I recently unearthed a neat little Cardinal 54 which I have not touched for over forty years.
I threw it to the back of a cupboard when it let me down badly. I had the opportunity to fish the Great Lake at Castle Howard, and during my second cast of the day, the plastic spool just fell apart, due to the pressure of the stretchy line. Maxima, no doubt.
So it lay in the dark, unmourned, until it again saw the light of day, and I thought "You are quite cute!"
An alloy replacement spool was bought from Les Shaw. As others have said, not cheap, but in my case it has restored a nice classic reel to a useable state, for about £30.
Here's the question.
On the shaft, below the short crossways-on pinny bit and above the hexagonal nut which holds the windy housing thing onto the reel body - I told you I am no engineer - there is a small loose-fitting polyurethane split washer about a mm thick.
Should this be there, and what it is supposed to do, please?
I wouldn't put it past myself to have added it for some reason only known to me at the time, but I would be very interested to know the truth.
Thank you.
