Another Ryoga bites the rust

The Daiwa Ryoga is a very popular reel among anglers here as it's built tough and versatile. Claimed to be salt-water friendly, true to a certain extent but some parts of this reel cannot live up to its specifications claim. I'm sure if given proper care and maintenance, it'll live up close to its intended potential.

This Ryoga is in for a long over-due check-up and service. The owner also wanted to give it a little bit of new life in the form of new RCS knobs. Owner complains that the reel is very rough and lost all its original creamy smooth feel.

One crank of the reel and you are immediately greeted with metal-to-metal rubbing roughness. Even the knobs produces squeaking noise when spinning. Time to strip this BC down for a thorough service.

Rough Ryoga selfie with new RCS rubber coated cork knobs.

Without a doubt, there will be back play on the handle especially when the reel's long over-due for a  check-up. Grease or oil usually gets into the one-way bearings creating slippage. Video below as proof.



As for the squeaky knob, the culprit was quickly discovered. Rust. Serious rust damage resulting in powdered bearings. The inner races of the bearing was somewhat fused onto the knob shaft making it very difficult to remove the knobs and bearings. Plenty of rust remover and prying needed to get the bearing and knob out.

Powdered knob bearings (top) where you can't tell between the shaft or bearings. Bottom row shows rust corrosion and pitting. This calls for some serious rust removal rubbing and also machine polishing to remove permanent pitting.

Oil seem to have spread all over the magforce brake system (top). Free spool support bearings are in good condition but a tad dry and rough (bottom).

Internal gear looks ok. One-way bearing's all rusty and gunked up.

Looks nasty but a quick contact clean up shows that they are just surface rust grime. Upon cleaning, there doesn't seem to be any permanent damage on the roller shaft or bearing pins.

Top right, pinion support bearing's all jammed up with rust. Bottom, as usual, rubber sealed but can't seem to stop water intrusion as intended. Water and grease all over the drag system.

One of the free spool support bearing's got some rust on the retainer cage. Not sure if there are any permanent damage on the bearing balls or races. This will need some revival procedure using rust removal and also ultrasonic cleaning.

All the parts awaiting for an ultrasonic bath.

Some parts do really well after ultrasonic bath and some just need a bit more of the good-ol scrubbing.

Since this reel will be heavily used for salty bashing, the best option would be to pack bearings with marine grease for maximum protection. Free spool support bearing only needs light oil.

Crank case scrubbed down and contact cleaned in preparation for new protective coating (left). Protective marine grease coating on all internal surfaces for maximum protection (right)

Light oil on the insides and marine grease coating outside for free spool support bearing (top, left). Generous amounts of marine grease rubbed all over everything that moves (top right and bottom)

Drag stack lightly coated with drag grease during installation. Gears coated with Daiwa's own sticky salt water grease for creamy smooth cranks.

Externally brushed to remove grime (top). New knob bearings fully loaded with marine grease for maximum protection from salt water bashing.

When the one-way bearing's properly clean and lubed with one-way bearing oil, you get smoothness in cranks and firm stopping power without back plays. Grease or other light oil will create slippage but not one-way bearing oil. Video proof below.

Revived and slightly pimped. Creamy smooth crank is back with maximum protection.

No more squeaking, no more rough riding. This Ryoga is back at its best with Daiwa's signature creamy smooth cranks. Ready to take on some serious salty bashing once again.

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.

Rusty anti-reverse on a Speedmaster

This Shimano Speedmaster's been pimped with speedy hybrid ceramic bearings and recently been used offshore for jigging without much fuss except for a weird rough and grinding feel while cranking.

A quick check by popping open the brake side cover reveals the spool support hybrid ceramics to be in excellent condition. Unscrewing the spool tension cap on the crank handle side also reveals a speedy clean hybrid ceramics. Pop the entire spool out of the body and gave it a few cranks to reveal that the roughness comes from within the inner works of the crank case.

Rusty one-way bearing (anti-reverse). Looks nasty, some damages done but not critical.

It didn't take long to discover that the one-way bearing's probably exposed to salt water for a tad too long. These bearings are generally lubed with light one-way bearing oil and if they are not well taken care of and regularly checked and serviced, this is the outcome.

Upon removing the phenolic resin cage, the roller pins should fall off quite easily. In this case, rust is holding them in the cage. Even the steel outer ring (steel ring in the crank case body) shows some serious damages are about to go deep.

Damage assessment can only be confirmed after thoroughly cleaning of rust and gunk collected over time. A combination of lubricant, rust remover and contact cleaners were used to flush out these nasty rusty bits to reveal an almost new bearing.

Almost new roller pins with signs of typical wear, phenolic cage is like new, crank shaft sleeve is almost new with slight signs of uneven wear.

The outer ring didn't like the rust that much as there was initial signs of deep corrosion if it were to be left un-serviced longer. Note the dark patchy stains on the left most grove.

Fitting the roller pins back into the phenolic cage was a tricky affair as it keeps dropping out and getting stuck onto greasy patches around the crank case. Grease is a big NO-NO for one-way bearings and has to be cleaned before assembly. Shown here fully lubed with one-way bearing oil.

Assembly was tricky with the tiny pins falling off the cage like rice choc chips. Upon assembly, ensure that there's proper lubrication with quality one-way bearing oil. Take extra care not to get any grease into the bearings. Give it a few rotation to fully lube the bearing and try it out on the crank to see if it does stop any reverse crank with little to no back play.

Good thing that this is an early detection, could have avoided some deep corrosion if it were to be serviced sooner. The bearings worked fine with no back play shows that the damages didn't affect it's function. With this discovery, prevention is key by packing in some salt water grease around the star drag screw system where I suspect salt water can seep through. Although not 100%, little TLC does go a long way for you to enjoy fishing with minimal interruption and prolonged lifespan of your gear, any gear really.