Talica 20/25A Problems, Solutions, and Review

[bigreddog]

This is a review of my TAC 20A after almost a year of hard use. It has been on 6 long range trips between 7 and 15 days and has performed well although it needed some work to get performance to a high level. My reel was one of the first Talica As delivered and performance out of the box was not good (complete loss of free spool when the drag was set to 22 pounds at maximum)!

This video is a quick explainer of how I fixed mine.


After learning about this reel and its issues, this is how I would repair the next one, in order:

1. Remove excess grease from the frame, spool, and spool shaft components and service the bearings Alan Tani style. Reassemble the spool and test free spool before going further. Mine spun for several minutes.

2. Adjust the spacing between the inner fiber drag washer and the metal drag plate. My reel had too much clearance. I added spacers to the spool shaft between the right spool bearing and the inner fiber drag washer until the inner fiber drag washer just began to touch the metal drag plate. This ended up being the correct spacing for my reel. This adjustment down to .05MM gave me the best drag/free spool performance. The washers I used for adjusting the drag system clearances have a diameter of 7MMX 9MM. I got mine on Ebay. Useful thicknesses are between .1MM and .5MM. This adjustment when correct will allow your reel to put out more drag, with minimal impact on free spool.

3. Make sure that there is enough spacing between the outside fiber washer and the metal drag plate. Mine did not have enough clearance, so a spacing washer was added to the spring, effectively lengthening it enough to give enough clearance. Again, this is done with the spool outside of the reel. This spacing does not need to be as exact. Any extra length in the spring will be removed by adjusting the preset knob.
The below photo shows a small washer that was added to the spring. it is 7MMX9MMX.5MM.


The changes made to the reel have made a gigantic difference. My drag numbers are 25 at strike/39 at full, with free spool of over 2 minutes and 20 seconds. It will do more drag than that and maintain free spool, but at that setting it is a smooth progression from free spool to strike, and the drag curve is nice and linear.

Random thoughts:
The online schematics do not match the hard copy I received in the box. They show one or 2 additional spacer washers, and other part numbers have changed. I suspect they made some changes after my reel was delivered, and I hope that new ones work well out of the box.

I sent this reel to Shimano under warranty. They made some improvements to the drag clearance issues, but it still functioned poorly with minimal free spool when set to 25 pounds at strike. There have been other reports of similar performance issues, both out of the box and after service. After learning how to optimize this reel I believe that these issues are easily resolved with a little time and persistence.

There are no Belleville washers. They use a multi wave disc spring instead. 

Tolerances in the drag system must be exact (down to .05MM) to get decent performance. It reminds me a bit of an Accurate, and not in a good way. Although when tuned it is an incredible reel.

The Talica 20/25As have 2 major improvements over the originals.
First, the low gear ratio is lower. This makes it a much better reel for large tuna.
Second, the drag system has 2 fiber drag washers instead of one. This is both a positive and a negative but once optimized it is a better reel than the original.
1. It is as fast but more powerful due to the lower low gear ratio.
2. The drag performance is better.
3. Free spool is excellent at higher drag settings.
4. Handle resistance is significantly reduced and much less pressure is placed on the pinion bearing.

I have used the original Talica 20s for many years including 2 Cal blueprinted ones for long range fishing. They are the most versatile reels I have.
The new generation works better for artificials because of the reduced resistance in the handle. It is a great nighttime bluefin reel, my go to yo-yo reel at deep water spots like Alijos bank, and for throwing heavy wahoo jigs and bombs. It is the best combination of speed, power, and minimal handle resistance that I know of.
It is also a superb 100# fly line reel for the lower banks or Hurricane bank when conditions are tough. It's small size, great free spool and a low gear ratio make it my go to in finesse conditions.