Daunting Repair
Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2023 4:23 pm
For a while now, my OCD has been nagging at me to look into repairing my late Gladding era Sea Streak multiplier; well, nothing drastic, just a light intermittent ratchet sound when the reel was in silent forward/back wind; it was driving me crazy though, so having serviced and repaired almost every Intrepid model, including repair on a broken truplay component in a Surfcast, I thought I would have the confidence to have a go at it, but a glance over the exploded diagram had me thinking "Erm... maybe not!?"
So, a year or so on, I obtained a nice running reel, but with a small crack in the casing (probably from a drop at some point; barely noticable, but like I said..OCD), so with nothing really to loose, I decided to open it up and see if a parts swap was possible, and to my surprise it was a lot simpler to strip and rebuild than I initially thought (it was mainly working on the Truplay mechanisim that had me worried). I left the reel in silent wind and proceeded to disassemble it.
Once the two gear plate screws were removed, the gear plate assembly could be eased away from the nylon casing (no flying springs!), revealing the Truplay components (the photo of the fitted assembly with the drag washers in view, was taken after the rebuild).
To my delight, the Truplay assy was easy to take apart and rebuild, mainly because the external rotating 3 knob lever, slides over the internal dog (?) post on a keyway, so no getting it wrong.
Anyway the short story is that I swapped and the gearplates and components, plus the Truplay assembly, and now (oddly) both reels are working perfectly.
I suppose I am saying not to be too put off by a complicated exploded diagram, and just to take things slowly and take lots of photos of the procedure along the way. It can be a lot more obvious and straightforward when you see it in the flesh...as it were.
On a side note, it is strange how any black grease seems to permiate the nylon casings over time; not easy (if not impossible) to clean.
So, a year or so on, I obtained a nice running reel, but with a small crack in the casing (probably from a drop at some point; barely noticable, but like I said..OCD), so with nothing really to loose, I decided to open it up and see if a parts swap was possible, and to my surprise it was a lot simpler to strip and rebuild than I initially thought (it was mainly working on the Truplay mechanisim that had me worried). I left the reel in silent wind and proceeded to disassemble it.
Once the two gear plate screws were removed, the gear plate assembly could be eased away from the nylon casing (no flying springs!), revealing the Truplay components (the photo of the fitted assembly with the drag washers in view, was taken after the rebuild).
To my delight, the Truplay assy was easy to take apart and rebuild, mainly because the external rotating 3 knob lever, slides over the internal dog (?) post on a keyway, so no getting it wrong.
Anyway the short story is that I swapped and the gearplates and components, plus the Truplay assembly, and now (oddly) both reels are working perfectly.
I suppose I am saying not to be too put off by a complicated exploded diagram, and just to take things slowly and take lots of photos of the procedure along the way. It can be a lot more obvious and straightforward when you see it in the flesh...as it were.
On a side note, it is strange how any black grease seems to permiate the nylon casings over time; not easy (if not impossible) to clean.