Gettin Jiggin with it at Pulau Jarak

Pulau Jarak, located close to the center of the Straits of Malacca, famous for its deep waters and strong currents inhabited by hard charging pelagics and notoriously brash demersals. This challenging combo requires you to arm yourself with jigging gear of at least PE2-3 and sometimes up to PE4-5. Jigs ranging from 100g-200g depending on the current and depths.

The Shimano Stradic 6000FJ is ideal for the job as it is reasonably priced/built, spool ready for 300m of PE3 lines, and packed with sprinkles of hand me down tech from the Stellas. We live on board the 'GT Chaser' for 3 days and 2 nights of intense jigging and possibly popping around the island depending on the current.

Ready but not quite. Needs some pimpin before it even catches a glimpse of sunlight.

The Shimano Stradic 6000FJ doesn't have seals to stop corrosive salt water intrusion. Therefore, some pimpin is needed to beef up it's internals for durability and also performance tuning with a combination of full ceramics as well as hybrid ceramic bearings.

The first set of bearings to be swapped to full ceramics, main gear supports. Shim fitted for proper gear mesh gap. Coated the body housing with teflon grease for that extra bit of protection.

Another view revealing all its balls in full glory!

Next up would be to pimp the pinion gear bearings (x-ship) and also the worm gear shaft's teflon bushings starting with the front bushing after removing the anti-reverse bearing assembly from the body.

Full ceramics for the pinion gear support, both x-ship bearings replaced, only one shown here. Note the worm gear teflon bushing on the right, it's about to get chopped!

Slides out smoothly.

It takes a bit of patience to trim the bushing as it is very tough. Best is to make the primary cut lesser than the desired removal length (similar thickness to the hybrid ceramic bearings) and fine tune it further by trimming off or filing it away bit by bit. Any accidental excess removal can easily be tuned using micro shims.

Here's a view of the hybrid ceramic bearings supporting the worm gear shaft in its housing before sliding the trimmed teflon bushing back into place.

Moving over to the rear worm gear shaft support bushing, it's a straight forward swap with additional micro shims to reduce free play and sliding for a more consistent line lay over the spool.

Rear teflon bushing for the worm gear is out, hybrid ceramic bearings in. Micro shims go between the bearings and worm gear shaft.

Onwards to the next bit, pawl bushing swapped out with a hybrid ceramic bearings and some modified Stella parts ordered from Japan. This modification is to predominantly increase durability of the reel but after the modification, there was a surprising improved smoothness to the worm gear to a point where I can pull the floating shaft forward/outward, the pawl is able to drive and rotate the worm gear! Previously not possible with the original teflon bushing.

Original teflon bushing shown below the pimped bits. Hybrid ceramic bearings sandwiched between the pawl and trimmed pawl bushing from the Stella. Micro shims sit between the hybrid ceramic bearings and the trimmed bushing for a glove like fit into the housing.

The pimped up Shimano Stradic 6000FJ's ready for battle with it's new innards and new found smoothness. The smoothness and low cranking resistance will help me quite a bit as I'll be jiggin for almost 3 days with little resting periods in between jiggin spots.

Jigs ranging from 100g to 200g, jerk baits, stick baits and poppers ready for battle.

Barracuda bites, but I-eat-choo! Tasty turmeric ginger paste over pan fried barracuda blocks!

Fish photos courtesy of Darren from Tackle Source.

The pimped up gear took on the bashing without breaking a sweat and it's well worth the pimpin as I'll be coming back to Pulau Jarak again soon. Upon quick inspection after the trip, there were no signs of any salt water intrusion or premature wear on any part of the reel. Just needed some fresh coat of teflon grease around it's gears and metal to metal contact bits.

Next test would be off shore Kuching in 2 weeks time, slightly shallower waters and I'll be testing a sweet new combo with pimped up bits as well. Stay tuned!