After gaining confidence from rebuilding a number of reels from the tutelage of Alan Tani and others, I decided to try changing the drag washers on an older Daiwa SLT30. The problem with the reel, or so I thought, was that you would have to push both drag levers almost to max before the drag seemed to slow or stop the spool from spinning. I downloaded a copy of the reel schematic from Mikes reel repair and ordered the different drag washers and installed them according to the schematic. After assembly was complete there was no noticeable change in the performance of the drag. In other words, this reel will not apply light to medium drag pressure, only full. I would sincerely appreciate any advice or feedback to help me resolve this problem and get this reel back fishing.
Listed below is a link that illustrates the reel in question.
http://alantani.com/index.php?topic=2659.0
it might be a matter of grinding the cam down to apply less pressure as the lever ramps up forward. not sure, though. :-\
Please don't do that just yet.
You might prefer to have a look at the belleville washers first, to the right of the spool. There should be four, and they go ()(). The symptoms you describe could becaused by them being omitted or intalled in the wrong order.
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I have a SLT30 also if you do not have the correct SLT30 schematic as Daiwa made 2 different reels with that SLT30 model, send me a private message with your email or fax # and I will send it out to you.
Also check if the cam is in correctly not 180 out.
Joel