Friend has an 870 lefty he bought on eBay. Reel seems to perform fine minus the drag. I tried fishing it but could not find an adequate range of drag settings. Instead, the slope of settings goes from very little drag to too much once I pass the strike button. To avoid this heavy drag I need to set the drag so low that anything before the first button is useless and then the problem with too much drag after the first button persists.
Anyone have this problem or know of a solution ? I emailed accurate and this is what Kristin wrote back: "The 870 is an older reel that might need to be maintained. You can have your friend send it into us for service so we can clean and lube as well as replacing any bearings necessary. I've attached the service form so he can send that in with the reel."
Before I send it to accurate I want to know if there's anything I can do.
Thank
Joe
This can be cause by lots of things. If it is a used reel without known maintenance, I'd guess that the belleville washers are rusted together so they can't smoothly compress as drag is increased. This is just a guess...
I would agree agree this sounds like a dead spring issue making the drag adjustment less linear. Could be damaged Belleville or missing entirely
This is typical of the drag cam in these old boss reels. To change it, you have to grind down the cam to change the slope of the cam.
I read a similar post a while back about the slope of the cam being too steep. I will break the reel down and look at it. Hopefully it's a frozen or missing Belleville. If it isn't where could I get the cam ground?
no bellevilles to soften the progression of the drag in these reels. for the cam, it needs to be filed by hand. it's very tedious. you might call accurate and get a couple of extra to play with first.
Those old Accurates went from zero to strike with nothing in between. Better to think of them as a star drag rather than a lever drag.
Quote from: MarkT on August 30, 2017, 04:44:31 PM
Those old Accurates went from zero to strike with nothing in between. Better to think of them as a star drag rather than a lever drag.
Ding, ding, ding I think we have a winner here.
Yep like most lever drag reels the ramp up is fast then you go past strike but in the older Boss models it is more like, super fast.
That's why I set my drag at 1/4 to 1/3 at strike on LD reels. That way if I ever have to go past strike I know it's a oh no moment and either bust off the fish or stop it in a very short time.