Broken Hardy Altex Bail Spring?

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MaggotDrowner
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Broken Hardy Altex Bail Spring?

Post by MaggotDrowner »

Yesterday I have been for perhaps my most unlucky / frustrating / shortest ever.

I drove 45 minutes to a new lake for a bit of lure fishing. First cast resulted in a rare species called the 'beautiful' house brick 'fairly hooked' in a crack. :fishing2:

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Second cast resulted in nothing. Third cast and the reel refused to recover any line. I was forced to hand line the lure back to the bank at a snails pace for fear of a pike grabbing it! :Hahaha:

Because I am monumentally foolish I had no spare and had to drive back home again. :hairpull:

Looking down the bail had not come back over. I took the reel apart on the bank side and I think the problem is the spring located under the spool. So I'm looking for one if anyone can confirm my suspicions about that being the cause of the issue. This is what the spring under spool looks like, I think it looks a little bent out of shape? :

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"I'd rather be fishing!"

MD

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OldTackle
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Re: Broken Hardy Altex Bail Spring?

Post by OldTackle »

Morning Jack,

first I have to say that it is quite brave to take apart a Hardy Altex on the bank. High risk of loosing a bit that will be hard to find as spare...
To your reel: the spring you are talking of looks perfectly fine. The position it is in now locks the bail arm in open position until the 'knob' on the rotor base will disengage it. You can manually do that by pushing the lever gently away from the spindle to give the bail arm free (does that description make sense? I hope so)
By doing so you will recognize that your bail arm is without any spring tension now. So I reckon your bail arm spring is either broken or 'jumped' out of position. You will find it under the 'pear' opposite of the bail arm roller. It is held by a little screw. Have a look there and show us please.
What size is your Altex?
< °) >>><( Christopher )><<< (° >

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Stour Otter
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Re: Broken Hardy Altex Bail Spring?

Post by Stour Otter »

Perhaps this may help Jack.

Altex Spring1 assembly.jpg


Spare spring do appear once in a while. I will have a rummage through my spares Altex No. 2's box.

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Stour Otter
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The good angler is not the one with expensive equipment. Common sense, observation and trying to realize
what is happening above and below water will catch fish no matter what price equipment you fish with.
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MaggotDrowner
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Re: Broken Hardy Altex Bail Spring?

Post by MaggotDrowner »

Many thanks for your help, guys. You were right. I removed the pear shaped cover which reveled a broken spring. I have replaced it using the spare spring in the original box my reel came to me in. I'm very happy.

I would however like to know where I can find another of these springs just in case the spring breaks again. Does anyone know where I can buy them?

The reel is a no2 mkIV.
"I'd rather be fishing!"

MD

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RBTraditional
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Re: Broken Hardy Altex Bail Spring?

Post by RBTraditional »

Do springs for a number 3 mkv fit yours I wonder? If so I do have some.....somewhere.
" Angling is not an escape from life, but often a deeper immersion into it..."

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Nobby
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Re: Broken Hardy Altex Bail Spring?

Post by Nobby »

I think all the Altex reels all use the same bail arm spring ( except the rare pre-War gear closing model which is often a Mk.IIII ( sic) )

These springs are getting very hard to find now and as they are all originals they are old and are getting fragile too!

I think a request to Garry Mills might be on the cards...his first job at JW Youngs as a lad was making springs.

An awful lot of these reels have been badly fiddled with. Only last week I worked on a pristine No.3, but the bail release arm, shown in Jack's first image, was bent to buggery! Now this arm is held in place by a screw-headed nut that goes into a simple unfixed nut behind the spool...do not ever turn that screw head or you might never get the reel back together again.

The lower end of that arm has a blade bent backwards that strikes against a fixed brass knob on the reel main body to flip the bail arm release lever open and release the bail arm to close again. Now it only needs to hit that knob fairly lightly so I imagine the man who assembled the reel at the factory may have tweaked the bent bit to hit the knob no harder than it needs to. But somebody keeps fiddling with them and when I find him I'm going to hide all his tools!


In fact the 'bent bit' needs to clout the brass knob by about one and a half millimetres.....any more it sounds like a rat trap going off...any less the bail arm might not close.

Now the rat trap going off is more harmful than just the noise; it means that the bail arm hits the pear shaped spring cover so hard that it dents it and eventually the bail arm comes to rest in a place that causes the line-lay to alter for the worse.


And that's the other thing. I have yet to work on an Altex...even that pristine No.3, .... that didn't have a bent bail arm and on these reels that can seriously bu**er up the line lay. Getting it right again means bending back a bit of metal that is over 50 years old and just the thought of that brings me out in a cold sweat. So it's best not to drop the reels if you can possibly avoid it.


Last thing; line rollers...they ALL have a line groove in them and must be made of the softest metal ever used for such a purpose...even the Ambidex bare wire job is harder. But if you can loosen the screw that holds the bail arm together at that end you may be able to turn the roller through 180 degrees and get a few more years out of it. That screw has often been polished down to remove sharp edges so loosening it isn't simple...but it can be done. When finished it makes sense to once again polish out any sharp edges created.


Maybe Garry will knock up some new line rollers too?....there are very, very few unused ones left.....

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MaggotDrowner
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Re: Broken Hardy Altex Bail Spring?

Post by MaggotDrowner »

RBTraditional wrote: Thu Nov 02, 2017 10:30 am Do springs for a number 3 mkv fit yours I wonder? If so I do have some.....somewhere.
If you find them I may be interested in buying one. :Thumb:
"I'd rather be fishing!"

MD

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MaggotDrowner
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Re: Broken Hardy Altex Bail Spring?

Post by MaggotDrowner »

Nobby, I know what you mean by the line rollers being soft. mine too has a groove in it and has been rotated. My rule too with these reels is if you don't know what it does, leave it well alone. :Wink:
"I'd rather be fishing!"

MD

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RBTraditional
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Re: Broken Hardy Altex Bail Spring?

Post by RBTraditional »

MaggotDrowner wrote: Thu Nov 02, 2017 11:06 pm
RBTraditional wrote: Thu Nov 02, 2017 10:30 am Do springs for a number 3 mkv fit yours I wonder? If so I do have some.....somewhere.
If you find them I may be interested in buying one. :Thumb:
Today could well be your lucky day MD....after a thorough hunt in the barn I found the little box!
I've emptied out the contents, zoom in and let me know what you need and I'll pop them in the post foc, just pm me a delivery address.👍🏻
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" Angling is not an escape from life, but often a deeper immersion into it..."

https://thepiscatorialraconteurs.co.uk/

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Nobby
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Re: Broken Hardy Altex Bail Spring?

Post by Nobby »

Good God!


The little tapered screws are for the pear-shaped covers, line rollers and bail springs a-go-go and maybe the shouldered screws are for the line rollers?

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