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.

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.

Mr. Rusty visits Daiwa Certate

Mr. Rusty strikes back! This reel knob was apparently acting wobbly weird and the line roller wasn't even spinning. The victim in this case is a pimped up Daiwa Certate and it's time for a strip search!

Mr. Rusty left something unpleasant on this reel. We'll soon find out what and where.

First thing that was taken apart was the pimped up handle and knob. No rocket science, just a cap and a screw in the way of revealing the unpleasant gift from Mr. Rusty.

Knob slides off and behold! Mr. Rusty left an explosive dump here. Rust looked to have eaten up quite a bit out of the inner bearings most exposed to salt water, which is still stuck on the shaft as pictured. Bearing shield came off and that's a really bad case of rust and corrosion. The outer bearing seems perfectly fine.

The knob bearing closest to the handle seem to have exploded and grinded some of its own bits into the the potpourri of shield, balls, races to dust and rust.

It took quite a bit of time and rust remover to work deep into the corroded parts in order to dislodge the fused inner bearing race (blue arrow) on the shaft. Thoroughly chewed up shields (green) and busted balls (pink) only fell apart after rust remover seeped through the entire pile of rust over a period of time.

Mr. Rusty left some nasty scars of corroded pits on the shaft but isn't critical. All it needs now is a new bearing and proper coating of marine grease packed into the entire assembly.

New bearings being loaded with marine grease before fitment back into the handle shaft. Existing outer bearing cleaned and greased too.

Next up, line laying roller refused to spin. Screw removal was a little difficult too, I suspect it's overly enthusiastic thread locker used here as the screw is usually made of marine grade stainless steel that can withstand salt water corrosion without breaking any sweat. The shaft's aluminum, pretty much corrosion resistant.

Thread locker (red arrow) was found everywhere in the line roller shaft, including the inside of the bearing (white and red powdered stuff). Really bad stuff to be found in bearings. There seem to have a bit of rust but mostly jammed up thread locker's preventing the bearings to spin freely. It's causing quite a bit of challenge to remove the entire assembly as it's as good as fused together with so much thread locker everywhere. Luckily, after cleaning, the bearing seem to work fine only with slight roughness.

Cleaning of the line roller assembly was a little tricky as you need to physically remove the solidified material between tight creases like screw threads and worse of all, inside the bearings. This calls for steel bristle brushing and also good amounts of contact cleaner to remove any oily residue so that new marine grease could be packed into the entire assembly.

The remainder of the reel service was child's play after the above fiasco. Just a quick cleaning and new application of marine grease is all it needs. The only thing to be careful would be to avoid messing up the magseal.

Floating shaft & spool seat sleeve looked well used, still plenty of grease, no damages found. Cleaned, greased and good to go.

Avoid the magseal and you'll be left with just the gear box to deal with. You don't even need to mess with the one-way bearing. That's if it's spinning smooth and stopping without play.

Gearbox looks good, dry and like new. Just a quick clean up, wear and tear check, and add a fresh coat of marine grease. Nothing out of the ordinary and it's good to go.

The crack shaft bearing on the handle side seems a bit rough and a simple 2 step clean up with new grease packed in would do just fine. A 2 step clean up usually involves degreasing & contact cleaning after in order to replace lubrication in the bearing. Tougher grime or gunk would need the 3rd step involving an ultrasonic cleaning bath for a thorough cleaning.

No rust, but some light dust or gunk might have snugged in. Out goes the dirty grease and in goes new marine grease.

What have we learned today?

1. Go easy on the thread locker. What I usually do is use a small 'precision screw driver' to dip into the thread locker bottle/nozzle and then dab it over a few spots on screws. I don't even coat the entire screw. If too much was accidentally applied, just clean it off with paper towel before it dries. It doesn't even need to be reapplied upon next removal or the next, it stays there long enough to hold the screw from coming off. I only see a need for reapplication when there is absolutely no friction when removing the screw.

Steel brushed existing screw to strip off old thread locker gunk (white arrow). Light dabs of new thread locker and rub it around just a little towards the tip (red arrow).

2. Mr. Rusty can cause explosive damages to bearings if left unattended for too long. Early detection is key to stopping Mr. Rusty leaving unwanted gifts for your reel. Or you'll have an excuse to pimp it up with exotic parts.