Yesterday, I picked one up for fix, an M-one plus, from the local sports shop. According to the sport, he was lucky in the chuck, having hooked and landed 6 hot fish back to back. The reel was showing signs of chatter, and stiffness. He's had it maybe 2 weeks, and this was his first trip with it.
The drag was toast, but worse yet, the drive shaft had become friction-welded to the spool bushing, on the boat, and was somewhat loose in the store. Upon opening and tapping, there was a piece of bushing missing, about the size of a 1/3 grain of rice.
Some of this tear-away was welded to the driveshaft. The alloy in the reel's bushing and driveshaft appeared to be quite soft, as I was able to scrape the driveshaft somewhere close to round, with a box knife (olfa). I greased the bushing and the driveshaft, installed some Abu drag washers, and all is now well.
Not being a metallurgist, I cannot say what the alloy difference is, between the earlier M-1's, and today's. The colour is the clue. They are now a brighter shinier yellow in colour, instead of a duller, more brown tone. does this mean a softer alloy?
I believe so, as the colour is the same as Chinese Abu 7000's, whose driveshafts are wearing out in 2 years, compared to 10+ in the Swedish ones. (the SE shafts were the same colour as the early M-1's)
Worse yet, is the lube they are now using, and lack of same. It looks like a graphite type grease, not very clingey, kinda blobby, which, I suspect led to the failure. This, coupled with the different alloy, made for the issue.
That's the car, now the steering wheel: If you own a new one, open it soon, and re-lube everything, with a good grade 1 or 2 wheel bearing grease. Better yet, use that green stuff made for use on boat trailer wheel bearings. Good fishing, and fixing. KD
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