I bought a beautiful 533 in like new condition. It has new CF washers but along with the gears etc being coated with Penn Blue, the previous owner used Penn Blue on the CF washers as well. I have Cal Purple, can I just wipe off the Penn Blue from the washers and re-coat with Cal Purple or do I need to get new CF washers and start over? Also is Cal Purple good for CF washers or do I need to get the tan formula? Thanks in advance
You can just wipe them off the best you can and apply Cal's.
I've ran into this before as well, and the drag worked fine afterwards.
I use the tan Cal's, but if purple is all you have, I'm sure it will work just fine.
I believe Penn uses the same blue grease on their drag washers so it's not terrible, and you do not need to replace your drag washers.
If I don't know if the grease is Cal's (Tan or purple), I clean it off with brake cleaner, dry and regressed with Cal's.
Hi - I'm with Bryan - if I don't know what grease has been used I clean with solvent (your choice) then grease with Cals/Shimano or similar.