Shimano Tiagra 130 Service Question

Started by Tightlines667, January 02, 2016, 04:30:30 PM

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Tightlines667

I just received PM from a fellow AT member regarding a service he is doing on an old, first Gen. Tiagra 130.  Thought I would start a thread with his question and my response (in hopes that it might help someone else).  

Here is his question...

"Hey sorry to bother you again but I've got another set of questions. I finished the 80 and now I'm doing a 130. The drag on this reel felt a bit jerky the last time I used it. We hooked a decent fish and fought it for an hour and a half. Drag was set at 45lbs. The start up drag was jerky but once it got going it was okay. When the fish slowed down it became jerky again. There is some wear on the washer but I've seen worse. It looks like some of the texture has become worn/flattened. I know that Alan says they are good forever but I'm wondering if this one should be replaced. My friend with the VSXs has super smooth drag.

Another thing I noticed about this reel is that there are a ton of silver shims. There is one on the bearing inside the non-handle sideplate, there are two on the drive shaft, two in the spool under the drag plates, one on the opposite bearing in the spool. One on the pinon bearing. They are all same. I don't ever recall seeing this many in a reel before. The guy who sold me these reels claimed that they were serviced by a local shop. I'm thinking perhaps they added a bunch but that I should remove some.

Last, two of the bearings have crushed shields. I didn't see any retaining ring in these bearings (this is an older one with a gold handle). I'm used to the Tiagras with the unshielded bearings. Do you just have to pry those out or am I SOL.

I can send you a pics if you have an email"

and my ever lengthy response...

"My Email is: blufin10@msn.com if you wanted to send a few pictures.

Regarding the 130 drag..

I would pull the drag washer off of the pressure plate and ensure that the plate itself is perfectly true.  You can use a straight edge (like the metal caliper arm or bar stock) to go across the plate, shine a light from behind as you move it across the surface and make sure there are no noticeable gaps (high or low spots) or corrosion.  If there are it needs to be replaced.  Ensure the drag plate is not scorred (if you cam feel the ridges with your finger, or a SS pick hangs up on them.. replace it.  Also pull it and make sure it us mounted flat on the spool, and that it is flat (not warped, no high/low spots).  You can clean the drag washer with brake cleaner and try to work the weave back up with a clean dry cloth in circular motions, but if you can notice any appreciate I able wear here, I would replace it.  I would also measure the Belleville stack height, and replace the stack with new ones (new stack height should be within +/- 0.3mm of old).  I know these drag components can get pricy.  It is critical that the pressure plate, and drag plate are not warped and are perfectly true and flat.  Sounds like the previous guy who serviced the reel shimmed to account for drag wear.  So it is likely a good candidate for a new drag washer.

As far as the shimming goes..

Leave the 2 undergear shims in place.  When reassembling, check to ensure there is no appreciable in/out play in the handle assembly, and that it shifts smoothly and that the gears line up or are meshing without any bumping.  Just put the spool in place on the assembled headplate crank and shift the gears.  If it is smooth your good here.  Try this with the pinion bearing shim removed, and the preset turned to where you typical fish the reel'service drag at strike (maybe 1-1.5 full turns in?).  If everything turns ando meshes smoothly, leave the shim out.  The other shims can likely be removed if you replaced the drag washer.  Just check to make sure the drag washer clears the drag plate (i.e. assemble the headplate, and spool, shaft, and drag components without the left spool bearing shims, leave the heatshield off, drop the spool in place and rotate the spool, if the drag clears leave the shims out).  Other thing to check is the left plate ratchet clearance/dog allignment.  Drop the ratchet in place over the nonshimmed bearing with dogs installed.  Ensure it rotates freely with some downwards pressure and engages the dogs squarely.  If it does remove the shim.  Test the reassembled reel for max effective drag before loss for freespool, if you have freespool issues, you may need to reshim or adjust Belleville stack height.  Test the drag to ensure it is smooth, test shifting, and test gear and bearing smoothness by applying light drag, holding the spool still and cranking slowly under pressure in high and low gear.

Sounds like a lot to check, but actually it's not that bad.  You could just pull all the shims (except under gear), replace the drag washer, and bellevilles.  Reassemble, (cross your fingers) and test the reel.  If there are any problems, you need to backpedal and test subassemblies and spacing to correct.  These Reels have relatively tight tollerances, so need there is little margin for error without performance issues.  Drags are expensive, shims and bellevilles are not.  The reel had max shims in place, so don't shim more then that or damage to components could result.  

The VSX series have even tighter tolerances, better gears, rougher drag weave (but more wear resistant), less failure-prone bearings, a steeper drag curve, and a less failure prone 2 speed mech, but more finicky and difficult to service.  VSX series Reels need undergear shims frequently/more quickly, and have an issue with salt intrusion into the cam assemblies (lever will freeze up after storage).

You might want to post this one up on the forum in order to help others?

Good luck!

IT's really not as hard as it sounds.

John"

Also, regarding the bearings...

You can pry those shields off if they are the origional stock Shimano ones (a picture to confirm might help). I always throughly clean all bearings by putting them in a jar of mineral oil, followed by 15 minutes in the sonic cleaner, followed by liberal spraying with brake cleaner, and spinning dry.  I always replace any bearings that exhibit any roughness after cleaning.  Put a little side pressure on the bearing and turn to test as well, since sometimes they appear fine when spun, but a sideload results in unacceptable binding.

Hope you don't mind me sharing this one on the forum?  

Keep us posted.
Hope springs eternal
for the consumate fishermen.

alantani

interesting.  i've never worked on a reel this big before!
send me an email at alantani@yahoo.com for questions!

FatTuna

John here are some pics of the parts. I'm going to inspect the pressure plate/drag plate to make sure they are true. There was a little bit of gunk inside the spool but it wasn't too bad. Two of the bearings feel a little gritty. I'm going to try and open them up.

Tightlines667

Oops... forgot about those style bearings.  Better leave the shields in place.  Just soak them good, disolve, and flush out all of the old grease and crude.  If you have a bent shield that is contacting the bearing, try to pry it out a bit until it clears everything. 
Hope springs eternal
for the consumate fishermen.

FatTuna

Quote from: Tightlines666 on January 02, 2016, 09:54:30 PM
Oops... forgot about those style bearings.  Better leave the shields in place.  Just soak them good, disolve, and flush out all of the old grease and crude.  If you have a bent shield that is contacting the bearing, try to pry it out a bit until it clears everything. 

What do you make of all those shims? There is no way those can be stock correct?


Tightlines667

Quote from: fatstriper on January 02, 2016, 10:07:45 PM
Quote from: Tightlines666 on January 02, 2016, 09:54:30 PM
Oops... forgot about those style bearings.  Better leave the shields in place.  Just soak them good, disolve, and flush out all of the old grease and crude.  If you have a bent shield that is contacting the bearing, try to pry it out a bit until it clears everything. 

What do you make of all those shims? There is no way those can be stock correct?

Actually, I have that exact same arrangement of shims on several different Reels that were serviced post-factory.

The undergear shims are typically needed to correct wear on the outside drive shaft washer, inner drive shadt retainer, inner drive shaft washer and the inside portion of the gear stack components themselves.  Just 0.1-0.2mm of wear in each part will easily ad up to 0.3-0.6mm of wear. The 2 shims tighten this up, and reduce handle play.

The pinion bearing shim moves the pinion gears, and shaft slightly (0.3mm) to the left.  As the Belleville lose their spring, and the drag wears slightly shimming here keeps the spool and gears aligned better, and requires less turning of the preset to get to a given drag setting.  The two shims over the left spool bearing move tighten things up along the spool shaft as well, as the Bellevilles lose their height and/or any parts along the shaft experience wear.  This also moves the spool back right to center.  If you use all the same components, shimming here should remain the same.  New Belleville stack might increase the height, and a corresponding decrease in shimming over the left spool bearing should take place (i.e. if the height increases by 0.3mm, remove one shim from the right bearing.  Be aware that replacing the spool bearings with newer ARB open ceramic hybrids will likely result in less space on the spool shaft since they are just a bit thicker on the inner portion (as I remember?).

Drag wear, and/or wear on the ratchet or left plate bearing can be corrected by shimming outside of the left plate bearing.  A shim here can also help if the outer drag pressure plate is contacting the cooling shield.  4 total shims (~1.2mm total) along the spool shaft is one more then I typically like to use at max. 

The drag washer, and drag plate (the little I can see of it) appear to be OK to me.

*Disclaimer:  The use of shims as I have explained it is just according to my current understanding, and may not actually be the correct assesment.  I typically just shim and test until things are right through trial and error.
Hope springs eternal
for the consumate fishermen.

FatTuna

#6
This is all good stuff, shimming is not my forte. Here are some of the other pics.

Here is a different shot at one of the drag washers. It looks a bit better in the pictures than it does in real life.

There was a little corrosion on the outer edge of the spool that I cleaned up. The pressure release springs were looking pretty nasty, I think that's where the gunk came from. I'm going to replace those. A little bit of it was on the washer itself.

I should note one other thing I notice about this reel when I was fishing it. It had a very steep drag curve. Much too steep for my liking.

Tightlines667

Now that I see that picture of the drag washer, and given the symptoms.. I would replace it.  The metal washer looks to be scored as well.  Sometimes you can resurface them on a lathe, or use wet-dry sandpaper on a piece of glass with figure 8 sanding to Polish them back up, but in your case.. I would just replace it as well.  Make sure to use loctite on the screws fascining both as well as the clicker/ratchet plate (which should be replaced if the holes are elongated, the plate is deeply scored, or there is damage to the spool underneith.  Also check the clicker pawl retainer, if it is cast bronze they have been known to fail over time, and you may consider replacing it with a new SS one.  I would replace the click spring on the outside of the plate since they tend to fail as they get older. 

Aso far as the overall condition of the reel, bear in mind it has seen roughly 10 years of heavy saltwater duty. 

You are stuck with the factory cam/drag ramp up, but new bellevilles will give you a little more linear lower end to your rag curve.  If you replaced all of these parts, there should be no need for the 4 shims along the spool shaft.
Hope springs eternal
for the consumate fishermen.

FatTuna

Hey John. Had to put this job on hold for a few days. Had some stuff going on. I think I'm going to play it safe and swap out all the drag washers and that plate. Do you know if Smooth drag makes a washer for this reel.

So I pulled a bonehead move. When I first was looking at the schematic, I was looking at the Tiagra TI30 not the TI130. All of those shims are shown on the schematic.

I think I'm going to leave the clicker alone for now. I hooked a few fish on this reel and the clicker performed perfectly. I will upgrade it down the line once I have some extra cash invest.

Thanks again for the tips.

Tightlines667

You will have to order the drag components direct from Shimano.  Upgrading all worn parts at once can get costly.  I would focus on bearings and Bellevilles first, then drag components.  Clicker can wait.  Make sure if you get any new bearings one goes in the pinion position.  Keep us posted.
Hope springs eternal
for the consumate fishermen.

FatTuna

Quote from: Tightlines666 on January 12, 2016, 06:09:11 PM
You will have to order the drag components direct from Shimano.  Upgrading all worn parts at once can get costly.  I would focus on bearings and Bellevilles first, then drag components.  Clicker can wait.  Make sure if you get any new bearings one goes in the pinion position.  Keep us posted.

So you think I should replace the bellevilles? Despite the fact that the guy who sold them to me said that he only hooked one fish on his 130s, they show some signs of use. Drag performance was a bit jerky but the rest of the reel felt great. Gears sound great. It was shifting smoothly. Handle was easy to turn. They have some rash. I think I'm going to put some big labels on them with numbers. The rash is in the same spot on all the reels. I'm going to try and set it up so I can clearly mark the depth, leader strength/type, topshot strength, all in plain sight.

How much does that scoring on the drag plate affect the drag performance? Depending on the price I think I will replace all of those. I'll probably redo the carbon fiber washers on this one. Not sure what the others look like yet.

I got a good price on these reels. I don't mind putting some money into them but at the same time I also don't want to replace parts that don't need to be replaced. The drag was bothering me the last time I used this particular reel. Even if it's costly, it's not nearly as costly as losing a fish due to showing up unprepared.

Hopefully the others won't need as much work.

Tightlines667

You don'the need to replace the Bellevilles,  but cost is low, and doing so will give you a more gradual/linear ramp up.  These lose their low end sprig inessential when the reel is stored with the drag lever forward.. # of fish caught on the reel has nothing to do with it.

Any ridges on television metal drag disc will make the drag jerky.  Bear in mind all drag components are expensive.. you could sand the ridges out with fine grit wet paper of a piece of glass or replace it.

Hope springs eternal
for the consumate fishermen.

FatTuna

Quote from: Tightlines666 on January 12, 2016, 08:10:06 PM
You don'the need to replace the Bellevilles,  but cost is low, and doing so will give you a more gradual/linear ramp up.  These lose their low end sprig inessential when the reel is stored with the drag lever forward.. # of fish caught on the reel has nothing to do with it.

Any ridges on television metal drag disc will make the drag jerky.  Bear in mind all drag components are expensive.. you could sand the ridges out with fine grit wet paper of a piece of glass or replace it.



Got it.

I'll try out your sanding trick.

What type of line are you spooling your 130s with? I have dacron backing on mine but I think I might switch over to hollowcore.

Tightlines667

Whatever the customer asks for...Usually straight 130 or 150 mono.  Sometimes Dacron backing, occasionally hollow core.  I always recommend holocore backing on 50WLRS to take advantage of higher drag ramp/max setting while maintaining capacity.  Typically though I let the customer decide, and most of my regular customers use straight mono.  Except one Charter boat spools his own with Dacron backing, 130 lb topshot.
Hope springs eternal
for the consumate fishermen.

FatTuna

Quote from: Tightlines666 on January 13, 2016, 12:34:08 AM
Whatever the customer asks for...Usually straight 130 or 150 mono.  Sometimes Dacron backing, occasionally hollow core.  I always recommend holocore backing on 50WLRS to take advantage of higher drag ramp/max setting while maintaining capacity.  Typically though I let the customer decide, and most of my regular customers use straight mono.  Except one Charter boat spools his own with Dacron backing, 130 lb topshot.

I have hollowcore on all of my big reels except for the 130s. They are currently spooled with 200lb dacron backing and 200 high catch. I like the dacron backing because we change out the topshots a least once a week. The sharks trash them constantly. Also, when a fish goes under the boat, it's junked. Only problem is the 200 is pretty thick stuff. I'm confident with the line capacity. I'm considering going down to 150 and switching to the Momoi diamond which is supposedly stronger than the high catch. I haven't' made up my mind yet but I will report back.