hot sauce reel grease?

I thought about posting this under the gear section but it seems that I only this issue while ice fishing so here it goes.

I have a few spinning reels that I use for ice fishing but on cold days they seem to work like junk. I bring them in the house and the work perfectly smooth. Could this be an issue with the grease in the gears?

Do any of you use hot sauce or some other type of specific lube in your reels?

Do I need to try to clean the old grease out or just put some of the hot sauce in?

I have not bought anything yet or opened these up to see what is going on inside but all I know is that they are smooth in the house and “chunky” to reel while ice fishing. I have not tried these during warm weather months.

Thanks,
Dave

I carefully remove the side cover on all of my reels and wash all the factory grease out using q-tips and rubbing alcohol. I know some people who use lacquer thinner or acetone to do the washing but if you are doing this in the house you may hear a loud boom if you are using the solvents stronger than alcohol and the furnace or water heater kicks in. I use Quantum Hot Sauce oil as a replacement lube. This is for my spinning reels now. I don’t do a thing to casting reels.

In years past I have had reels almost seize up from the cold and grease. The Hot Sauce does a great job while its cold and is a great lube for summer as well.

I’ll note that some bearings are sealed and no amount of washing with alcohol will remove the lube under the seals and in the bearing itself. These puppies can be a headache and a half when its really cold and you’re on open ice. In most reels the thin Hot sauce works wonders.

You have answered your own question. Yes clean the grease out of those reels. Then lube with hot sauce. I did this with reels that were newly purchased as well.

Then you should be good to go.

FDR

Hot water, really HOT water. Run it inside the reel for a while, the grease will turn to oil and run out with the water, the important part is to do it long enough that the reel gets hot. Shake the excess water off and the heat built up in the reel will make it dry quickly. Guys would do this little trick to their M16s when I was in the Army before GI inspections.

I have never used hot sauce but a lot of people swear by it. I use blu-lube.

It also depends on your reels. Some reels just can’t be helped because they don’t have the precision or tolerances to truly handle changes in temperatures. Somethings will contract with cold and expand with heat. I have some reels that I will not ice fish or use in early spring or late fall just because of that. They’re my cheapy reels.

Other than that, Hot Sauce can do wonders but it requires getting rid of the old grease. I’ve added it to one reel without cleaning out the old grease and it was a disaster afterwards. The name Quantum on it didn’t help.

I clean all the grease out with a q-tip. Then use a light weight gun oil in the reel for lube. It works great when temps are cold. It also works great in all my summer reels. I clean the grease out of every new reel I get and just light oil them.

I use aerosol Gun Scrubber to remove the old grease and then the hot sauce. Works great for me.

Thanks all. I know some reels just might be not cut out for the cold but the one in particular is an HT ice fishing reel. Not top end by any means but it is supposed to be an ice fishing reel

Thanks again for the advice, I’ll be trying to do some cleaning and oiling later this week and maybe get a chance to get out on the ice again soon.

Dave

You may find that there is no resolve for that HT reel.

I have a couple HT reels as well, they work really good ice fishing. It doesn’t really matter if a reel is top end or not it is how you take care of them and how you clean them up

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I use aerosol Gun Scrubber to remove the old grease and then the hot sauce. Works great for me.

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X2 – Teflon based gun cleaner from Remington. Hot Sauce is good stuff. Don’t need much. That little tube lasts a long time!

-J.

“Hot Sauce”??? Can someone post a link to this stuff? I have never heard of it…RR

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“Hot Sauce”??? Can someone post a link to this stuff? I have never heard of it…RR

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Hot Sauce

-J.

Just added a bottle to an online order. Thanks John! RR