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.