Innovative Stella SW5000

This incident belongs to the archives of the x-files. It's got some innovative features that enables the use of a knob that belongs to a smaller category of reels. It's even got some fancy new stack of hardware in place as bearings.

Shimano spinning reel usually comes with either one of their size-A or size-B knobs depending on the size of the reels. Which also means, they come with different sized bearings for fitting.

This is a Shimano Stella SW5000 (2007) and they supposedly comes equipped with size-B knobs and bearings. Instead, we have a size-A knob fitted, owner complains that there's freeplay on the knob with suspicion of failed bearings. Line roller also needs some attention because it's decided to stop rolling.

First off, line roller. I seriously wonder what was being hauled that would result in melted metal bits fused and crumpled together. Unsolved mystery this is.

The horror unfolds. Top aluminum cover (left) for the line roller assembly looks like it's been corroded with signs of heavy pitting. Right red, that's metal fused together! Green being new replacement line roller.

With such a nasty damage done to the line roller, I had to check if the drag's ok. Surprisingly, it's perfectly fine and just needs a quick clean up and a new layer of drag grease.

No melting, no signs of brutal fish drag that connects to the molten line roller.

Drag clicker under the spool is messed up with water and gunk. A simple clean up and lube up is all it needs to hit the water clicking again.

Filthy drag clicker needs a shower!

We now look at the mother of all innovation. There was quite a bit of wobble with some binding when spinning the knob.

Split rings (red) to fill the space as shaft extension between the shaft and the screw for the bearing to run on. Shims (orange) used in place of a bearing (closer to crank side) because there are no bearings made in this dimension.

So, how do you fit a size-A knob with smaller and shorter mounting shaft into a bigger size-B bigger and longer mounting knob shaft? You fill the gap creatively with split rings and shim spacers. There are no bearings made in this small dimension and this is as good as having a fixed, non spinning knob into the Stella. Funny enough, the line roller melted with a proper functioning bearings while this spins with some binding. There are no two ways around this but to replace the size-A knob with a proper size-B knob.

While I'm at it, the insides look battle worn and can't help but to give it a nice clean up and marine grease rub down.

At first, I was shocked to see split rings and shims in this battle worn Stella but it surely made me laugh at how innovative of a solution this was. Where there's a will there's a way they say.