Sucess! almost

[Ron Jones]

So, it almost worked.

Yesterday I cracked open my Millionaire S 250, greased everything and used Penn reel oil on the bushing and bearings. Then I swapped the factory drag washers for greased jigmaster HT-100s. The factories are the same OD, but the ID on the jigmasters is much smaller, greatly increasing surface area. Then I removed all the level wind hardware.

So I went out today and tried the drags, works great. Smooth and strong, I haven't put it on a scale yet, but before the upgrade I could spin the spool with my hand when the star was spun all the way down and now I can't at about 75%.

So what doesn't work? The damn reel won't kick back into gear! The reel casts a country mile and has a fantastic drag but when I'm done with a cast I have to kick it back into gear with my thumb. I'll open it up and figure out how I blew it I guess.

Ron

[Ron Jones]

Or,

I could use the search function and read that grease on the clutch mechanism can foul it up. This place is great, I'll give it a shot.

Ron

[redsetta]

 
Good luck Ron - let us know how you get on...

[alantani]

my chuckle for the day.  thanks for that!!!!!   

[Ron Jones]

Got it, sort of.

What a pain in the rear, so the part in issue was the right set plt. This basically holds everything together under tension and locates the AR bearing. If I torque the screws down tight the reel works without kicking out of gear when you turn the crank. If I leave the screws to the plate loose, their is excessive gear noise and the reel isn't smooth but it kicks out of gear like it's supposed to. It took about 5 tries, but I finally found the reels happy spot. It has about 30 seconds of free spool and it will cast bare 7# test! I don't hear a lot about fly lining live bait on Oahu, but I'm gonna load the reel with 20 pound braid and see if I can't find some top water action.

Really happy!

Ron

[Jimmer]

might want to try shimming that plate under the screws so you can crank them down tight without misaligning the components.