Reel cleaning/Lubrication

Just wanted to get an idea on where everybody puts grease vs oil on baitcasting reels. (ok to add your 2 cents for spinning reels also). I have heard mixed opinions on whether to even use grease. Thanks in advance.

Hi bassbarron,
On bearings I use Yellow Rocket Fuel, on gears I use Super Lube silicone grease and on drag disc/washers I use Shimano Drag grease and all of them are available from http://www.heartlandtackleservice.com .
There are other good products out there for oil, such as Hot Sauce and others but I really like the Rocket Fuel for pure speed of the spool. Heartland Tackle also sells bearing and reel parts and have great tech support.
No I am not in any way afiliated or sponsored by them, it is just one stop shopping and they steer me straight.
Hope this helps,
Kizew

Kizew- thanks for the tip- I have hot sauce oil and grease already so ill try them for now- but that looks like a great site- there is even an article about cleaning a chronarch with pictures for the mechanically impaired fisherman like myself.

Bassbaron they are great – whether you buy from them or not they are a wealth of knowledge and will help!

I love tearing down and repairing/maintaining reels… I do my fathers, mine, a few friends each year – in total, probably 40 reels a season. So, I am not an expert by any means, but have experience with ABU reels, Shimano reels, and Quantum reels. I used to use “standard” reel oil and lithium grease. I became a convert during the 2004 season to Quantums Hot Sauce Reel Grease & Reel Oil. Using them increases spool velocities and allows for longer casts. My Shimano and Quantum baitcaster begin each season “as new” with clean, greased, and oil parts. A couple things to note:

1. NEVER, and I mean never, OVER oil or grease your equipment! This will severly limit the spool velocities and cause you nothing but frtsutation and leave you wondering why your reel just isn’t the same.

2. Coincidenally with Point #1, over oilling or greasing will lead to prematured drag washer failure. Most drag washers are designed to be FREE of oil and grease, so be careful. Some will requre a specific “waxy” type of grease. I usually only place 1 or 2 drops of oil be bearing.

3. I will warn you that if you are not one to put an extra drop or so of oil on the ball bearings during a long season, you may want to stick with “standard” oil (many manufactures will include a tube with the reel). Quantum argus that the oil “molecularly bonds” to the reels… while I buy the chemical/mechanical concept and the engineering, it does “wear off” through use and moisture – I have experienced this first hand.

4. As for most spinning reels, removing the crank arm and the side plate is all that is necassary…. shoot some grease in on the worm gears and leave the rest well enough alone… This type of reel is fairly low maintance, especially when compared to a level winder.

5. NEVER forget to shoot some grease (several times a season) into the bevel and worm gear guiding the line onto the spool. With ABU reels, many times as the spool unravels the guide travels, too. This is an inefficiency of the reel and limits casting distance, but the use of HOT SAUCE grease and keeping the area free of dirt will greatly improve distances and performance.

Tearing equipment down is fun! Here is a shot from this winter with my boy…

JJ,

I am with you as far as using Hot Sauce. It seems to be a decent lubricant.

Here is something that got me thinking though. Someone mentioned their lubricant gave them faster spool rotation. I understand how this is possible when the reel is set on “Free Spool,” but most anglers use the brakes and the fine adjustment knob. Both of these add some form of resistance to the spool.

The spools on my Pflueger President reels will spin forever when they are on “Free Spool,” but as soon as I put on the brakes and the fine adjustment they don’t spin nearly as long.

Just an observation.

JT Bagwell

Reel guy- you put grease on the worm gear, correct? I have always done this, then someone told me to oil it instead, and on the website above it says to oil it. To me it makes sense to grease this. I use curado and chronarch exclusively so the level wind does not move while casting. Thanks to all for the input.

BB – GREASE it! Oil will wear off in a quick fashion, and then any dirt can cause premature failure of the worm gear (ie. the prawl will grind dirt into the points and break them, causeing the levelwind the “catch” at one end. I have fixed this problem several times. This issue can easily be prevented by simply greasing this part a couple tiems a season.)

Further, some specialty houses use a very low viscosity (thicker) oil in lieu of grease when the levelwind mechanism moves with the rotation (like ABUs) to help in longer casts. My point was that the Hot Sauce Reel Grease really improves the performance of these without the need of finding anything special. Hot Sauce is avaiable anywhere, although a few bucks more than standard lubricants.

For those interested, here is something I put together for a seminar I gave last year at Gander, it contains lots of graphics, so I will haveto post per page.

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4 – last page.

Thanks rg- I already have the hot sauce grease so ill put it on em. Thanks for the great attachments.

By the way RG- you might want to make another post quick or could be bad luck (666).

Quote:

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By the way RG- you might want to make another post quick or could be bad luck (666).

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Thanks, BB…

I was wondering what was going on… I felt as if I was in the Bizzaro World today…

In fact, I was having some visions… Champman forgot how to fish, Crawford truned into a nice guy, and Sloppy actually seemed to know what he was talking about! I sure hope all returns to normal now!

Good stuff Ryan.

Thanks to Page 1, I figured out how to get my drags tight enough. I’ll crank them down with pliers (as usual) and after 4 years or so without releasing the tension, my drags should be so seized that I can finally slam a jig home without any slippage!

– d-nort