Twinpower becomes Thick-power-less

Remember this Twinpower? It's back and apparently with upgraded carbontex drags which was matched and fit at a local tackle shop. Something curious happened after the fitment as the drag force was significantly reduced with newly installed carbontex drags.

So now it's back here for a check up on what's causing this mysterious loss of drag force. Quick inspection shows that even when the drag knob was locked down, drag was at best 50% its intended force. Carbontex packaging says that it's for a Daiwa reel, nothing wrong with that so long as the dimensions fit as there are far too many reels out there with overlapping drag dimensions used.

Note the Carbontex packaging, Daiwa models.

First hint. Note how the retainer wire doesn't slip into the spool housing slot? Also note the rubber gasket's muffin top squeeze? If fitment is correct, you shouldn't have this issue.

Muffin top imprint still stuck on the rubber gasket. Something must be bloated or wrongly installed inside the drag stack.

First of the drag discs removed (right), compared to the original drag disc (left). Visibly larger in diameter.

When the top 2 drag stack was removed, it's clear that there's a problem with the fitment. The carbontex drag was a tad too big to fit into the aluminum drag disc plate.

When inspected sideways, you can see that the carbontex was being forced into the aluminum disc plate, hence the bent edges. Even with the bent edges, the carbontex couldn't fit into the aluminum drag plates.

Carbontex outer diameter in 26.25mm.

Maximum diameter for the aluminum drag plate is at 26.02.

In order for the carbontex drag to fit, it needs to be trimmed down a little. But that's not the whole story for a properly functioning drag system.

Thickness of original drag disc. 0.47 being heavily used and worn off quite a bit. They usually come in a thickness of slightly over 0.5mm.

Custom matched carbontex used, more than twice the thickness of the original drag disc. This is the first sign that it's causing the boated top stack and also preventing the drag system from properly generating friction.

Here's how thick the top stack would be with 2 original drag discs installed. Note how both aluminum plates fit within its detent slots to generate friction.

Now looking at the thickness of the stack with both thicker carbontex drags installed (left). Note how the left most aluminum drag plate detent (blue) doesn't sit into the right most aluminum plate detent (red)? This in effect removes the function to generate friction between these 2 aluminum plates. The right picture shows with 1 thicker carbontex drag and 1 original drag installed, the metal plates only manages to catch less than 50% of it's intended detent contact area. Barely there, not exactly ideal either.

Moving towards the bottom most drag, another curious discovery. Mismatched dimension of carbontex drag was used.

Bottom most carbontex drag disc (front) stacked over the original drag disc (back).

Carbontex drag in its place at the bottom of the spool. Wrong inner and outer diameter.

This is obviously no fault of carbontex, but a rather poor solution provided by the person at this local tackle shop. Carbontex may not have provided a pre-set pack for this reel but they do have individual drag discs to be sold if you know what you need. It takes a bit more effort to match the right drag discs dimension or some experience needed if you were to meddle with some modifications of your own.

For this instance, it may take a while for Carbontex to ship the right drags over and the owner of this reel will be heading off to battle real soon. The best bet would be to custom cut them from carbon drag sheets.

Carbon drag sheets in various thickness to match.

Custom cut carbon disc (bottom) vs ripped original carbon disc (top, red).

Perfect fitment from custom cut drag discs.

Top drag discs, original above and custom cut below.

Snug fitment and rotates freely in its place without binding. That's key to drag operation.

Top most drag disc fits perfectly before the top aluminum detent discs is installed in place.

When this Thick-power-less reel was put back together with the right bits, it's now back to being a Twinpower ready for business. The drag force was immediately restored if not improved over the worn out original drag discs. No more embarrassing muffin top too!