Avet bearings & freespool question

[the rockfish ninja]

Hey folks, I'm a newbie with a question.

I own & love my Avet SX MC, after buying it *ALL* my Penns just sit. So because of having only one it got a lot of usage over this year. After noticing less casting distance and less freespool time, I broke it down, cleaned it up inside, removed the gunky grease from the bearings, re-lubed them with corrosion X, and re-greased the slow moving gears and parts. All done by the tutorial that Alan Tani posted on this forum, along with some other Avet related reading I've done.

The results are, I got it back together, it functions correctly in all ways, it cranks smoother, and freespool time doubled. But that's nothing to get exited about cause my freespool time was 7 seconds, now it's 14. I keep reading about people cleaning out the bearings re-lubing them with tsi321 or corrosion X and getting almost a minute of spin, do I have bad bearings? The reel is only a year old, could they be defective? I did notice that even though the reel functions smoother, I can hear the bearings more now when I test the freespool spin.

I did a pretty good job of following the steps of the tutorial, and cleaned and lubed the parts well, any suggestions?

[alantani]

pull out the bare spool assembly and see how well it spins.  you might have to replace the spool bearings.  and welcome!

[SoCalAngler]

The MC on the Avets always slow down the spool even when fully backed off. I don't own any Avets with the MC so I'm not sure if 14 seconds is good or not, I do know my SX without the MC and after service and fishing a few times I get a minute and 30 seconds of freespool with the reel loaded with line.

[the rockfish ninja]

The MC on the Avets always slow down the spool even when fully backed off. I don't own any Avets with the MC so I'm not sure if 14 seconds is good or not, I do know my SX without the MC and after service and fishing a few times I get a minute and 30 seconds of freespool with the reel loaded with line.

That does raise the question, Does MC equal less freespool & less distance? I've read people getting pretty good spin off these units, maybe any of the MC owners on this board can add some info. THX

If anybody out there has an Avet MC, what's your freespool time?

[AJ]

Remove the three screws that hold the right side plate on and you can remove it along with the entire spool assembly.  You should have two pieces, the frame (with the cast control magnet) and everything else.  You can now see how the spool spins without the cast control (be careful not to bend the spool shaft).

I use my JX Raptor to throw surface iron and get almost as much distance as with my Newell (using the same rod), without the occasional backlash.  There is some distance loss but the lack of backlash is a trade off I am willing to make, others are not.

Robb

[the rockfish ninja]

Thanks for the input, I'll probably do a field test with some lead, hooks & bait to see if what I've done so far gets me better distance consistently, then I'll test out what you and the Sensei suggest. If it's the mag, I may consider removing it and buying a non-MC for my 2nd reel, as I leave the setting at #1 all the time and rely on an educated thumb. I only backlash when I get careless and try to load up the rod too much during casts.

[AJ]

"I only backlash when I get careless and try to load up the rod too much during casts."

Me too, trying to get just a little further.

[Dr. Jekyll - AKA MeL B]

i have the MXJ MC and 14 secs is great. also have the SX and it seems that spool don't want to stop. my 2 cents...

[Jeri]

Hi  Guys

Been using a MXL MC for a good few years now, and in original format was just too 'safe', as the magnet system appears to be very restrictive, even on the lowest setting. A point here that might be relevant is that I use the reel for surf casting, so free spool and ease of acceleration are critical.

We took the magnet system out, and planed 0.1mm off the surface, as the magnet is in part 'proximity' controlling, and part 'polarity' controlling. So, by increasing the distance to the spool, we took off a lot of the restriction, but still have some magnetic braking. It casts like a dream now that we have done this conversion, spin time is about 45 seconds with the spool filled, which compared to an MXL (non-MC) is about 65 seconds.

Have found that the bearings do need fairly frequent maintenance, but that is probably the environment we are fishing in – loads of salt and dust. We really do load up these reels in the cast, and still get a few crow's nests when one goes wrong!!

If you go down this path of 'trimming' the magnet, take it in stages, and test at frequent intervals.

Hope that all helps.

Cheers from sunny Africa

Jeri

[the rockfish ninja]

OK, after breaking down the reel, cleaning & lubing, a field test, and taking the spool apart from the housing for a spin test these are my findings:

-My casting distance is still diminished to approx 30 yds avg from 50-80yds avg when it was in good working order. *Even though the thinner & faster corrosion X made is a bit quicker more hard to handle on backlashes, the sustained roll wasn't there to get the distance. Also the reel out of the box with the factory lube felt much smoother.

-It cranked well and the drag(dry) was smooth, brought in a perch and a couple 12" cabezon(released) during my test.

-I still only get 10-13 seconds of spin with the mag at it's lowest setting and when I took it apart again to test the spin without the magnet I got 25-30 seconds of spin.

-The reel is so basic and simple inside that the unit looks like $35 in raw materials, and the rest you're paying for their design. (Although some sort of plate or seal system to keep the salt & grit out of the gears and bearings would have made the design more bulletproof.IMO) Seems to me they should even be cheaper than they are, even though from what I see they're the best for the buck and I admit I love how they perform, or at least how my unit does *except for casting right now.

Which raises the questions:

-Are my bearings shot? or could there me some other factor that could make the reel feel fast off my thumb but not sustain the roll long enough to get the desired distance. I cleaned and lubed all the other parts.

-I only had the reel about a year, are the stock bearings so weak that they would fail so soon?

-If I used it approx 4-5 times a month for that time and only rinsed with fresh water after each use, without a relube, could it have made the bearings fail this soon?

-Until this came up I was planning on getting another, as far as I can see for the $ it's by far the best reel in that price range, but is this an Avet problem reoccurring kinda thing?

-Should I just quit whining and order some bearings from Avet or Boca? (Or is there some kinda funky-cool-space-age-technology-titanium-muchoasskicking-3milecasting-Australiandistancecompetion-kinda bearings that I don't know about?   ...OK OK I was just curious)

[AJ]

If you are using a lot of drag you may have used up the bearings (15# is MAX at strike).  Avet does not use as good a bearing as you get from Dawn or Boca.  Try new ones and see if that solves the problem.

[the rockfish ninja]

I see.... said the blind man.

It seems after, reassembling my SX, taking it out for a second field test, doing a little more reading about Avets in other forums, and reading AGAIN the owners manual concerning service & upkeep, I have come to the conclusions that I have:

-by far exceeded what Avet considers average usage. (15-20 fishings days per season?......HA!! Try 30-50)
-not maintained it enough based on my use and their guidelines
-need to replace the bearings at this point
-to get another avet if I'm not going use my old Penn's anymore.
-really got to be more anal on the upkeep of these modern reels.(my old Penn's are more durable &
resistant but don't do what the SX does.)

All that, and the fact I'm a shore rockfisher that horses rockfish, cabezon and lings out of their holes. My method is "give no quarter" fish hauling, I cast out a 3-4oz & bait, leave the lever at "full"(drag approx 10lbs), and as soon as I get a hit.. CRANK LIKE A MUTHA!!! till you get him to your feet or (sadly sometimes) he ducks into a hole. It's combat fishing, but it works, and I think it may be a little demanding for my poor little SX.

Does everybody agree with my assessment? 

[Jeri]

Hi 'Ninja,

Something I noticed when I started 'playing' with the MXL MC was that after I cured the over-achieving magnet, was that I could cast the reels without setting them at 'cast' position, as this was just too slow to let the reel accelerate.

At the beginning we just used the reel with standard factory greased bearings, and even with the magnet set to minimum, we found the reel way too slow to use for surf casting, hence the opinion that the magnet was over-achieving.

We trimmed the magnet down, and found that when used in total 'free spool position, the spool achieve the desired 'lively' status for surf casting, but was a little less wild than using a non-mag version.

What I have also found is that when I make a mistake and set the reel to 'cast', distance drops by the same order of magnitude as you are seeing. With the magnet versions, the 'cast' position becomes obsolete.

Since the early days of setting up the reel, we have serviced the bearings at reasonable intervals, and used some quite quick lubricants in the system, and found no adverse effects. Reel-X being one of the faster lubricants that we have tried on this reel – and no ill performance, except the expected shorter service intervals. The reel is used in quite extreme conditions in our surf fishing, easily over 50 outings a year, and no real problems. I have only used the same bearings as came fitted from the factory for over 2 years now, but then I fish with only about 8lbs of drag.

From your own admission, you are using it a fairly heavy drag settings, so it might be worth considering one of the larger Avets to get more drag potential, MXL or LX???

At this time I would suggest that you change the spool bearings, and for the sake of a few bucks, the pinion bearing – either AVET or some of the after-market options, and see where that gets you. Then if that gets you back to where you started, then you need to consider whether you are over-exerting the reel, and hence causing early bearing wear.

I assume that you haven't changed any of the other parameters in your casting like – rod, line level on the reel. These reels do go much slower when low line levels occur.

Hope that helps.

Cheers from sunny Africa.


Jeri

[SoCalAngler]

No not really trn. My pops lives in Baja and uses his MXL which has the same drags, gears and limitations as the SX and has fished his 7-8 years now and it only gets one service a year. I know this because I service his reels. He is pretty hard on his stuff as the reels get only a hose down when he washes his boat and he fishes pretty often. He may not use the reel every trip but it is on a rod in the rocket launchers ready to go when ever he feels like fishing it. At this point he has not needed any new bearings. I also have a JX 6/3 also around 8 years old, I think the first or second year with etched sideplates, and I have not needed bearings yet either. I do take better care of my gear though. I got a SX last year but it has only been on a few trips so no bearing issues.

We both set our drags with a spring scale to make sure we stay within Avet's specs so we don't cause pinion bearing issues. The problem you discribe sounds like spool bearing issue.

Their reels are pretty straight forward in their design and there is not really anything "modern" other the design of their dog.

The SXJ, SX, MXJ and MXL all use the same drags and gears. The only difference is the size of the reels and the yardage of line you can get on them.

[the rockfish ninja]

No not really trn. My pops lives in Baja and uses his MXL which has the same drags, gears and limitations as the SX and has fished his 7-8 years now and it only gets one service a year. I know this because I service his reels. He is pretty hard on his stuff as the reels get only a hose down when he washes his boat and he fishes pretty often. He may not use the reel every trip but it is on a rod in the rocket launchers ready to go when ever he feels like fishing it. At this point he has not needed any new bearings. I also have a JX 6/3 also around 8 years old, I think the first or second year with etched sideplates, and I have not needed bearings yet either. I do take better care of my gear though. I got a SX last year but it has only been on a few trips so no bearing issues.

We both set our drags with a spring scale to make sure we stay within Avet's specs so we don't cause pinion bearing issues. The problem you discribe sounds like spool bearing issue.

Their reels are pretty straight forward in their design and there is not really anything "modern" other the design of their dog.

The SXJ, SX, MXJ and MXL all use the same drags and gears. The only difference is the size of the reels and the yardage of line you can get on them.

I'm not sure what exactly the "No,not really" is directed at. My assessment of repl bearings?, my usage?, my service on my reels?, or what Jeri said?. Yes, the reels are very straight forward, but they are a lot more "modern" than the Penn beachmaster I've been using since 1978 or my Senator. Still I don't understand your point, are you saying to not replace the bearings? If not then what should I do if have these freespool & casting issues? I was getting a lot more distance with ease on the same setup a month or so ago.

You are correct about the drag levels of sx & mx, if that's what you meant?