Abu Garcia Legacy Ambassadeur 5000 -- What Gears Fit?

[Josh Smith]

Hi Folks,

I am rebuilding an Ambassadeur 5000 that was my dad's.  He had installed high speed gears in it, I believe 4.7:1. 

I'm looking for those gears for another 5000.  I think swapping in gears from an old 5500c will work. 

Does anyone know the part numbers for the drive and pinion gears?  And if the 5500c gears will work, do you know if I can go up to 5.3:1 or am I limited to 4.7:1?

Thank you,

Josh

[Josh Smith]

Hello,

I've had 36 views on this but nobody has answered.  I guess that means there's interest but no "reel" knowledge (get it?  hehe)

I'll use this thread, then, to chronicle the build.

The base for this build is a 1974 Ambassadeur 5000.  The original foot number was 740102.

I have on order the following:

•  4530 pinion gear, as specified by 1979 diagram of the 5500C
•  4528 drive gear, as specified by the same diagram
•  2x #5230 bearings, 10mm OD x 4mm x 3mm ID
•  Spool for a 5000c

I also ordered some regular bushings for my other reel like this.  I figure I'll ball bearing one 5000 and keep the other pretty much stock.  I still need to order a ball bearing worm gear kit.

The above items should turn my old 1974 into a ball bearing, 4.7:1 geared bass reel.

My preferred all-around gear ratio is 4.7 to 5.3 to one.  I have faster reels and they have their uses, but for me, the old Ambassadeur reels with the then-fast gears and power handles are what I need.

Will update when the rest of the parts come in.

Regards,

Josh

[Shark Hunter]

The knowledge is here Josh. The right person just hasn't seen it yet. If it were any type of penn reel. You would have had a least a dozen replies. Check out some of the Abu tutorials and see if you can find someone to send a pm to and ask. After you have been here a while. You will know who to ask.

[Ken_D]

Hi, Josh.....you will not get a 5.3-1 ratio with a 2-washer main gear. The 5.3 is available from the time Abu provided the sideplate with the hump on the drive side, when the "ultracast" reels came on board.. for the common 35-45-55-65 and derivative round reels,
Abu went from 3.8 up to 4.7 in the very late 70's early 80's some time. Here's a list of reels produced from the 60's on into the early 2000's, I'll hunt up the link, when I re-find it.  

Edit in: I suspect the list is in error when the u/c reels came in at 5.3-1: the list appears to show 4.7-1 ratios at that time. But that does not affect your project. Cheers, KD.

And your 5500 adds appear to be solid, should work fine.  

If you ordered actual 5230's, they prolly ran you about 15.00 a pop. Boca Bearings has a sleeve of 10 of them for 9.99 total and stamps. For the future, QST, AST, VXB, Boca, all have good bb's for about 1/2 to  3/4 less than ones from Abu.  There's nothing wrong with 52100 high chrome alloy bb's...in the fresh water. Even SS bb's will rust in the salt, if not watched. The inner cage holding the balls in place is usually ferrous, not stainless, and rusts.

http://www.nutterrodandreel.com/pdf/Abu%20Garcia/old/5500c%20790804.PDF
  http://www.realsreels.com/ABu%20Reals%20Bob%20Hulme.pdf     

[foakes]

Great information, Ken!

Best,

Fred

[Ken_D]

Thanks, Fred...Ya, Wayne Real's page is very informative.   Cheers, Ken.

[alantani]

Hello, I've had 36 views on this but nobody has answered.  I guess that means there's interest but no "reel" knowledge (get it?  hehe)

been on vacation and just saw this post.  i have several sets of ambassaduer gears, but i'm not sure which ones fit which reels.  usually what happens is that a reel comes in with damaged gears and i have to visually match them up.  calipers help alot.  they have to be ordered if i do not have them in stock.  if you are talking about switching gears around from one speed to another, you'll have to find someone that has actually done that work and kept notes.  usually that means going to the manufacturer or finding someone that specializes in that particular reel.  the only person in the world that i personally can think of off the top of my head that has that level of expertise is Ken_D. 

for the rest of us, servicing the reel is not a problem.  i've gone through a dozen a month in the last 15 years.  i would still not be able to tell you which gears specifically fit which reels, other than the ones on the schematics.  so, basically there is one guy that can help you with this question and it looks like you got him! 

[Ken_D]

Hi, Alan, hope you had a refreshing holiday. you know it was good, when it's over before it begins. I think we have solved the issue on the gearsets, as per the post above linking to Bob Hulme's spread sheet.

There is a slight side bar to the thread, and that is: if sports want to drop down to a winch situation, from either a 6.3 or 5.3, there is one set still possibly available before they go D (delete when all sold) then go nla (no longer avail because all sold), For the ultra cast reels.
The winch ratio is the older 3.8-1 ratio, for sports wanting stump removal capabilities at the expense of retrieve time.
the Winch gearset is seen in an earlier 5000 reel.

But it's a 2 washer main gear, not a 3 washer setup. It is one of the transition deals, from fixed axle to u/c spools.  If a rodster is interested in that, I'll dig up the drawing. It's buried deep within the bowels of the 5000 collection. Cheers, Ken.

[Josh Smith]

Hi Folks,

I'm sorry I've not been around.  Work is hectic, and I've had to wait for parts to come in.

I have done some reading on "super tuning" reels.  I appears that it's just what I've done to my stuff for years.  I had no idea it had a name.

It turns out the 5500 pinion gear was declared obsolete and is no longer available.  The replacement, the 5500c pinion gear, takes a slightly different spool than the 5000.  Of course, the 5500c has bearings, so the whole reel got turned into a 5500c.

I kept the older 5000 as a bushing reel.  It has the older set of speed gears in it, so there's no reason to shift over.  I did order new bushings for it and got around to "super tuning" it, and I swear I got 10 more yards out of it.  Before, on the Daiwa Spinnerbait Rod "by Bill Dance," a pistol-grip one-handed rod, I was getting about 30-35 yards with the stock reel.  After "super tuning" I'm now getting 35-40 yards with a 1/2oz weight.

This is up with the longer 6'6 medium and 7' MH rods I have, one with a Quantum reel, and the other with the 5000/5500c hybrid build using the same weights.

I flat don't understand these new rods.  I never got tired casting one-handed.

Lube is 0w-30 Mobile Synthetic on bearings and bushings.  Protectant and lube for gears that don't move during the cast is lanolin.  I use that stuff to protect guns a lot and it works well.  All other moving parts (free spool button and associated works) got a blast of Fluid Film, which is an aerosol lanolin suspension that's much lighter than straight lanolin.

I'll never fit an anti-reverse bearing in any of those older reels, but I might be able to put in a regular ball bearing.  It looks like it would just fit with a bit of opening up.  I'll have to measure carefully to make sure that I have enough meat.  If I don't, I'll not be trying it.

This is really fun, and is much more like gunsmithing than I originally remembered.

The biggest challenge really is to find the parts that interchange. 

One 5000 reel has seen the lake since and it performed very nicely.  I was grateful for those 4.7:1 gears as I hooked a largish bass that was intent on tangling me up in cover and I had to winch it out.  I've rarely had a MH fast rod bent double, but this one sure did it!  I'd read Tom Mann's book Think Like a Fish in which he describes his trick for making bass jump in the boat, and sure enough, I got that bass to jump towards me on a run.  It jumped clean out and I was able to get it over to the bank by reeling in the slack.  'Twas fun!

The other 5000, the one with bearings, was been tested as much as I can out back and passed with flying colors, so I'll be taking it out next time I go!

I acquired a 5000c in a trade.  It's purty, has fast gears installed, and is in the middle of getting this "super tune" treatment.  I'm also waiting on a new, larger handle, and probably should replace the bearings.  I'll see how they run first.

One thing I'm noticing about these 5000 and 5500 reels is that with the diameter spool they have, they do about the same inches per turn as my 5.3:1 reels with smaller spools, and the smaller spools are less consistent with distance.  The 5000 and 5500 reels do a measured 22ipt or so.

The next reel I'm going to be looking at will be a 5500c3 with the spool that rides on bearings.  I do need a slightly faster reel for some applications, and the 5600Mag I have is just a little big for my tastes. 

Ken and Alan, thank you for the information.  I'll add it to the notes. 

I build sights, trigger sets, and a couple other things.  My shop is small.  I'm accumulating reel parts now.

It's a really good thing a larger shop is in the plans, dangit!

Regards,

Josh

[Ken_D]

I'll never fit an anti-reverse bearing in any of those older reels, but I might be able to put in a regular ball bearing.  It looks like it would just fit with a bit of opening up.  I'll have to measure carefully to make sure that I have enough meat.  If I don't, I'll not be trying it.

If memory serves, the spacer (white, black, tall, thin) that takes the space between the driveshaft and the boss on the sideplate is the same diameter over time. The ball bearing used in the first C3's takes the place of the spacer. You should be able to drop the bb in, but remember you need the bb shoulder spacers to permit free rotation.

They used two designs of those, again, if memory serves.  Last time I saw one of the first C3's was over 10 years back, so I have not looked at the drawings since. I'll hit send, then rummage about the schematic collections, and link to the specs.  You will save some coin from the watchpocket in your jeans if you source the bb from vxb, boca, etc, rather then Abu. The shoulder spacers, tho, are not a jobber item, so you need to either make those, or buy Abu.

http://www.nutterrodandreel.com/pdf/Abu%20Garcia/1991-92/6500c3%2089-1.PDF   This one uses the 2 shoulder spacers.

http://www.nutterrodandreel.com/pdf/Abu%20Garcia/1993/5500c3%209903.PDF     This one uses the star as the top shoulder.

You might have to mix and match to get everything to fit into the sideplate, (to avoid the crank binding as cranked) as you have no hump to increase room for tall...by using only 1 belleville, one shoulder washer, and that star, deleting some the original copper and chrome spacers, yada.

[Josh Smith]

Hi Ken,

Lots and lots of work and learning have been done. 

All my 5000 reels but one are 5 bearing reels now: two spool, one cog, two worm, and one crankshaft.

The crankshaft takes a 10mm OD x 8mm ID x 4mm thick bearing.  Washers are "skateboard speed washers" I found on eBay.  They work perfectly and are designed for the same role in skateboards as in the reel crank.

I'm finding that the bearing further in against the drag plate works best, and since the drag plate is a bit rounded, it centers the bearing more securely than the drive shaft alone.  Using no skateboard washer between the drag plate and bearing works best.  Add one skateboard washer on the handle side of the bearing, and then add two (2) drag spring washers for more drag range.  (They'll fit now!)

Just got a 5500c3 that I've been through, and that thing is most awesome now.

Lovin' my Ambassadeurs!

Josh