Reel Repair by Alan Tani

The beautiful 402, a prizefighter with a glass jaw.  I have personally destroyed many gearsets using just 17# mono!


This VS150 was on the bench, compare the gear teeth direction to the 402. All the reels are left hand crank.


Out of the Mitchell graveyard, I pulled the axle off a stripped out 402 main gear.


Also, I dug up a 403 main gear and removed its axle and swapped it with the 402.  Of course, the 403 pinion will be installed in place of the 402.


As far as the planamatics, I'm gonna put braid on it so the crosswind would not be necessary(?) It may even give a nice even line lay.


I'm a big fan of the 302 look, so I put the new gearset in a black housing, with only the red selector and power knob. The chrome handle weighs twice as much as the standard military issue.

  The down fall most times is small Main bearing with a grade  ABEC 3 .   Sloppy tolerances  and backlash will kill gears fast .

Good info modding 403 gears to work in a 402. What tools are you using to pull and re-press the gear back onto the axle? I wish they had made 402 gears out of bronze as in the bigger saltwater high-speeds, but like Joe said gear alignment is only as good as that single bearing holding it all together.

Can not figure-out why they put those shims up in there with the tiny rotor ball bearing? I wish I had the tools/skill to ream one out for a larger-especially thicker bearing.

Were they put that shim between the bearing and the bushing ?  I just slid on a new bearing onto a new pinion  and it was sloppy , there is no friction fit at the shoulder of the pinion
This movement is the pinion wobbling around , plus the bearing should go into the housing a little deeper for a good pinion mesh with the ring gear .  Or have a shim between bearing and pinion shoulder . When it is that sloppy and you put the main shaft in ,you can see how bad it is , and the backlash is terrible .

  I did ream the pocket deeper , now have full engagement with ring and pinion . Third picture and now have the main shaft tighter in the center and little backlash in the gears .
   
 I still going to play with this , I want dimple the pinion shaft for a tighter bearing fit . 
 

They used the oscillation slider to take up the slack in the bearing.

Looking forward to seeing if dimpling the pinion's a cure to rotor-rock.

Yeah, Joe. My post comment above was vague. I posted on the "beginners board" just now, about not doing just that thing: GUILTY as charged.😖.
Parts 81353 through 81355 from your posted schematic; ball bearing, ball bearing shield, and bushing. The set screws, parts 81406 & 81407 should help, or am I missing something?

Wonder if it would be possible to ream-out the upper body bushing and install a bigger/thicker ball bearing?

BTW, looking for any metal washers I can get for these reels, especially the drag-click washers. People have removed them in favor of carbon fiber washers and a drag with no-click sound. Send 'em to me, maybe I can trade for something.

  The main bearing is 9x17x4 mm  .  I am installing a 9x17x5 bearing . one millimeter longer or .038 thousands .  I am doing this so I can deepen  the bearing housing to get the pinion in better mesh .
  This casting need 30 thousands to make that happen ., I have checked two other housing and they were at different measurements altogether .  The two set screws needed to have points instead of just being flat to push the bearing forward with no shim in place .

            I also have to watch that the rotor does not get to high , or the line lay is going to get wacked out . But it is possible it will like braided line better than momo .

    OK this is how I cut the pocket deeper  .  Home made cutter  is a 1/2 socket 1/4 drive that fits in there .  grind the socket flat so you can glue 40 grit sandpaper to the socket . Use 1/4 driver to go back and forth . yes it does take a while !

Cool! Wanna see the end result.

Opinion/experience from others; what is stronger; a main gear for these reels with the planetary oscillation system or with only the single off-center post?