Daiwa goes Ballistic noisy!

This noisy Daiwa wants a second life and a rebuild will be necessary to return it back to its Ballistically smooth ways. Owner of this reel wants to see if the 'grinding' noise can be eliminated so that he can happily hand it down to his son for a second wave of fish battles.

Daiwa Ballistic, made mostly out of carbon composite material, very light reel.

External inspection didn't reveal much but the grinding noise was very pronounced coming from the rotor or spool. Even when the spool's removed, the noise is still there. Noise was gone only when the rotor was removed. A different grinding feeling was evident when cranking without the rotor, which I'll come back to that in a bit.

This reel is made mostly out of carbon composite material in pursuit of lightness. What this also means is that it flexes when loaded heavily. A firm grip on the rotor on one hand and the other on the body will reveal a little bit of flexing when squeezed. This instance, the rotor flexes quite a bit and therefore rubbing against the reel body, hence the 'noise'. There isn't much to be done about this but to put up with it while fishing.

The different grinding feeling without the rotor indicates that either the gears worn off or some of the bearings are dirty. A strip down would soon reveal what's causing the grinding feel.

Spool seat, teflon shims, lower spool support bearing's in excellent condition. Drag stack is clean and wet, upper spool bearing support is fine too. Oscillating gear and bearing works wonderfully tool.

Most of the internal parts seem to be in excellent working condition without any signs of bashing or wear and tear. The only thing that isn't ideal is the mixture of oil and grease all over the gear box. Anti-reverse bearing was over flowing with oil oozing out when dismantled.

Main gear still has grease on most important bits, no excessive wear found. Pinion gear seems fine but the one-way bearing is flooded with oil. Floating shaft shows a bit of wear but no damages.

The culprit was mostly dirty bearings as they refuse to spin freely or smoothly. The bearings didn't show any signs of rust and it's usually a very good indication for a successful rebuild.

Crank shaft bearing removed to reveal no lubrication inside, light or heavy, just a little rough. Bail arm mechanism's dirty as well, cleaning should be simple and no rocket science involved.

The remainder of the bearings also showed some damaged roughness and this calls for the ultra sonic cleaner. Bearings seals removed, gunk or grease brushed off before dunking them into the bath.

Naked bearings getting their bits shaken to remove stubborn dirt.

Damage free bearings were free spinning like never before. Gear box cleaned off old grease and oil, new marine grease coated. Main gear, pinion gear and floating shaft thoroughly brushed and contact cleaned ready for a new layer of marine grease.

Ultra sonic cleaning has revealed true conditions of the bearings involved. Good ones tend to spin freely and damaged ones will stop abruptly. As the video below shows, first bearing's in good condition while the second one's a little damaged.

This Daiwa Ballistic will continue to serve the owner and live out its second life very well with further TLC over time and perform fixes earlier on when discovered to be behaving oddly. A surprising find is that the external condition looks a lot more weathered than what's inside which I at first thought would be a gruesome find. Time for this Daiwa to take on its second life and go Ballistic fish fighting once again!

How do you get a Biomaster to lay nice?

After a recent off shore trip to Pekan hauling some decently sized diamond trevallys, a friend noticed that his Shimano Biomaster was starting to make noise under load. A quick visual and external inspection revealed that the line laying guide wasn't spinning. No surprises there as this is first part to usually fail when offshore fishing often with lots of salt water exposure.

This Biomaster isn't the salt water variant and to my knowledge recent Shimano's don't come in salt water variant below 4000 sized reels.

Externally, this reel's already pimped up with an after market knob. The knob also felt like there was slight binding when spinning.

After market knob with an open outer cap allows water to easily splash into the bearings. When removed, the culprit was easy to spot with gunk and rust everywhere on the shaft as well as the bearing housing. Luckily, they are mostly light surface damages. Bearings stuck as I suspect rust has caught up inside.

Surface rust and gunk on this was easy to remove but the bearing was a bit more damaged. The bearing was free again after ultra sonic cleaning was done. Possibly only minor damages and seem to be quite smooth after being packed with marine grease. Not a major deal breaker nor will it generate noise therefore a replacement isn't necessary.

Once cleaned and rebuilt, bearing was working fine, light scuff found on shaft and bearing housing. A good dose of grease pumped in to the bearing, a wad to cover the screw and seams around the bearing for better protection as water can easily flow into this area.

The line roller set doesn't look so good upon disassembly. There was some force binding damages on the bail end cap and the bearing wasn't spinning as a result of rusty balls.

Forced binding damage found on the bail end cap (top left red arrow). Rust and gunk seeped into the like guide ring (green). Light rust was found inside the bearing where it's jammed up (bottom red arrows).

With a jammed up bearing, the only way to rebuild this is to clean it ultrasonically and see if it's ok for a rebuild. The rebuild was ok after the ultrasonic bath but not 100%. This means that the bearing is good to go fishing but grinding sound may not be entirely eliminated. A quick check with the owner says that he doesn't mind trying it out first to see if he can live with it.

This reel doesn't come with seals around the line roller and therefore packing the entire assembly with marine grease would greatly help in preventing water from entering. When you have no gaps or space inside the assembly, water will have no space to fill or trapped in

I prefer to replace any space/air in the line laying assembly so that water doesn't have any space to fill. This will serve as a very good seal against water intrusion at the same time lubricating the bearings for long periods of time. On top of that, line roller bearing's function is to take heavy torque load as priority, not speed, the likes of spool support bearings for bait-casters.

Fully loaded, marine grease oozing out (left) as the line guide is being assembled back into position. Replace space/air (right) with more grease to form a seal. Any excess can be brushed off afterwards.

Upon opening up the gearbox for a regular check-up and service, the sight was a bit shocking with corroded pits seen all over the main gear. Some of the gearing tooth were also affected with slight pitting.

Box was clean but needs a nice protective layer. Corroded pits can be seen everywhere (red arrows).

Some of the pits were on the gear tooth and some of the tooth were also showing signs of good use and worn off bits.

Some deep pits, cannot be removed (red). Well worn gears most likely from heavy cranking while fighting fish (blue).

There isn't much to be done with pitting but to give it a nice steel brush down to remove damaged bits off the surface and give it a new coat of protective marine grease.

Pits are still visible but a good layer of marine grease should keep it going for a long time to come. Nicely greased up box too.

This reel has put up some serious fight against quite a bit of fish as you can see from the collected gunk of fiber and grease on the drag stack.

Move along, nothing to see here with standard drags and nicely used gunk. Don't need messing about if it ain't faulty.

All in all, this reel has seen some serious action but needs a bit more TLC than its current condition. When I first picked up the reel, there were salt crystals everywhere on the reel. A note to the owner would be to at least give it a nice fresh water rinse down after off shore action and the reel will serve him long time.

Bruiser Grouper, tasty grouper, and some clean up after.

We recently got news that there's a recent development of some pond operators opening up options for catch and release (instead of the usual baiting, catch and weight in to be paid by the kilo) with the promise of well stocked bigger barramundis and groupers in the range of 2kgs and above.

Great news and fun for us to fill in between bigger offshore trips. The day started early and gloomy but that didn't stop us from landing barramundis after barramundis. Sad thing about this pond is that the fish aren't in the best condition as there were very little aerial displays and the fights were rather weak for barramundis 2kgs and above. Nonetheless, it did scratch a bit of the itch for tight lines, twitchy loaded rod, and safe to say everyone had some fun in the sun later in the day.

My biggest barra of the day after several mishap and line cuts while retrieving the fish with a lip grip. Photo courtesy of Tackle Source.

Buddy of mine landed another barra using Zipbait's Tiny Khamsin SR.

And another using DUO's MOAB 85F.

Not long after, we got bored chasing after the elusive aerial displays from these shy & weak barramundis and a friend spotted something which he suspects to be the not so humble abode of a grouper. Within minutes, a few of us were huddled around the area tossing in jigs, soft plastics, bait, and on several occasions instantaneously taken on the drop. Premature excitement ensues with opened hooks, lost jigs, lure, and snapped lines egged us further as I decide to use a madai jig with assist hooks instead.

Upon several jig drops sweeping the area gave me a shock as it was taken on the drop and actually felt like a snag. I immediately gave it a second tug and to my surprise, I was given a firm response tug. Then comes the frantic tug of war trying to lift the grouper out of its hole. It was a bruiser grouper but was no match for my Majorcraft Skyroad spinning rod.

Bruiser Grouper tips the scale at 3.8kg, I decide to pay for this bruiser for dinner. Photo courtesy of Tackle Source.

Bruiser grouper turns tasty grouper. Half the fish here takes up half the lazy susan.

Complete catch report can be found here courtesy of Tackle Source.

Fun for a day also meant that it's time for my reel's regular checks and service prior to my off shore trip 2 weeks after.

Bruiser grouper was no match for these tough gears still in excellent condition.

Same goes to the worm gear and floating shaft without signs of wear. Just the usual grease coat top up is enough.

Make sure to apply generous amount of grease on these bruiser beaters.

These are just the few critical ceramic bearings that takes most of the bruising. Seals removed, grease flushed, soaked in cleaning solvents, and elevated with wire mesh to keep it away from dirty sediments in a glass jar.

In goes the jar into an ultrasonic cleaner to thoroughly clean these ceramic bearings.

Oiled balls and grease rubbed body back into the reel.

These babies just need some tender loving speedy oil.

Speed oil for this fella too before plugging it back into the reel.

A well kept and also the proud feeling of a nicely pimped up reel gives me confidence in the field that I've eliminated another factor for failure to land fish. Till next time, Jarak, here I come!