Broken Drive Screw on a Penn 650SS

[Alto Mare]

The older 650-750 & 850SS usually have a drive screw to hold the main gear in place through the bearing and housing ...good design, today you don't see those.
The right side still had this screw installed, so I thought it was the pivot that snapped off on the left and I said to myself how could that have happened? ... it was the drive screw.
What I believe happened here was that the owner was trying to remove the drive screw so he could install  the handle from right to left, but didn't realize that the threads on those are counter-clockwise .
Here are some shots:
From the looks of this reel, this must have happened at the beginning of life, this reel wasn't fished much...if any

here is a shot of the broken screw in the main gear

I drilled a 1/8" hole at low speed, put a tap to it and success, it came right out

reel is good as new

I hope this will be helpful in case some of you run into the same situation.
Sal

[harryk3616]

good  morning   sal        good job, thanks for the info, nice reel enjoy.   harryk

[Dr. Jekyll - AKA MeL B]

I hope this will be helpful in case some of you run into the same situation.
Sal

FOR SURE!

[Cone]

Good job, Sal. I have two 850ss reels with the drive screw and one that was missing it when I got it. I never bothered to replace it. It works fine.  I never intend to change the handle side anyway. You have to love these reels. Not many modern ones would still be working after this many years.   Bob

[basto]

Interesting to see they went from 4.8 to 4.7 in the gear ratio of 650ss to 6500ss. Never noticed that before.

[Alto Mare]

Interesting to see they went from 4.8 to 4.7 in the gear ratio of 650ss to 6500ss. Never noticed that before.

Yes, very interesting. I've never noticed it...you got too much time in your hands Basto .
It might be that some uptight person actually tested the reel with some fancy equipment and that's what he came up with, I'm thinking a miss print . It doesn't really mean much though, it wouldn't even be noticeable when using it.
All of my 650ss & 6500ss spools have 4.8:1.
Here is another surprise, last year I purchased a couple of 750M spools, I don't own those reels, the spools will also fit the 7500ss.
I purchased a couple of decals for the 7500ss, when I carefully removed the 750M decal from the spool, the 7500ss was already there, nice and shiny.
Sal

[Cone]

I didn't catch it either. My 6500ss has 4.8-1 on the side sticker. Great to know about the spools. I have never tried to put one on my reels. The decal underneath would be a real surprise!
Bob

[Irish Jigger]

Nice work there Sal. Well engineered reels those, especially the ones with the bronze gearing.

[MFB]

Re replacement spools see link  http://www.pennfishingstore.com/penn-7500ss-spool.html.

Rgds

Mark