Reel Repair by Alan Tani

Hello everyone I am new to this board as well as reel repair so please pardon all my new-b questions which will be following.

I purchased 3 Penn Fathom 25n for my charter fishing business last year.  I am pleased with their construction but I have found a problem with their Eccentric and Eccentric Jack.  The eccentric jack  seems to be damaged (note the mark above oblong hole in jack). When putting the reel into gear from freespool,  the small pin on the eccentric is marking the eccentric jack . Eventually the eccentric slips by the jack and the reel cannot be put into gear.  On one occaision the little pin on the eccentric broke off completely. 



This occured on two different reels and I needed them to be replaced.  Today when I opened the third reel I found the same problem occurring ( see photo).  

Has anyone else had this problem?  I am going to a show next weekend and will talk with the  Penn folks and would like to hear any advice on what I should ask them?

Thanks for the help

We need a better photo.  Dominick

Best I can do on the photo.  The eccentric pin is hitting the jack near the right on the upper side of the oblong cut.  Just wondering if anyone else has seen this problem.  It has now happened on all 3 reels I have owned.

Quote from: Fullstrike on March 05, 2013, 09:51:49 PM
Best I can do on the photo.  The eccentric pin is hitting the jack near the right on the upper side of the oblong cut.  Just wondering if anyone else has seen this problem.  It has now happened on all 3 reels I have owned.

Sorry to hear you are having trouble. It sounds like the alloy that the Jack is made of is too soft as it does not have that additional cut in the USA made Torque that has the same design. There can be variance from various suppliers in overseas reels.

Penn should be more than willing to take care of this no charge and can probably plug in the USA stainless part if need be.

best

Sounds like a defect to me. I'd recommend posting your note on the Bloody Decks Penn Board and see what sort of response you get.

I wonder if this is a result of using the ARB's in these reels? I have noticed is if there is any load, even a slight one from say the weight of a surface iron like a Tady 45 hanging on the line while the reel is in gear, the reel is hard to put into freespool. You have force the Fathom 25N's eccentric lever back even with this slight load on the line. In order to not to have to force the lever back I make sure there is no tension, no matter how slight, on the reels spool when placing it into freespool.

There are a couple of ways I do this. First is if I bring a fish on board and it is time to place the reel into freespool I make sure there is no tension, only slack in my line when placing it into freespool. Because I use this reel to fish the surface iron the second thing I do is then I reel in the jig and it is time to put the reel into freespool and recast, I place my thumb onto the spool and move it back just a bit. By moving the spool back a 1/8-1/4 inch with my thumb takes all the load off of the spool making shifting into freespool much easy without having to force it back.

My 25N has only been fished twice and I have not noticed the wear you have on the eccentric jack as of yet. But, I'm sure yours have been fished more and possible by some inexperienced anglers where they might be forcing the lever back into freespool?

Whatever is the problem I'll make sure to keep a eye out for it in my 25N. Thanks for the heads up.

How old is the reel? All fathoms in South Africa got a free upgrade due to an ARB defect and some also had a problem with the jack. You just had to take your reel in to a shop and they replaced the sideplate with ARB and gear release system

Thanks for all the replies.  I do believe the Jack's metal is too soft when compared with the eccentric (which I believe is stainless).

I am going to bring a reel down to a fishing show this weekend in RI and show it too the Penn folks.  I will let you know what they say.

I really like the reel except for this problem so I hope they can come up with a solution.

Thanks again for the help.

Update:

I sent two of my four 25Ns to Penn for evaluation at their request.  I received a call last week that they have found a design issue and will be returning the reels fully repaired along with parts for my other two reels in a few days.  Once I see what they have done I will let you know what the problem was.

THe eccentric pin may also be short and be jumping out of the recess during fraction of a second that it takes flip the lever and engage. It could also be an excessive load applied by the ecc. pin on the jack due to bad design procedures for the lever mechanism. Then again, working on charter boats myself, it could be typical customer wear and tear (With some customers doing more tearing than wearing.) If the reel was fished straight from the box to the water, then that would expose another source of the failure. I service the reels for the boat that I work on and they still fail once in awhile, but with significantly less severity.

Penn has confirmed that the eccentric pin was indeed too short and has lengthened them.  When I received my reels back it appeared to me that they also redesigned the jack itself and it now appears to be made out of a different metal (perhaps SS).

I am very pleased with the service I received from Penn and am anxious to see if the new eccentric and jacks will hold up to charter fishing stress.

glad to hear it's being resolved. 

I'm impressed with Penn for handling this in this way.

I bought my last Shimano reel in about 1985, a TT30 with the canvas drag. The drag would lock up if it got even a mist of spray on it. I took it to the Shimano North America headquarters, and they blew me off. Carry a hair dryer? REALLY?

Although that may change, I've still never bought another Shimano reel since then.

I'm glad I ran across this thread.  I've been thinking about betting a used 25N and if it's an older one, this thread will be helpful.