Japanese Twins, check!

Here's something I can proudly tick off my bucket list of 'Japanese Twins'. Japanese made Shimano Twinpower SW series. Both of them would do great for some jiggy action, light and heavy stuff. The twins come loaded with quite a bit of 'Stella' bits and you get what you pay for. With a little bit extra effort, you can pimp it up to be 'there' with the 'Stellas'.

I'm preparing the twins to take on 2 different jiggy duties. One for the shallows in the east coast paired with Majorcraft's Giant Killing light jigging rod PE0.6-1.2 while the other takes on a PE4 rod for the deep around the straits.

The twins are both built tough to withstand quite a substantial amount of medium to heavy fish fights. They are also decently sealed from any water intrusion into the body. Bearings are all S-ARB variants that can withstand salt water corrosion for some time. Even so, it's always better to put in some extra precaution to pimp it up a bit with more/better lubrication and protection around areas that takes on most bashing and salt water intrusion.

Japanese Twins ready to be stripped down.

Upon stripping the twins down, just give it a nice gentle rub/brush down with marine grease for that little added protection on most surfaces. Make sure to avoid getting grease into the one-way bearings (anti-reverse) assembly but do give it a drop of one-way oil if necessary.

Plenty of 'Stella' trickle down goodies bar some minor bits which can be sourced and pimped up.

Line roller bearings take the most bashing as it is regularly loaded with massive amount of torque on tiny ball bearings and these twins don't come equip with water proofing seals like some of the more expensive reels with fancy techs like Daiwa's magseal. Even with special rust prevention coating on these bearings, high speed rolling and heavy grinding will wear these coatings away over time and will result in rusted and busted bearings. So, rub them down.

Marine greased up for maximum protection and smoothness in line rolling.

Surprisingly, the worm gear support uses teflon bushings both front and back. Weird things it that they made the front bushing like a sleeve and you cannot replace it with a bearing even if you want to. I've seen some folks drilling the body a little bit just to accommodate a bearing and I can see disaster written all over that kind of mod as the plastics around the front bushing housing will be too thin to support the bearings and the worm gear. The rear teflon bushing's easily replaced with bearings and shim to a glove like fit.

A tad of smoothy hybrid ceramic bearings (green) added to the worm gear support in place of its original teflon bushing and shims(red). Shimmed to a glove like fit. Both Japanese twins got the same smoothy treatment.

Shimano also decides to skim on the pawl support bits with teflon bushings and not ball bearing supported for an improved smoothness and longevity. Luckily, this can also be replaced with Stella sourced parts.

Standard teflon bushing from the twins (red), replaced with Stella bits (blue). Shims to tweak fitment (orange).

Here's another bit that's missing from the twins. The rotor lock nut, similar to the Stella, can house a bearing and sleeve for the support of the floating shaft and further beefing up of the reel's durability.

Seen here with an additional ceramic hybrid bearings, Stella sourced sleeve, and rotor lock nut with the bearing housing in view.

Here's how it looks like with bearing+sleeve assembly in the lock nut next to the rubber seal & protective cap.

These 2 twins should serve me well on my upcoming off shore adventures. Perhaps some bashing in-land to get it christened and wet!

Japanese Twins? pimped and checked!

Gettin Jiggin with it at Pulau Jarak

Pulau Jarak, located close to the center of the Straits of Malacca, famous for its deep waters and strong currents inhabited by hard charging pelagics and notoriously brash demersals. This challenging combo requires you to arm yourself with jigging gear of at least PE2-3 and sometimes up to PE4-5. Jigs ranging from 100g-200g depending on the current and depths.

The Shimano Stradic 6000FJ is ideal for the job as it is reasonably priced/built, spool ready for 300m of PE3 lines, and packed with sprinkles of hand me down tech from the Stellas. We live on board the 'GT Chaser' for 3 days and 2 nights of intense jigging and possibly popping around the island depending on the current.

Ready but not quite. Needs some pimpin before it even catches a glimpse of sunlight.

The Shimano Stradic 6000FJ doesn't have seals to stop corrosive salt water intrusion. Therefore, some pimpin is needed to beef up it's internals for durability and also performance tuning with a combination of full ceramics as well as hybrid ceramic bearings.

The first set of bearings to be swapped to full ceramics, main gear supports. Shim fitted for proper gear mesh gap. Coated the body housing with teflon grease for that extra bit of protection.

Another view revealing all its balls in full glory!

Next up would be to pimp the pinion gear bearings (x-ship) and also the worm gear shaft's teflon bushings starting with the front bushing after removing the anti-reverse bearing assembly from the body.

Full ceramics for the pinion gear support, both x-ship bearings replaced, only one shown here. Note the worm gear teflon bushing on the right, it's about to get chopped!

Slides out smoothly.

It takes a bit of patience to trim the bushing as it is very tough. Best is to make the primary cut lesser than the desired removal length (similar thickness to the hybrid ceramic bearings) and fine tune it further by trimming off or filing it away bit by bit. Any accidental excess removal can easily be tuned using micro shims.

Here's a view of the hybrid ceramic bearings supporting the worm gear shaft in its housing before sliding the trimmed teflon bushing back into place.

Moving over to the rear worm gear shaft support bushing, it's a straight forward swap with additional micro shims to reduce free play and sliding for a more consistent line lay over the spool.

Rear teflon bushing for the worm gear is out, hybrid ceramic bearings in. Micro shims go between the bearings and worm gear shaft.

Onwards to the next bit, pawl bushing swapped out with a hybrid ceramic bearings and some modified Stella parts ordered from Japan. This modification is to predominantly increase durability of the reel but after the modification, there was a surprising improved smoothness to the worm gear to a point where I can pull the floating shaft forward/outward, the pawl is able to drive and rotate the worm gear! Previously not possible with the original teflon bushing.

Original teflon bushing shown below the pimped bits. Hybrid ceramic bearings sandwiched between the pawl and trimmed pawl bushing from the Stella. Micro shims sit between the hybrid ceramic bearings and the trimmed bushing for a glove like fit into the housing.

The pimped up Shimano Stradic 6000FJ's ready for battle with it's new innards and new found smoothness. The smoothness and low cranking resistance will help me quite a bit as I'll be jiggin for almost 3 days with little resting periods in between jiggin spots.

Jigs ranging from 100g to 200g, jerk baits, stick baits and poppers ready for battle.

Barracuda bites, but I-eat-choo! Tasty turmeric ginger paste over pan fried barracuda blocks!

Fish photos courtesy of Darren from Tackle Source.

The pimped up gear took on the bashing without breaking a sweat and it's well worth the pimpin as I'll be coming back to Pulau Jarak again soon. Upon quick inspection after the trip, there were no signs of any salt water intrusion or premature wear on any part of the reel. Just needed some fresh coat of teflon grease around it's gears and metal to metal contact bits.

Next test would be off shore Kuching in 2 weeks time, slightly shallower waters and I'll be testing a sweet new combo with pimped up bits as well. Stay tuned!