Japanese Twins, check!

Here's something I can proudly tick off my bucket list of 'Japanese Twins'. Japanese made Shimano Twinpower SW series. Both of them would do great for some jiggy action, light and heavy stuff. The twins come loaded with quite a bit of 'Stella' bits and you get what you pay for. With a little bit extra effort, you can pimp it up to be 'there' with the 'Stellas'.

I'm preparing the twins to take on 2 different jiggy duties. One for the shallows in the east coast paired with Majorcraft's Giant Killing light jigging rod PE0.6-1.2 while the other takes on a PE4 rod for the deep around the straits.

The twins are both built tough to withstand quite a substantial amount of medium to heavy fish fights. They are also decently sealed from any water intrusion into the body. Bearings are all S-ARB variants that can withstand salt water corrosion for some time. Even so, it's always better to put in some extra precaution to pimp it up a bit with more/better lubrication and protection around areas that takes on most bashing and salt water intrusion.

Japanese Twins ready to be stripped down.

Upon stripping the twins down, just give it a nice gentle rub/brush down with marine grease for that little added protection on most surfaces. Make sure to avoid getting grease into the one-way bearings (anti-reverse) assembly but do give it a drop of one-way oil if necessary.

Plenty of 'Stella' trickle down goodies bar some minor bits which can be sourced and pimped up.

Line roller bearings take the most bashing as it is regularly loaded with massive amount of torque on tiny ball bearings and these twins don't come equip with water proofing seals like some of the more expensive reels with fancy techs like Daiwa's magseal. Even with special rust prevention coating on these bearings, high speed rolling and heavy grinding will wear these coatings away over time and will result in rusted and busted bearings. So, rub them down.

Marine greased up for maximum protection and smoothness in line rolling.

Surprisingly, the worm gear support uses teflon bushings both front and back. Weird things it that they made the front bushing like a sleeve and you cannot replace it with a bearing even if you want to. I've seen some folks drilling the body a little bit just to accommodate a bearing and I can see disaster written all over that kind of mod as the plastics around the front bushing housing will be too thin to support the bearings and the worm gear. The rear teflon bushing's easily replaced with bearings and shim to a glove like fit.

A tad of smoothy hybrid ceramic bearings (green) added to the worm gear support in place of its original teflon bushing and shims(red). Shimmed to a glove like fit. Both Japanese twins got the same smoothy treatment.

Shimano also decides to skim on the pawl support bits with teflon bushings and not ball bearing supported for an improved smoothness and longevity. Luckily, this can also be replaced with Stella sourced parts.

Standard teflon bushing from the twins (red), replaced with Stella bits (blue). Shims to tweak fitment (orange).

Here's another bit that's missing from the twins. The rotor lock nut, similar to the Stella, can house a bearing and sleeve for the support of the floating shaft and further beefing up of the reel's durability.

Seen here with an additional ceramic hybrid bearings, Stella sourced sleeve, and rotor lock nut with the bearing housing in view.

Here's how it looks like with bearing+sleeve assembly in the lock nut next to the rubber seal & protective cap.

These 2 twins should serve me well on my upcoming off shore adventures. Perhaps some bashing in-land to get it christened and wet!

Japanese Twins? pimped and checked!