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.

Light game excitement!

In between off shore trips, we regularly develop an itch to battle fish or put our gear to good use. We've also heard about a pond we frequented have just released a new batch of fish and opened up more saltwater ponds just for catch and release. We have no reason to say no to such an opportunity to temporarily soothe the itch a bit. This calls for light tackle & light game excitement!

Goal keeper in the making, a cast across the pond to a quiet corner, Red fish appears courtesy of the IMA Sasuke shad.

These Red fish put up quite a serious fight and regularly bust lines taking your precious lures with them. Easily tamed with a medium light Major Craft's Sky Road bass rod.

A quick lure switch, another cast to another quite corner, another Red fish. The wobbly Jackall Aska was too tasty to ignore.

The Jackall Aska, tiny but ultra effective lure that's too hard to ignore. A decently sized fighter Red fish.

The fish in this pond smartens up rather quickly because we noticed a trend that for every lure casts, they produce less and less fish as you progress. They seem to be able to recognise them and ignore your lures. This means a quick switch to another pond and try our luck with some other species.

We found a spot where most groupers are holed up. The attractive fluttering fall of an IMA Honey Trap generated a reaction bite from this hefty grouper. Frantic fight ensues as the grouper was aiming for some structure.

IMA Honey trap delivers when you let it do its intended job. Catch fish.

There was a similar theme in play, the groupers also recognises lures previously used and are easily spooked. Hence the need to switch lures about to produce further catches.

This hungry fella fell for the IMA Sasuke with a sinking behaviour. slow twitches, pause, light tap, pause, KAPOWW!!

Chubby fella nonetheless. This one opt to swim away from structures.

Further bite shut down indicated to us to switch ponds once again.

A double hook up as the first 2 lures that hit the water. No one was interested to battle small barras that day. It made for easy-peasy catch and release.

Barra's favourite lure, IMA Sasuke. Trust the lure to do its intended job!

When the clouds clean, sun overhead, this calls for a diving crank. The IMA Ikuri sinking crank bait. I don't remember having any other brands with a sinking crank bait. Awesome lure!

A little bit of light game excitement a day keeps the doctor away. For a little while at least.

Picture courtesy of TackleSource & full catch report can be found here.

Hunting diamonds with GUNpekies ablaze!

After the new year, we've been anxiously waiting for news of good weather from the east coast opening up for some light tackle action. Not only were we told that the season opened, there were rumours of some groups hitting the mother lode of landing over 30 diamond trevallies in a day, some say 40s too.

A few days later, we're by the river jetty gazing over boats bobbing about, eagerly awaiting our boatman's arrival. Tackles ablaze, with a few acknowledging nods with the boatman, we load the boat up and head straight out with hopes held quietly high.

An hour or so later, we were dropping jigs at our first spot and struck the mother lode.

A nice size diamond on Evergreen's Caprice Kid jig taken on the fluttering drop, took quite a bit of crank in before being confirmed a solid hook up.

Firm steady hook up around the kisser.

Within the first 2 hours, fish finder were marking schools under and around the boat with multiple hook ups. Feeding frenzy ensues with various sizes being hooked up.

Nice sized diamonds on a double hook up next to each other. Even if there were misses, dropping the jig in again immediately invited other takers!

Double trouble all thanks to IMA's notoriously effective Gunpeki!

Occasionally, the school disappears and prompted us to search about nearby as the boatman suggests that they seldom wander far. Sometimes we find them, but sometimes we find other gangsters of the seabed.

1 Gun 2 fish. Greedy groupers with mouths barely big enough for the jig!

Multiple hook ups all throughout when we hit the sweet spot!

The frenzied excitement stirred up quite a bit of itch out of the deckie and asked me to loan him my idling light tackle as well as some Gunpekies to try out. He was casting off lighter jigs away from where we were jigging covering more grounds and busting up diamonds after diamonds! The only consolation I get out of seeing a deckie setting lines on fire is the knowledge that some of my new Gunpekies will be properly christened!

A decent sized fish with a Gun on a medium light boat bass MojorCraft Skyroad rod!

Candy coloured Gunpekis were firing too!

Occasional slowdown prompted the trial of lumos. This one goes to a Shout!

Oddly, candy colour Gunpekies was out firing other colours!

Sweet toothed diamond trevallies? Never heard of em? This candy coloured Gunpeki will show you otherwise.

The intense action lasted only for the first half of the day racking up about 10 jewels while the tally adds up to around mid 20s by day's end as the deckie out fished all 5 others combined as we enviously looks on with absolute disbelief!

It was a fun day out all in all and we'll surely be back for some revenge. Here are some of the actions caught on video for the trip, enjoy!

Full catch report can be found here. Photo courtesy of TackleSource.

Mr. Rusty visits Shimano Speedmaster

The final installment of Mr. Rusty and Dr. Hide. A Shimano Speedmaster with complains of rusty screw on the gearbox side. A thorough check and general service was also on the cards here.

Mr. Rusty didn't even bother hiding this time, openly showing where it left nasty surprises.

This reel feels perfectly fine and smooth and doesn't feel like it needs much done. But a strip down would be good to go through wear and tear or signs of damages. Upon opening up of the gearbox, there's water everywhere due to rinsing after use. No signs of rust, which is good.

Water droplets everywhere in the gearbox (red arrow). All surfaces cleaned and then brushed with marine grease to displace water. Ensure that no grease gets into the anti-reverse bearing.

With water droplets found everywhere, it's only safe to assume that the entire drag stack is also soaked and needs cleaning.

Drag stack and main gear looks well used with gunk but nothing out of the ordinary. Just a clean up and new grease application.

Externally, all parts look ok with the exception of a rusty screw. Brushed clean and smack a good dose of grease over it after screwing it back in would suffice. The anti-reverse bearing also seem to be working fine after it's early rust detection and rebuilt from a couple of months back.

Nothing out of the ordinary. Rebuilt one-way bearing's great, speedy RPCustom hybrid ceramic bearings is just as speedy.

Gearbox cleaning and new layer of marine grease applied without complications or damaged parts found.

External mechanical parts on this reel only needs a bit of cleaning and new packing of marine grease to keep it working wonderfully without binding.

Stripped down, cleaned and newly brushed on layer of grease helps displace water.

After everything's put together as it should be, a good wad of grease is packed into the rusty screw for some serious protection.

This concludes the trilogy mis-adventures of Mr. Rusty. I'm sure we'll have more incidents related to Mr. Rusty in time to come as it is close to impossible to entirely eliminate rust due to the nature of the hobby especially off shore fishing.

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!