Problem with 250 Surfmaster 3-99 bridge and gear sleeve

[MACflyer]

I recently built a Surfmaster 250N, but during my second saltwater fishing trip, the handle locked up. Of course I had a snapper on, but managed to hand line the fish to the boat. After disassembly, I discovered the gear sleeve was stuck to the bridge spindle. During the build, I replaced the brass gear sleeve with what was supposed to be a stainless sleeve, although I just discovered the sleeve attracts a magnet. Also, the 3-99 bridge is chrome plated and the spindle on the bridge also attracts a magnet so I suspect it's steel as well. Does anyone know of any inexpensive options to fix this issue? I don't want to purchase another stainless sleeve, as I already have too much money into this reel. Nor do I want to use the original brass sleeve. Do all the 3-99 bridge assemblies have a steel spindle? Would removing some steel from the inner gear sleeve, or removing steel from the bridge spindle solve my problem? I now intend to oil the inner gear sleeve after every trip. Also, I lightly spray my rods and reels with fresh water after fishing, and then wipe them down with Corrosion X when they dry. Could the fresh water spray be the cause? I try to keep my reels from getting salt water spray during my trips. I appreciate any helpful input, as I enjoy using this little reel.

[Gfish]

Interesting. What's the "N" stand for in 250N, narrow?  I've never put a magnet to a bridge, or a stainless bridge sleeve... one thing I do though, is use a mix of oil and marine grease on the bridge spindle & inner sleeve, as well as the area where sleeve sits on the bridge. Never had a problem there yet. Though, I have had some serious corrosive build-up on the main gear at times. Others that know, should be along shortly...

Oh, welcome to the Forum MACflyer!

[nelz]

I don't think the sleeve stuck so suddenly due to corrosion, you would have noticed a problem way before you had a fish on. Maybe the anti-reverse dog came loose and jammed the works? In any case certainly the shaft should be greased, I put a drop of CorrosionX in there too. I don't think you'll need a new sleeve.

Let us know what you find after further inspection.

Btw, welcome aboard.

[MACflyer]

Thanks for the welcomes. Yes the N is for narrowed. I used the spool, seat, and bars from a Jigmaster 501 after reading about the mods on this great site. Added some of Bryan Young's 5+1 drag washers, and it's a fine little Surfmaster. I don't think it was corrosion either, although I had to use a vise, wrench, and penetrating fluid to remove the gear sleeve. Maybe the problem was caused by heat? I did catch several 5-6lb groupers that pulled some drag on both trips.

[Gfish]

Ok, good.
Another thought: was the gear-sleeve tight on the bridge-spindle, when you assembled it? There are some older bridges out there with a smaller diameter spindle, which will NOT properly fit a stainless steel after-market gear-sleeve. This was the case with a Long Beach Live Bait Caster(Penn 259) I modded. Decker, a member, sent me a bridge that fit the head-plate/larger diameter s.s.gear-sleeve.

Possibly, if it doesn't fit tight, what Nelz said coulda happened; the sleeve came up and the anti-reverse mighta went underneath the cog at the base of the gear-sleeve.

[jurelometer]

Many of the aftermarket sleeves are 400 series stainless, which is magnetic.

I also don't see an official part number anywhere for that sleeve, as it is always listed just with the bridge.  I would compare the dimensions on the new sleeve with the original part, and also compare the sleeve to shaft fit.  In terms of bridge sleeve fit, Penn did mess around a bit on some models over time, not all all sleeves will fit all bridges for some models.  Sometimes just the height of the notch in the post which should match with the hole in the sleeve for the spindle pin.

I would think that if heat expansion was an issue, the fit would have to be very tight to begin with, and the original fit would come back when cooled.  Heat expansion is not permanent.

Agree with. Nelz. If the sleeve completely froze to the shaft, that is not something that would be caused by corrosion while you were turning the handle.  If the reel sat around for awhile, you dropped the bait in  feespool and then noticed the problem the first time you attempted to wind, then maybe corrosion.   

400 series stainless is usually good around freshwater but not super saltwater corrosion proof.  I forgot if these reels had hardened steel posts, but it would not surprise me.  The posts need to be as rigid as possible.  I would want grease, not oil betweeen the sleeve and post on any sleeve based design. 

I haven't seen an aftermarket sleeve that lists the 250 as a supported model.  Maybe one of our resident reel hotrodders can jump in on whether there is a sleeve that has worked for them on the 250.

If I heard that a hotrodded surfaster jammed up under load, I would guess that the gears sleeve ratchet to dog got jammed up during winding. If you wind hard with a high drag setting, you can pull the ratchet/ dog out of alignment.  A longer aftermarket handle arm would contribute to this risk.  So would an aftermarket gear sleeve that didn't align with  dog as well as the original.

I would wager on something not fitting quite the same with the new gear sleeve, unless you had the drag cranked down and were winding hard against a big snapper.

-J

[MACflyer]

Appreciate all the input. I don't think the dog was the problem as the gear sleeve was really stuck to the bridge spindle. The gear sleeve fit fine when first installed, and now that I've got the sleeve off, again it fits fine on the bridge spindle. Also, the sleeve was still stuck to the spindle after I removed the small set pin from the sleeve, so I don't believe the bottom of the gear was pressed hard into the bridge body. However, most likely I was cranking the handle as the groupers were pulling drag. Is that a problem? Oh, and I'm using the stock Jigmaster handle which is about 1/2" longer than stock Surfmaster handle.

[MACflyer]

Checked the dimensions on the old brass gear sleeve and the stainless 98-60 gear sleeve. Everything I can see measures the same. I thought I read somewhere that I could use the 98-60 sleeve on this bridge, but now I can't find that info. Maybe that's the issue???

[jurelometer]

If you removed the gear and dog and the sleeve was still jammed on the post, then the problem is  the sleeve fit.  If the sleeve fit seems OK until you wind under load, them something is getting jammed or wedged. If the ID of the sleeve is too large for the spindle (see Gfish's post), the sleeve could get angled under load and wedge on something.  There are lots of measurements to make, like height to pin hole.  I would also think about the fit at the raised lip at the base of the post, and the sleeve axial travel (up and down the post) compared to the original.

Pretty hard to measure the ID of the sleeve accurately unless you have a plug gauge set.

Folks here will occasionally post upgrades that work at the bench, but probably are not as well fitting or strong as the original parts (especially mixing and matching of gears, pinions, bride plates across models).  Most folk do not fully stress stress upgrades because they don't want to break multiple reels   I appreciate reading the upgrade threads and they help with us all making progress, but not everything ends up working on all reels under all loads.  It is sort of the nature of DIY hotrodding. We are all learning from each other here.

-J

[MACflyer]

OK thanks GFish, Nelz, and J. I'm going to give this mod another couple real life trials. I used some 1000 grit on the spindle as it had two small rough areas. I also used the 1000 grit inside the gear sleeve. Then I applied a liberal amount of marine grease. As J stated, I could not measure inside the sleeves. However, the height to holding pin holes was the same, and the sleeve gear bottom to bridge top seems to have a slight amount of space/play. I'll update this post in a few weeks after I give the reel a couple more trials. Thanks again for your help.

[Swami805]

If everything was removed from the bridge except the sleeve my bet is the spindle is Bent, not fully perpendicular to the bridge and the tip of one of the teeth dug into the bridge plate itself

[MACflyer]

The bridge is stamped 3-99, it's chrome plated, and it has the larger bridge post, which I mistakenly called a spindle.

[mo65]

   After reading all the comments...I have to say this just sounds like one of those one time mystery flukes. Maybe a piece of metal debris got wedged between the post and sleeve. My narrowed 250 has these aftermarket pieces too, and it works great. My guess is it will fish fine next time out.

[Cortez_Conversions]

I'm guessing that the sleeve was installed with little/no grease and it siezed/galled to the shaft. You stated that after removal there was two rough spots. That's probably where the galling happened.

[Keta]

I'm guessing that the sleeve was installed with little/no grease and it siezed/galled to the shaft.

That would be my guess, SS tends to gaul.