The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

I suspect I should save forum web space by sending a PM direct to BeechmeereLake, but here goes anyway?

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.

Seek and ye shall Find.

I think, it is a think, that I have found the schematic, which appears not to have a plastic washer. Additionally - why have a split washer? This could have been placed on the shaft as a complete unit when being assembled. I wonder it it is a make piece to keep in place a narrow width spool. Take it off and see how it runs.

Here is the link - from what I can see - the back slide switch looks OK and the shape - although this is called Ambassador

http://s7d5.scene7.com/is/content/puref ... DEUR54.pdf

Edit - I wonder when your reel fell apart this was part of the spool

David,
If you require to check all the schematics that ABU have on their reels - 1779 differing types - go here:

https://www.abugarcia.com/pages/abugarc ... schematics

That part does not belong on your reel, from time to time some anglers get coning of the line when they spool new line on the reel and they think this solves the problem, just to show you it doesn't I spent 17 hours doing a Cardinal 55 last week which coned line heavily to the front of the spool, after 8 different rotors 3 different axles and 4 gear sets plus transfer of his original line to 5 different spools including an original the reel now works perfect. The owner will now be happy with his reel but Im done doing eBay rubbish thats been messed with, its all about the reel having its correct parts for the year of the reel so every part needs checking to rid the reel of this problem. Its major problem was the worm gear was a 1981 part while the reel housing was a 1979, they dont work together and neither do some of the other parts

Thanks BeechmereLake and Barbelseeker,
I didn't realise there could be so many variants of the same reel!
I am responsible for any changes to this reel, having owned it from new.
I cannot think why I thought that little washer would help, but it seems to be doing no harm, so ...

Banksy, Im surprised your spool doesn't just pull off of the axle, have you tried to remove it without using the release button and does it come off ?