Mepps Super Meca

[Midway Tommy]

Almost everyone that is into fishing has heard of Mepps Spinners but few are aware that Mepps also manufactured and sold spinning reels.

Mepps introduced their first modern open face spinning reel, the "Vamp", in 1935. It was a light size half bail reel and various versions of it were manufactured though the 1950s. They introduced the "Ocean", a large size reel, in 1948 and the "Meca", a light/medium size reel, in 1957. In 1960 Mepps introduced the "Super Meca". It has the same body design as the "Meca", only a little larger, and was considered a medium size reel. The "Super Meca" was the last model introduced by Mepps and was manufactured until 1972. In an interesting foot note, Mepps acquired the RU reel company in 1983.

Now we'll take a detailed look at a Super Meca. It has a very unique and intriguing design with a lot of parts. This is what it looked like when I opened it up. It wasn't too grungy inside but it obviously hadn't been serviced in a long time. Notice it is worm gear driven with a black oxide pinion gear and has a nylon main gear. It also appears to have been lubricated at some point with silver anti-seize.


Here's a look at the grease I scraped out during disassembly.


It took some time, patience and a lot of photos, and I eventually got it completely disassembled. There were so many different screws/bolts that I kept the nuts on most of them while soaking so that I could match them up easier later. I followed my normal procedure of wiping grease off with a rag and then soaking all of the unpainted metal and nylon parts in lacquer thinner. I have found that lacquer thinner doesn't degrade or melt nylon as long as one doesn't leave it to soak for an extended period of time. All of the plastic and painted parts were scrubbed with Original White Goop and washed in Dawn and warm water. Since there were so many screws I put them in a separate lid when removing them from the lacquer thinner. It made it much easier to keep track of them and figure out where they went. Here are the parts, a lot, all cleaned and ready to reassemble. Lubrication was Super Lube grease and synthetic oil.


I decided to start with some of the least complicated steps so that I could reduce the inventory of parts in the groups. First I put together the drag knob. The drag consists of a plastic knob, medium weight coil spring, aluminum washer with prongs and an external clip. The prongs on the washer will fit into notches in a plastic fitting molded onto the main shaft.


Next I installed the spool click spring onto the plastic fitting on the main shaft. It's an interesting concept with a piece of solid rod/wire inserted into the end of a small coil spring that protrudes from the plastic fitting. It is held in place in between two plastic bars by a metal plate and screw.


Here you can see how the drag knob and click spring will function when the spool is installed. The the spring mechanism will rub on the knobs on the back of the inner spool flange. The spool has a quick change function and is actually two separate pieces. This specific line spool indicates 100 yds on the sticker.


Here you can see how the two piece spool goes together. The line spool has three tabs that fit into notches in the inner spool and then twists to lock into place. That feature makes it easy to change spools.


Next I decided to put the handle together. It has the flip over function. It also has a screwed on knob so that the knob can be replaced if needed. The shaft is flared at the rear end so the knurled knob won't come loose and fall off. I didn't screw up the flare's integrity and remove the knob.


At this point I'd gotten all the easy stuff done so it was time to get serious. I decided to start by installing the anti-reverse mechanism on the rear rotor plate.


Here I have them in place. If you've never worked on a specific reel it is very important to take detailed photos at the correct time when disassembling. I wasn't paying close enough attention when I took it apart so the pivot plate in the next photo is upside down. I didn't find that out until later. It has a flared flange, and washer that sits inside the flared hole, and I assumed, because it fell apart when I removed the screws, that the flange went down against the plate providing clearance for the spring to move. I know better than to make assumptions   I hate that term!   I'll discuss that issue in a little more depth later.



My next step was to install the pinion, bearing and anti-reverse ratchet gear to the rear rotor plate. If you notice, the ratchet gear and pinion collar both have three holes. They're not uniformly spaced and the holes in the ratchet gear are threaded. The holes in the collar must line up with those in the ratchet gear when the rotor is installed later. I like well greased bearings. I cleaned this one completely and greased it with Super Lube, adding a little oil, too. It's as smooth as a new bearing, although maybe not quite as free spinning, but any of you that use Super Lube in spinning reel bearings know it's great for that application.


Here all the parts are together. The pinion and collar are reverse threads. You can kind of see here in the first photo that the plate on the anti-reverse mechanism is interfering with the ratchet gear. I didn't pay much attention to it at the time.    



With the pinion and bearing in place I decided to install the rear rotor plate to the body. One of the holes in the plate has a recessed area. It's under the anti-reverse pivot plate. That's where the special recessed nut and short bolt go. You can also see the bronze oilite bushing that supports the rear end of the main shaft.


Well, now it's time to start installing parts on the rotor. I started with bail trip lever and spring. It was pretty straight forward and simple.


With the trip lever in place the next step was to install the bail arm, bail trip spring, spring retention plate, chain link and external plate that holds the opposite end of the bail. There is a bushing that slips over the bail arm. You can see the hole in both of them where the pin drops in that holds the end of the chain. The other end of the chain goes over the hook on the end of the spring. The U-shaped block with the bolt and pin allow adjustment of spring tension and hold the spring in place.
 
 
Here you can see the bail trip mechanism all in place so now it's time to install the bail. It has a tungsten carbide line guide that rolls. The bail wire is fairly light so it is easy to adjust and line up for perfect fit. There is a bushing that holds the bail in the correct place while rotating in the hole in the rotor/chrome band.


With all the parts installed on the rotor it's time to attach the rotor to the rear plate/body. This is where all three holes must line up because the bolts go through the rotor, through the collar and thread into the ratchet gear to hold it in place and secure the rotor. This is when I found out that the anti-reverse plate was inverted. The rotor wouldn't turn in either direction because the plate was hitting the ratchet gear. All I had to do was remove the three screws, take one bolt out of the plate and flip the plate over so that it would be under the ratchet gear during rotation. Luckily it was an easy fix.


Now it's time to install the pinion nut. The nut does not secure the rotor itself, it tightens against the pinion collar.


The next step is to install the main gear. As you can see, the gear is nylon. It seems that a lot of companies were experimenting with nylon gears, bushings, bearings, washers, etc. in the late '50s and early '60's. The spring goes in a groove in the main gear oilite bushing and the extension goes into the hole in the nylon gear. I'm not sure what the purpose is. I thought it might be some sort of instant anti-reverse but it really doesn't seem to do anything. Maybe it's to stabilize the gear?


With the main gear in place it's time to install the main shaft, oscillation block and guide block on the side plate. The main shaft, being aluminum, was very surprising to me.


With the main shaft and oscillation block installed, and everything working properly, it's time to install the side plate.


Many Mepps spinning reels had pivoting feet, as does the Super Meca. A double wedge blocked clamp holds the leg in place and allows it to be pivoted, or folded over for storage. A bolt in front of the leg keeps it from sliding back.


The last step is to install the crank handle, spool and drag knob. Here you can see how the prongs on the drag knob go into the slots on the main shaft fitting. The drag works on two principals, down pressure against top/bottom of the spool and outward pressure against center hole in the main/rear portion of the spool. Considering the simplicity of the drag it is very smooth with no grabbing or jerking. I wonder, though, how good it works under tough stress.


It's all back together and working like new. An interesting and uniquely designed reel from the '60s and Made in France.



It weighs in at 14.1 oz, which is fairly light considering it's size. Obviously the extensive use of plastic and light weight aluminum are contributing factors to that.


For size comparison, here it is next to a Penn 712. It is a little bigger and bulkier than the Penn 712 but yet an ounce lighter.  
           

[Crow]

Thanks for a great write up....and on a pretty "unusual" reel....the way the stand attaches is really different .

[mo65]

That's an odd duck indeed. Thanks for the detailed look inside Tom...I've wondered for years what was inside those things.

[Gfish]

Great assembly tutorial! Interesting look at a uniquely built reel.
Lookin at the photos and readin your comments, there seems to be an odd mix of detailed engineering, but then some lightweight parts in stress areas(esp. the main gear & the main shaft). Maybe they figured there was money to be made selling replacement parts (and spare spool inserts). Who fishes alot and doesn't occasionally stress their rig out on a big'un or a snag?
Thinkin about the old mepps spinner lures, they were 100% well made and seemed to be the favorite in the mid-west when I was a kid. In Calie rostertails seemed to be more popular, but not as tough.

[Lunker Larry]

Great presentation. Thanks. Neat to see but kinda seems over engineered.

[mo65]

Thinkin about the old mepps spinner lures, they were 100% well made and seemed to be the favorite in the mid-west when I was a kid. In Calie rostertails seemed to be more popular, but not as tough.

   That's an accurate assessment G...I have big Mepp's spinners that have stood the test of time...yet we started making our own tiny spinners for trout because those Roostertails fall apart fast.

[festus]

Great tutorial, Tommy.  I see these reels on ebay fairly often, well, maybe not the same model but similar.

[nelz]

OMG, you are a patient man Mr. Midway. That there is one wacky design of a reel! Unnecessarily complex, ruggedly built overall, yet oddly lacking in the gear dept, and with looks that only a mother could love.  Nice collection piece though, I like the red finish too.

[happyhooker]

Lots of good pics & great narrative.  I suppose we should have guessed earlier it was made in France.

Frank

[The Fishing Hobby]

I had always wondered about these...of course you have one 
Awesome write up and pictures!

[Captain64-200]

Thank you Tommy for this good &  interesting review , those french people are sooooo complicated 

[akfish]

Great, informative write up. I'm glad I have yet to find one of these in the field because I'd pop it open and have more than a little difficulty getting it back together (at least without this write up). When I see a reel like this I wonder what the engineers were thinking: It is **so** much more complex and has **so** many more parts than the Penn 712 you show for comparison -- yet it simply can't fish better!!

[Midway Tommy]

Thanks, everyone, for the compliments!

I had always wondered about these...of course you have one 
Awesome write up and pictures!

It was one of my earlier acquisitions, Kevin. It's so odd looking I had to have it.  When I got it, at least 12 or 15 years ago, I removed the spool and saw that chain.  It frightened me so much I packaged it back up in bubble wrap and put it in my "to tackle someday tote". Well, enough time and restos have passed so that when I came across awhile back it I decided it was about time to clean it up and get it displayed.   

[Ruffy]

That's too funny Tommy, I'd have done the same though. Great write up! Out of interest, is there anything else eclectic or odd waiting in that tote of yours?

Cheers,
Andrew

[Midway Tommy]

Maybe a couple, but not quite as unique as that and a couple others I've restoed lately. Most of those left are just various makes & models from the '50s, 60's & a few from the early '70s.