Shimano Triton 80 - UPDATE - Solved?

[Marlinmate]

I worked on a customers Shimano Triton 80 earlier this year.

He just called and said he was trying to set drag to 27lbs, and when he puts it into freespool, it's still in gear? and can't get the 27lbs of drag. 

Any ideas?  Why would reel still be in gear, when lever is in freespool?

[ReelClean]

Pinion gear/spool shaft hung up due to the support bearing area rusted up?  See it a fair bit on baitcasters and overheads because the spool shaft or pinion can't move inside the gear/bearing.  I have a Speedmaster LD I am about to attack that behaves the same, but when you pull the spool to the left you can feel the click when (I am guessing) the shaft moves in the pinion then everything frees up.

[Marlinmate]

Pinion gear/spool shaft hung up due to the support bearing area rusted up?  See it a fair bit on baitcasters and overheads because the spool shaft or pinion can't move inside the gear/bearing.  I have a Speedmaster LD I am about to attack that behaves the same, but when you pull the spool to the left you can feel the click when (I am guessing) the shaft moves in the pinion then everything frees up.

Good thought.  I'll get the reel this week and dig into it

[Marlinmate]

Interesting.  Finally got the reel back and I think I figured out what the issue was/is.

Sure enough...when in freespool, the reel was still in gear. I also noticed that the spool never moved sideways going into or out of gear??  Hmmm
I took the handle off and got down to the cam and saw this screw type of cam was backed wayyy out.  This meant that in order to set the preset...customer had to screw the preset knob all the way in.  This also meant that the spool would not release into freespool because it was shoved too far to the left side.

It will be trial and error to get to the requested 27lbs of drag at strike.  It's like you can preset the preset if you needed to.