Cardiff in body bags!

CASEFILE : Shimano Cardiff
Status : bodybagged!
Cause of dismemberment : Complicated one-way bearing rebuild (anti-reverse bearing)
Others : misalignment of line lay roller, internal bleeding of oil, dehydrated drag discs, worn off teeth.

One sunny Sunday afternoon, I received an instant message from a client with a picture of a dismembered part. Before I could read the instructions that comes after, I immediately recognised that there's a need for help to fix this. My response was simple, bag it and I'll know what to do with it. Tell me where and I'll be there for the pick up.

Luckily for my client, not a single part was missing or unintentionally bounced off when disassembling the entire reel including the one-way bearing. Otherwise, this will be a totally different job of damage limitation and not putting humpty back together again. The parts were bagged according to its function and section where it was disassembled, another good point.

Body bagged Shimano Cardiff, your argument is invalid!

When there's an opportunity to reach the insides, it's only logical to give it some TLC or touch ups if necessary. Here we'll start with the spool. Bearings seem to have run dried and the drag disc almost bone dry.

Bearings dry slightly rough. Drag disc is bone dry. Some speedy oil for the bearing and drag grease for the discs.

The crank case looks wet but from oil. Curious. Gear bits has minimal grease but a mix of grease and oil. Possibly a result in over flooding of bearings causing the excess to flow all over the crank case causing the grease to separate from mechanical parts.

Wet case, mostly covered with over flowed oil from bearings with minimal grease on where it really matters!

The parts where you need grease has them at the wrong places possibly displaced by oil, a weird attribute of accidental mix of oil and grease making it look like curdled jelly.

What this calls for is a complete degrease on the parts involved. Upon degreasing, generous amount of contact cleaner needs to be used to thoroughly remove any oily residue.

Parts degreased and contact cleaned. This is when worn parts will show. Some normal wear and tear on the pawl and main gear teeth. Nothing to be alarmed about, just normal aging.

Upon degreasing and contact cleaned, the entire crank case and relevant parts needs to be nicely lathered with marine grease to displace water for a longer lasting reel.

Marine grease coat everything. Light coat of bearing oil ensuring excess oil is being absorbed using paper towels. This is to reduce the chance of oil flowing everywhere in the reel.

Now the part where it starts to go awry. The one way bearing. The insides of the housing looks too wet and seem to have some diluted grease in there. The viscosity & texture of the oil surely didn't feel like a one-way bearing oil. A quick check with my client reveals that he used normal bearing oil with the assumption that they are the same for any kinds of bearing.

This is not true especially with a one-way bearing where part of it's function is to generate enough friction to stop rotational motion. One-way bearing oils are specially designed to provide lubrication but no friction reducing ingredients. Therefore the viscosity & texture feeling when rubbing them between the fingers feels very different from a typical bearing oil.

Degreased and contact cleaned before assembly. One-way bearing oil lightly coats the entire system with excess absorbed using paper towels. If it flows or drips, it's excess.

Humpty is slowly and steadily being pieced back together. One-way bearing rebuild and reassembled into the crank case.

Humpty was also being haphazardly put back together with parts not aligned as well as wrongly oriented. This was evident with the line roller bearing looking like a disaster awaiting to happen.

Line roller shaft wasn't seated properly around it's keyed indentation and the line roller cylinder being pieced in the wrong direction (red arrow). Luckily, no damages was done as it wasn't fished with or heavily loaded when screwing back together. Bearings just need a simple cleaning and oil top up.

The assembly of the line roller bearing takes a lot of bashing when fighting fish and water intrusion is a given as water from the line will splash all over the entire assembly. Best bet is to replace as much space within the assembly as possibly with marine grease as it doesn't really hamper the function of the line roller bearing much but provides lots more protection and blocks most if not all water intrusion.

The screw itself was already bone dry and needs a new dab or threadlocker. Remember to give it as light of a coat as possible to avoid catastrophic disaster like this Certate here with a jammed up roller bearing.

Give it a donut of marine grease on the shaft before sliding in the bearing and line roller cylinder. Give it another donut after the line roller cylinder is in. This screw is bone dry without threadlocker in side. A nice wire brush scrub to remove remaining residue and give it as light a coat of threadlock as possible.

Here's a direct comparison of before and after assembly on how it's suppose to look like.

Wrongly assembled together left, done right on the right. Note the differences of seating position of the shaft and also the line lay roller closer to the bail wire.

Looks as though it didn't skip a beat.

From body bag to ready to battle reel. Just another day at the office.

Light game excitement!

In between off shore trips, we regularly develop an itch to battle fish or put our gear to good use. We've also heard about a pond we frequented have just released a new batch of fish and opened up more saltwater ponds just for catch and release. We have no reason to say no to such an opportunity to temporarily soothe the itch a bit. This calls for light tackle & light game excitement!

Goal keeper in the making, a cast across the pond to a quiet corner, Red fish appears courtesy of the IMA Sasuke shad.

These Red fish put up quite a serious fight and regularly bust lines taking your precious lures with them. Easily tamed with a medium light Major Craft's Sky Road bass rod.

A quick lure switch, another cast to another quite corner, another Red fish. The wobbly Jackall Aska was too tasty to ignore.

The Jackall Aska, tiny but ultra effective lure that's too hard to ignore. A decently sized fighter Red fish.

The fish in this pond smartens up rather quickly because we noticed a trend that for every lure casts, they produce less and less fish as you progress. They seem to be able to recognise them and ignore your lures. This means a quick switch to another pond and try our luck with some other species.

We found a spot where most groupers are holed up. The attractive fluttering fall of an IMA Honey Trap generated a reaction bite from this hefty grouper. Frantic fight ensues as the grouper was aiming for some structure.

IMA Honey trap delivers when you let it do its intended job. Catch fish.

There was a similar theme in play, the groupers also recognises lures previously used and are easily spooked. Hence the need to switch lures about to produce further catches.

This hungry fella fell for the IMA Sasuke with a sinking behaviour. slow twitches, pause, light tap, pause, KAPOWW!!

Chubby fella nonetheless. This one opt to swim away from structures.

Further bite shut down indicated to us to switch ponds once again.

A double hook up as the first 2 lures that hit the water. No one was interested to battle small barras that day. It made for easy-peasy catch and release.

Barra's favourite lure, IMA Sasuke. Trust the lure to do its intended job!

When the clouds clean, sun overhead, this calls for a diving crank. The IMA Ikuri sinking crank bait. I don't remember having any other brands with a sinking crank bait. Awesome lure!

A little bit of light game excitement a day keeps the doctor away. For a little while at least.

Picture courtesy of TackleSource & full catch report can be found here.