I recently bought a box of old Mitchells - their condition ranging from pretty run-down to downright miserable ;D
Today I started with the 406, which at first glance looked only battered. But when I tried, the handle and the anti-reverse lever wouldn't move even a millimeter
Inside I found plenty of dirt, rust, and corrosion. So my usual first step: a thorough cleaning with white spirit. That wasn't enough, though - a wire brush was required. After brushing and polishing, the parts looked much better.
The main problem turned out to be the bearing. Two steel balls were missing (easy enough to replace), but the real issue was that the lower plate of the bearing was extremely worn. It slid too far down the pinion gear, leaving about a millimeter of the rotor shaft exposed above the bearing.
Since I couldn't find a good solution, I decided to sacrifice another reel from the box - a 316. It shares the same body as the 406 and 306, and the same gears as the 306 (but without the planetary gear). I considered the 316 unrestorable anyway, so I had no hard feelings using it as a donor. Unlike the 406, which has a brass bushing plus a roller bearing, the 316/306 only use a brass bushing. Luckily, the bushing fit perfectly.
But even with this fix the reel didn't work properly. When cranking, the gears jammed every few turns, and cranking backwards was noticeably harder than forwards. Maybe the gears weren't fully compatible with the bushing, or perhaps there was wear I couldn't diagnose (the pinion gear/rotor shaft wobbled slightly inside the bushing).
So, I swapped in the gears from the 316 as well - and with those, the reel worked perfectly. I did, however, combine the 316 gears with the planetary gear from the 406. So basically, I ended up with a 306 disguised as a 406.
The spool clicker was missing, so it was also taken form the 316.
Anyway, the reel now cranks smoothly, the drag is working fine, and even the line roller spins again. Although I'm not exactly a fan of "Frankenstein" reels, it still makes me happy to have restored one more piece that's now ready to catch fish.