A couple weeks ago I picked up a Newell S229-5 for $80. Pictures showed the reel to be in good shape but the previous owner had spooled 65 lb braid on it. Prior conversations with Alan regarding my 332's and braid told me this braid had to go. I recently got into cleaning some old reels thoroughly, picking out all the old grease and cleaning up shafts and gears. These were old Daiwa spinning reels and they really came out nice. I decided to do a light cleaning on this 229, noting that it does have the long screws that can be a problem. Fortunately they came out with out a problem. I cleaned them up with rubbing alcohol, and ran small wooden swab handle through the shafts that the screws live in, in bright light, the insides looked pretty clean before I put a bit of Penn blue grease in them and gave the screws a coat. Also put a bit of grease in the threaded parts that the screws thread into. There was a tiny bit of yucky rust on the inside of the chrome rings but I cleaned it out and applied a bit of grease there too. Lubed the bearings with a few drops of reelX oil. The reel seems to freespool pretty good now, and the drag seems ok by a finger to spool test. Any adjustments on the spool tension screw on the side to help free spool? Im going to fill it with 20 lb mono, the addded mass of the line may help the free spool. Over all I am pretty pleased with the condition of this reel, hope to put it to work fishing sea bass, calicos and surface fish this summer.
if you haven't already, polish the spool shaft that goes through the pinion gear and the inside of the gear itself. i use #1000 wet/dry sandpaper for this. then make sure the pinion spins freely on the spool shaft.