Penn 545GS Drag Rebuild

[jjiimm]

Thank you both!

[Squidder Bidder]

I have two 555s - one has the non-tabbed main gear and disks, the later version has the tabbed disks.

What do some of the physics geeks here think about the difference? Is it worth upgrading the older style main gear to the tabbed main gear and disks?

[Swami805]

Squidder bidder can you tell the difference when you're fishing them?  Nice thing about the old style is finding drag washers should be easy for the foreseeable future maybe not for the tabbed ones

[Squidder Bidder]

Squidder bidder can you tell the difference when you're fishing them?  Nice thing about the old style is finding drag washers should be easy for the foreseeable future maybe not for the tabbed ones

I haven't fished them in a long while (15+ years) so I couldn't say. I played with them in the surf for a while and then got on to other things so they went into a closet somewhere. I just broke both down last week/weekend and stripped the old grease out and lubed them up. I'm a bit OCD so I made all of the brass internals gleam before lube and reassembly. Cal's purple on the drag stack, which was pretty dry. Then I got nuts and bought another one and a spare spool from fleabay which is on the way. I know Alan has expressed some misgivings about this line on the grounds that the frame may torque under heavy load. Otherwise they seem like lighter, updated wide Jigmasters with ball bearings over bushings.

The plan was to use them for 3-waying bucktails and live lining spot/eels for Stripers this fall.

Now that you mention it with three of these I should probably stock up on some spare parts . . .

[thorhammer]

Jim's drags look like Smoothies to me. Should easily find carbon fiber for those.

[thorhammer]

555  / 545 should handle any sort of striper fishing you'd want to do. Would I spool them with 100 lb braid for tuna fishing? No, these were designed before braid and fish them in design class, no issues. These were the bee's knees king fishing in the 90's and we've had sharks to a hundred and large cobia caught on them, no sweat. I'd absolutely spool with 30 / 40 mono and go striper fishing. Note, the little 525 Mag has caught loads of citation drum in OBX surf, and still considered a coveted reel for that today (fished mine three weeks ago). You might look at upgrade to Torque handle for cranking. Big knob. I forget what series it is but they are on Mystic for 26 bucks i think.

[Squidder Bidder]

thor - do you see issues spooling up with 65# braid over mono backing on the 555s?

[thorhammer]

Well, depends on drag you want to fish or you risk getting into Alan's realm. If you use the 1/3 drag rule, that's 22 lbs of drag and I prolly wouldn't want to put that much heat on it. Academically, I don't recall seeing where anyone tried to figure what max drag upgrade was, because these already came with eared carbon drags, double dogs, bearings, etc. by the time AT came about.  But for purposes of using braid for sensitivity and diameter, why not? You're not horsing a grouper locked-down out of a ledge, and stripers don't run far, respectively. But I'd def have backing- that reel would hold maybe 800 yds of braid, lol. Clearly, I have affinity for this series- I have all models totaling a dozen, and think they'd be great candidates for frame kits. My 0.02.

John

[Squidder Bidder]

Yeah - we're fishing inlets and near a lot of bottom structure, so I'd want to lock down and turn the fish's head before it could get me into trouble.

[jjiimm]

Jim's drags look like Smoothies to me. Should easily find carbon fiber for those.

Thanks!

[jurelometer]

I have two 555s - one has the non-tabbed main gear and disks, the later version has the tabbed disks.

What do some of the physics geeks here think about the difference? Is it worth upgrading the older style main gear to the tabbed main gear and disks?

Haven't played with the 555, but you should get more braking surfaces for the same clamping load (star tightness) with tabbed fiber washers, which can give you the opportunity for more and/or smoother drag.

Tabbed fiber washers provide two sliding surfaces when sandwiched between keyed metal washers.  With the old style round fiber washer between keyed and eared metal washers, one only one side of the fiber washer will slide.  Looks like three sliding surfaces in the old style stack photo.  Versa drag should get you five with the same number of fiber washers.

Whether the effect is noticeable enough to make for a worthwhile upgrade for this particular reel,  dunno. 

Regarding the hole size:  braking work  is not directly related to surface area.  The coefficient of friction (smoothness of sliding surface pair), clamping force, and distance traveled (drag surface circumference) determines the amount of braking work done per surface pair revolution.

As strange as it may seem, despite the smaller surface area,  a larger hole in the same diameter disk actually increases  the braking work per revolution, as more of the sliding is occurring at a larger circumference.  If you look at performance cars, they increase the circumference of the disk rotors to improve braking.  They don't go for deeper pads that cover more surface toward the center of the disk. 

So that is the physics part of it, but the firsthand advice from the folks that have fished and wrenched on these reels is equally if not more important.

-J

[MarkT]

I had the 525, 525 mag, 2 x 535, 545, 555.  Over the years I sold all but the 525's. They had big strong drags and cast well.  I liked them, well, I thought the 555 was too wide.  The 545 was sold to one of my son's friends who wanted it and it was surplus to the need. My 525 mag has braid under the mono... works great!