Reel Repair by Alan Tani

Way back when ball bearing reels were first becoming popular ABU did their own assessment and concluded that bushings gave the same performance in their baitcasters.  They eventually had to make the transition because of the popular enthusiasm for the very idea of ball bearings.

I quit using the balls (and modern reels in general) because of maintenance issues in a hostile environment.  Lots of salt and the occasional dunk.  Dunk a ball bearing baitcaster and you will absolutely be going inside that reel soon.  During normal use (splash but no dunking) I would get a half dozen trips out of them before a disassembly.   Frequent disassembly of modern reels takes it's own toll, especially if there are screws threaded into plastic.

With bushings and a simple design, all it takes is a good oiling through the external ports.  Maybe an occasional washing if you're the fastidious type.

I wonder why nobody ever made a spindle ball bearing that could be easily removed for cleaning through the outside of the head plate..

My 1st Bait caster was a bantam 10xsg bought as a combo on my 1st TDY on a Guard base at the BX in 1986.I still have it and
Replaced the bushings with BB Thought I was making it better at the time...I may still have the bushings somewhere.

Quote from: jgp12000 on September 18, 2024, 10:08:28 PMReplaced the bushings with BB Thought I was making it better at the time...I may still have the bushings somewhere.

there are many of us that have made that "mistake", even modern casting reels have plastic bushings on strategic places and many have found that replacing it for a BB was unnoticeable and with no gain on casting, i.e. the white nylon bushing on the right side plate for the spool shaft on the diawa saltist 20h 1st gen

I first got an attitude about ball bearings from old used Penn's. I noticed former owners didn't keep-up on maintenance and I would have to deal with difficult removal issues from corroded cups if I wanted to replace them. All of them that I recall, except for a little-used 210, needed replacement.
The gear side b.bearings on the larger Senators were only serviceable by a complete tear-down of that side. So I can't really blame former owners for Penn's bad design. I've noticed the b.bearings in the cup were no longer available from Mystic for many Penn's.
I have a 1/0 and 2/0 with the easy maintenance bushings as well as many other Penn models and a few Ocean City's. And I've never noticed that a Penn or O.C. bushing was worn-out on any of the used reels I've owned.
The best ball bearings I've had on a conventional were the one's Tom had available on some of his Cortez Classic tail-plate models; thumb screw cups, very easy to adjust and easily removable.

Fred, thank you. That actually helps me a lot. I believe we are talking about the 3x10x4 spool end bearings and that's awesome.

I've looked at the catalogs and that doesn't seem to be a standard size brass or bronze bushing so DAM and Shimano must have made them for the purpose. The bantam also has a 5x11x4 Bearing as well, which is also not a standard size for brass or bronze. That's the other one to track down.

I've gone and looked at what the abu cardinals used and it's a bit bigger. Which makes sense because a 5mm wide pinion... Would make for a very fast spinner even with a small main.

Apparently sintered bronze can be machined pretty well. Maybe I'll have to beg one of our resident machinists to make a few sets.

How many would you like, Jason?

I'll send them out today.

Best, Fred

Quote from: foakes on September 19, 2024, 02:33:56 PMHow many would you like, Jason?

I'll send them out today.

Best, Fred

Any more than 3 sets would be me just being greedy. I'll PM you my address again.

Much appreciated 👍

Will do, I'll send out (4) sets.

On the way now.

Best, Fred

I guess if you ever opened up a bantam you have seen the t-iny magnets in those guys,I dont see how they did anything? Are they still available.Mine has been retired in the shop attic for a while,could it be another BFS reel

Quote from: Hytekrednek on September 18, 2024, 05:46:21 PMIn the past year or so I have upgraded several of my old bantam reel, plus a few other older reels. Swapping bronze bearings for ball bearings of a high grade, and putting in carbon drag disk. The ball bearing seem to help a good bit with casting lighter baits, not a lot of difference casting heavier stuff that flies good.

that was my experience as well - on several Lews Speedspools which is the same reel as the Bantam, they came with the bronze bushings and I put in ceramics. The ceramics are much better for light lures which is all I ever cast, made the reel capable of throwing 1/6oz easily, 1/8 with care. No real difference noticeable above 1/4oz.

One reel repairer here converted reels to use Teflon bushes, on the understanding they were slicker than anything under the sun, he obviously made them.

Same result as for others, un measurable gain for the caster and measurable wallet gain for repair man.
I don't think he was dishonest, just selling to gullible anglers.

This was a long time ago, perhaps there are even better materials around these days?

Quote from: jurelometer on September 18, 2024, 09:14:28 PMThe one downside to plain bearings is that they do not adapt to misalignment as well as ball bearings. And ball bearings are so inexpensive and popular now, making a reel with poor alignment and stuffed full of ball bearings makes good business sense if you are cynical enough.

With the potential for better alignment with modern machined aluminum frames and sideplates, perhaps it is time to give plain bearings another look. 

I agree with Cornelius.  IMHO, most fishermen would be better off with sintered plain bearings.

I saw a baitcaster advertised recently with "revolutionary high-tech polymer" maintenance -free bearings,  which were simply common Rulon plain bearings. Not a bad idea for a bass reel, but I would go with sintered bronze for larger stuff. But for a Bantam, Rulon would be fun to try.

-J

Anyone ever try the Newell "upgrade" bushings made to fit many of the Penn models? I had a pair but never got the chance to test them vs Penn stock bushings.

Okay.  I am going to scratch my itch and dive a bit deeper on what I learned about plain bearings.  I am not trained in this stuff, just read up on it for some projects that I was working on:

Teflon has really low friction but terrible mechanical properties for a bearing.  Rulon (Teflon with glass and/or carbon fibers added) has extremely low friction and much better mechanical properties.

Rulon also has the  strange behavior of coefficient of friction decreasing with increase in load and/or surface speed (RPMs in our case), so the best performing Rulon bearing is the one with the smallest surface area for the load capacity.  Strange stuff.

When looking at plain bearing specs, you care about coefficient of friction, max pressure (radial load in our case) and max velocity (RPMs in our case).  You usually care about something called the PV rating which is combines pressure and velocity.  But with reels, we only have peak velocity when  casting, and that is not under much load. So mostly CoF and max pressure...

You can do a bit of rudimentary math to figure out the surface area of the bearing contact area to determine if you are within your drag capacity for load.  RPMs should be fine for Rulon.

Here is a table with the specs:

https://www.tstar.com/RULON-COMPARISON-CHART

Sintered bronze (Oilite) bearings tend to handle a bit more load, but even Rulon should be plenty strong enough.  If you don't want to do the math, go look at the max load ratings for Rulon and Oilite bearings at McMaster-Carr.  Remember that the load is distribute across both spool bearings on a casting reel.

As noted before in this thread, unlike ball bearings which can shift a bit on the races to accommodate some misalignment, plain bearings adapt to misalignment by wearing unevenly, and the amount of friction on unaligned plain bearings is going to be much higher.

The key to good performance with plain bearings is good alignment.  The tried and true  materials have excellent low friction properties.  IMHO, the better performance that some folk see with ball bearings is probably more due to adapting to misalignment than the coefficient of friction of the plain bearing material.  And Rulon should kick it up a notch from Oilite if the reel was well aligned.

As for the Newell speed bearing/bushing:  It looks like an injection molded part.  Considering the era and the size of the manufacturer, I would put my bet on Delrin, which has pretty good frictional and decent load properties, but is not going to wear well on a stock Jigmaster with the frame and spindle flexing under higher load....  But failure is gradual and not catastrophic, so you just need a box of them, and kee replacing...

-J

  I will say , if you pay attention to the details of disassembly and reassembly of your reels a bushed reel will be silky smooth . A little blue printing helps ..

Fred, they arrived Saturday but I didn't see them til yesterday. Thank you!