Hello everyone, about a year ago I bought an avet hx single, avet says 22#at strike and 28#at full. well mine at 14#handle got a little stiff full was around 20#, handle real stiff, got mad and just put it away for about a year, also this reel has never been used, got bored up here in the snow last week and called dawn and ordered a 2 pinon bearings, changed the pinon bearing and the reel is workable at 14#strike with 20#full but thats it any more and its coming apart. Avet must think if you can crank the handle at all, hey its good. 289$ lesson learned.
id say you have a bad right side plate bearing. the more you ramp the drag up the harder to crank. sounds crazy being the reel is new.
without a thrust bearing underneath the right main side plate bearing, that is all you will ever be able to achieve. and there is not enough room for a thrust bearing. :-\
Just so everyone knows, pionon bearing is 6mm 17mm 6mm same as raptor hx and iam guessing the rest of the hx line, good deal on new reel.
Alan why could you not get a thrust/angular contact bearing in that size for a total replacment of the stock pinion bearing? This is what I have thought about for my JX 6/3 and the size in inches I have for the pinion bearing is .250 x .625 x .195