but the line is.  I was thinking in terms of the line slipping in between itself as happens if the braided line is spooled too loose on the spool, when Alan mentioned it, not the complete amount of line slipping on the spool itself.  Thanks for the info. 

[retiredandfishing]

any chance that you have braid that is slipping on the spool?

You are correct.  I misunderstood about the slipping on the spool.  It is slipping on the spool.  I marked the spool and pulled the line out when it was cold and the spool did not move, just the line.  My bad.  Thanks for the info.  I'll have to read and listen better in the future.

Steve

[alantani]

just glad you figured it out!!!! 

[retiredandfishing]

just glad you figured it out!!!! 

He did not have backing on this reel. I'll remove the line and put backing on and put the old line back on.  I'm also replacing the drags with carbon fiber drags as well. This is a great lesson learned for me. 

Steve

[MarkT]

Replacing the old Craptanium drags with carbon fiber is a good call. Shimano has gone to carbon fiber drags on their newer reels.

[Hella Bread]

Replacing the old Craptanium drags with carbon fiber is a good call. Shimano has gone to carbon fiber drags on their newer reels.

Shimano still uses dartanium quite a lot it's just usually for seemingly random reasons on flagship models or it's 99% of the time just used on the bottom of the main gear nowadays.  It works fine for freshwater or bass applications ie low drag, short runs or locked drag with no expectation of prolonged runs it just gets kinda gross after a while and is kinda sensitive to overgreasing.  Honestly if it's not causing issues in this specific reel you can probably just leave it unless this is for light inshore use or something where prolonged drag runs are something you possibly have to deal with.

[oc1]

Hooking a fish that overpowers your drag washers is a good thing.  Get some excitement where you can.

[Lunker Larry]

The trouble with dartanimum is how sticky it got. You'd need 10lbs of pulling to start 9lbs of drag.
You just have to service it regularly, cleaning off the black sticky blotches that form on the Dartanium.