Greetings from Australia!
Long time reader, first time poster. A bit of background:
I have a couple of the newer penn torque 30's which I use throwing large baits and lures off the rocks for jewfish or mulloway (look them up on the net, awesome fish!) I fish 50lb mono locked up, to its limit in gnarly country. Target fish are 6 to 60lbs.
Love the reels. They have to be tough to put up with the punishment, but also refined enough to cast jig heads down to 3/4oz. And they have to have the strongest gears, drags, frame etc.
My question - upon opening up the reels for servicing I noticed that pressure from the drag star appears to be applied through the bellviled washers onto the handle bearing (#55) and then onto the drag stack. Am I correct? Is this bearing essentially being squashed each time I crank down the drag?
Or am I misunderstanding the mechanics?
Enlighten me reel gurus!
Cheers,
Matt
Welcome to the forum.
I believe pressure is only applied to the center ring of the bearing, and the entire bearing shifts position as the pressure changes.
Yep, that was my understanding also. The pressure is transferred through the tiny copper shim onto the inner race of the bearing, and then down the gear shaft/stud to the large drag stack. Just seems like a very small surface to transfer a lot of force through. I fish these reels with bottomed down drag all the time. I wonder how long before damage to the bearing occurs?? It's been about 4 years so far.....
Is this a proven method? Any other reels have a set-up like this?
Cheers,
Matt
Hi Matt,
Agree with Nelz. this is a common design. As long as the force is entirely on the inner race, there is little to go wrong. The stuff to watch when using any modern star drag reel at high drag settings:
1. The pinion gear to spool junction. Unlike a lever drag, star drag reels apply the full load while the pinion goes through the process of engaging with the spool. Depending on the design, trying to free spool under load can be even worse. Free spool live baiting is the hardest on a star drag reel. If you are in gear when the fish hits, the forces are much more manageable, but this can still be a point of failure.
2. Dog/ratchet assembly. Drag settings, gear ratios and spool diameter all have a multiplier effect, and the force on the dogs typically goes into the hundreds of pounds at higher drag settings on these type of reels. The dog posts can get pushed out of alignment, dogs can twist out over/ under the ratchet, etc. It looks like the dogs float pretty high on the posts on this particular reel ( more of an engineering challenge to keep everything tight) so it might be worth it to watch this area.
3. Anti reverse bearing. After too many failures, manufacturers have pretty much quit relying on anti reverse bearings alone in the larger saltwater conventional reels. The force disussed above on the dogs is first applied to this bearing- too much force IMHO. In order for the "backup" dog/ratchet to kick in, the anti reverse bearing must slip, which means steel on steel scraping of the rollers. Also, these bearings cannot be greased and still function, so they are more prone to corrosion. There is a lengthy thread on this site where everybody made fun of me for posting the formulas for calculating dog and AR bearing loads for a given reel :)
4. Gear failure. This comes from the gears moving out of alignment, usually from cranking under load and/ or tooth ends shearing off from the force. With a handle shaft supported on both ends, and with larger stainless gears, I would expect that this will be less of an issue on this particular reel.
5. Handle arm /shaft junction. This can get worn from cranking under high load.
6. Reel foot leverage. Lots of force on the frame and reel seat. Reel clamps are not optional at high drag settings.
-J
Cheers J,
Good info. I had a look inside my saltist and saw that it's a similar setup & needed to keep the gear stud & everything in alignment. It just seems funny to me to have so force jammed into the skinny inner race of a bearing but hey - I'm no reel engineer! And I haven't killed it yet! Plus, it does seem very common & if it didn't work, no manufacturer would be doing it I guess...
The 1st gen TRQ's took a different approach to gear sleeve ball bearing. Too bad the new ones didn't inherit this (along with some other design features). IMHO, the most needed improvement was reducing the weight. BTW, I have a TRQ100 and love it, weight and all.
Anyway, as seen in the photo, the only gear sleeve ball bearing they used, fits inside the main gear and is under no pressure from the drag star, actually something I haven't seen done in any other reel.
(https://www.mysticparts.com/Assets/images/pennparts/technical/torque/trq300_guide_11.jpg)
(Photo by Maureen Albertson, Penn Parts Dept. ©Scott's Bait & Tackle)
Quote from: nelz on August 03, 2017, 11:49:50 PM
.........the only gear sleeve ball bearing they used, fits inside the main gear and is under no pressure from the drag star, actually something I haven't seen done in any other reel.
if Im not wrong, Baja Special reel (the upgraded generation) was using that same ball bearing inside the main gear.
the next picture is not showing that really clear, but the bearing aroung the shaft sleeve is the one inside the main gear
Not surpised, TRQ and Baja are very similar in drive-train design.