Penn Squall SQL 16 VS

[Keaper]

Hi everyone. Im new here. Im having trouble with my new reels. I just went out and bought 6 of the new Squall SQL 16 VS dual speed reels. Ive been a Penn guy my whole life and took a chance that there new gear would hold up like the old Senator"s. But Im finding that the low gear's on them are slipping. The problem has acured on more then one reel. I am able to put the reel in high gear and continue to bring in the fish. I can't find any tutorials on tearing these reels apart and fixing the problem. I honestly can't find any tutorials on tearing these reels apart at all and I have scoured the internet which in doing so has brought me to this site. I own a six pack charter in Homer Alaska so sending these reels back to Penn every time this happens is not an option. I need to know how to work on these reels myself. I don't want to open one up without some knowledge of the unit. I have a Fathom 40LD2 that I was able to work on thanks to this site. Does anyone have any knowledge of the Squall 2 speed reels and the cure for the issue I'm having? Thanks in advance.

[alantani]

well, first, welcome!  any chance you have braid that is slipping on the spool?

[Keaper]

It's definitely a catch pin or something in the two speed mechanism. It skips and will catch when it first starts happening. Gradually it gets worse until it won't catch at all. but if I put it into High gear it works fine.

[alantani]

crud.  it has to come completely apart.  this one you have to send in. 

[Keaper]

Well I'll be pulling it apart myself. I live and operate out of Alaska and shipping them off during our season isn't an option.  These are brand new reels less then two weeks worth of fishing on them. I'm not very impressed with Penn at the moment. I may be switching to Shimano in the future.

[SoCalAngler]

Jay,

Did you fish them strait out of the box then you noticed the "skipping" or did anyone do a preservice to those reels? The only reason I ask is because it looks to me like these reels don't come with a anti-reverse bearing. If the dogs were put in backward/up side down to the ratchet gear under a heavier load this can happen. When shifting down into low gear there is most likely going to be more force on those dogs and slippage/skipping could happen faster at some point than being in high gear if the dogs were put in the wrong way.

If all the reels are doing this and not preserviced by anyone I bet something else is wrong in them and it is time to give Penn a call and they will make it right.

[Keaper]

No service was done to them. I actually took the one that started doing it back to the place I bought it from and they fixed it. Now I have another one (that could actually be the original one) doing the same thing. I am now marking them so that I can keep track of each individual reel so that I know whats doing what. So to answer your question It could just be one real out of 6.

[jurelometer]

Looking at the schematic,  this reel doesn't appear to have a ratchet.  It looks like the anti reverse dogs work  against one of the pinions ( like a TLD II).  The low pinion drives the drag plate and the high pinion drives the low pinion.  So if the anti reverse system or low pinion was the problem,  you should get the same slipping problem in high or low gear.  And since the dogs are essentially working against the spool /pinion side of the gears, the high vs low gear ratio should not change to amount of force on the dogs.

That leaves spectra slipping on the spool (more likely to slip with the greater cranking power of low gear, it would also slip under drag, but this might not be noticed - you could test this easily with some tape and a felt pen), 

OR

that the low main gear is slipping.  It looks to me like the  shift key (part key 128) is what connects the gears to the shaft,  and if it does not fully engage with one of the gears, then you will only see the problem in  one speed.   This was your original guess,  and I would lean that way.   Which specific parts....  No clue, but I would look for wear  where the shift key connects on the low gear, and if there is slop in the shift key to shaft junction.

As to root cause:  two speed  reels generally need to be shifted when there is no load on the main gears.  This is usually not a problem with a single angler.   One hand on the rod, one hand on the shifter, and the anti-reverse  on the pinion take the load off the main gears.  But if you have one customer cranking and another customer "helping" by shifting...

The higher end Penn two speeds have additional/different parts in the shift drive mechanism (e.g., the Fathom has two shift keys compared to one on the Squall).  Presumably, these reels have a more robust shifting system,  but you never know.   But you also get aluminum frames and sideplates in the higher end reels which will means more maintenance and corrosion issues, especially in an Alaska charter scenario.

If one of the repair experts here has taken one apart, they will probably have a better idea than I.  If you were able to work on a two speed Fathom, I would think with a schematic, that you could handle a Squall.  Plus I think there is a repair guy or two on this site from AK.  Maybe somebody near Homer?

-J

[Keaper]

Thanks for your reply. I'm skeptical about tearing it apart without seeing someone else do it first. But I might just need to man up. I'd love to see a video or a Piece by piece to Tutorial. Was kind of hoping someone had a url I couldn't find myself. But maybe it's time to make one. I think your spot on with the shift key problem. Thanks again. 

[steelfish]

Thanks for your reply. I'm skeptical about tearing it apart without seeing someone else do it first. But I might just need to man up. I'd love to see a video or a Piece by piece to Tutorial. Was kind of hoping someone had a url I couldn't find myself. But maybe it's time to make one. I think your spot on with the shift key problem. Thanks again. 

its not that hard, just close your eyes and start taking out parts, feel no fear!!

naah on a serious note, find a big table to work on and order the parts in the same order than you are taking them out, see your schematic and take pictures with your cell phone or camera everytime you take one part from the reel, that way you will see how it looked assembled before you took it out, sometimes I find myself taking 80 or more pics when I happen to have a reel I have never opened before and there was not tutorial on hand.

2 speed mechanism can be PITA to work on

[Keaper]

That's the plan brother!

[WalterWyman]

I just had a similar problem with squall 16 vs but the problem was the opposite! The owner brought it back in because the handle would go backwards if it was in high gear and work while it was in low gear. After taking it apart and inspecting the gears and the shift key everything looked good and not worn or anything I have seen problems with the high speed gear in the past on the VISX models. After putting it back together I found the problem. The actual button had the shaft bent! Either the length changed, causing the shift key not to go into position in the high speed gear or it was to long to start with I don't know but replacing the button fixed the problem! I thought I would share this as a different type of fix for a similar problem

[Keaper]

Thank you I will definitely look into this.