OK, here goes! I finally gathered my wits and decided to strip this reel since it has been giving me trouble and its big brother 8000 has already made a visit to the agents to repair the faulty anti-reverse. As I went along I discovered what makes this baby tick and why it’s misbehaving.
The first problem to surface was failure of the anti-reverse. Very annoying – to the point where the reel is a pain to use.
Secondly it seemed that while winding under pressure, the reel feels like it wants to seize up completely, i.e. it jams.
Before we get going, big thanks to Reefman for the step-by-step of your Exceller. Turns out these reels are pretty much the same in their workings and with the parts diagram at hand; you can pretty much see what you are in for.
The handle is off. Note the corrosion. That is a plastic part but the coating contains metal and this is what turned such a nice blue.
The drag knob, washers, click gear and spool off. I’m not going to touch there for now as it all seems to be working fine.
Rear housing and rotor nut with its locking screw removed.
The rotor was stuck on real well and I was starting to wonder if I missed something. It would simply not budge. I took a chance and started to tap on it to slide it off the axle and luckily it moved. It seems the bail arm trip wire was stuck behind the collar of the main housing and it got damaged there. Make sure the bail arm is in a tripped (closed) position and not open as I had it. You can see the culprit sitting proud on the inside of the rotor.
This rubber seal does not seem to be doing much, but it is stuck on to the body, so just leave it.
Remove the bail trip retaining screw and prize off the plastic bit. Needless to say, put all the parts in line as you remove them. I used a wooden mokoro I bought in Rundu to put everything in – out the way of handy little helpers.
Next, remove the main side cover screws and open the sucker up. You can see lots of corrosion in there. Not good I tell you.
We are looking at the anti reverse cam retaining screw here. Remove it, and pull out the anti-reverse shaft to the rear. Like so:
Now we can also remove the main drive gear.
Oops, where did this little bugger come from? Tell you what; take the last 4 parts you removed: the shaft, cam with retaining screw and this little spring clip and throw it away. I’ll show you why in a few steps. Please don’t throw away the main drive gear – this is definitely required!
I re-inserted the anti-reverse shaft to see how the spring clip fits in.
Continue laying everything out in line.
Next, remove the bearing retaining plate. Be careful not to strip the screws. These were not that tight though.
Here I’m removing the anti-reverse cam and on the next picture you can see the white actuator. The white particles all over is actually salt crystals. That cannot be good!
Pull off the 1[suP]st[/suP] bearing like so. Followed by the main bearing bush.
What we are looking at here is the feeble little return spring for the anti-reverse. Any build-up of gunk (salt, in this case) will render the anti-reverse useless, because as soon as you deactivate the A.R., and try to reactivate it, the spring is too weak to pull back. For this reason it is also not advisable to grease this area at all. But in my case I decided to chuck away the anti reverse mech parts, effectively leaving the reel in permanent anti-reverse mode. Being able to wind backwards is just a nice-to-have for me and not really required.
Right, next. Remove the main shaft retaining screw and pull the shaft out. This all needs to be cleaned and greased up, as it’s all looking pretty horrible.
This is where I stop the disassembly and start cleaning. I’m too scared to remove the main bearing since it’s late at night, and to remove the sliding mech required removal of the shaft, which seems not do-able. I’ll just throw the whole lot in good old unleaded with a bit of 2 stroke oil added (straight from the tank!) This is probably not the right thing to clean these parts with, so please refer to Reefman’s post on how to do it correctly!
Just look at the nasty pitting on this bearing housing constructed from aluminium. I can only guess that someone does not know that you cannot just mix steel and aluminium willy-nilly. Especially in a corrosive environment like the sea.
All these parts show signs of corrosion. It seems there was no lube on any of them for protection. It might be a good idea in future to open a new reel up soon after purchase and ensuring everything is lubed up and greased. Especially the “budget†reels like these. In its off the shelf state this little reel was definitely NOT suited for salt water work.
Right, next! Assembly. Simple, just like Reefman said. Just do everything in reverse. I greased everything up good and proper to keep saltwater off the crucial bits. Watch those little hands, they’re up to no good!
This is where the anti-reverse cam used to sit. I made sure the anti-reverse was “on†and filled the whole cavity with grease. Goodbye.
Like I said: These parts – throw away. Do wannit.
To prevent dirt/water entering the hole where the anti-reverse axle came out, I cut a small piece of inner tube, placed it over the openings like such:
And screwed on the rear cap, before trimming off the excess rubber.
Tadaa! Better than new. Let’s go. After its 1[suP]st[/suP] outing into the salt this reel’s anti-reverse bombed out and I lost respect for it. It somehow managed to sort itself out for a while and I landed a few nice leeries with it, but after that it really was in bad shape. There is really no protection from salt water entering the housing so one should be very careful not to drop it in the water of get excessive spray on it. I think I have now made it a bit more saltwater proof and time will tell if it was a success. It’s nice and smooth again though and does not get sticky under strain anymore. Hold thumbs!
The first problem to surface was failure of the anti-reverse. Very annoying – to the point where the reel is a pain to use.
Secondly it seemed that while winding under pressure, the reel feels like it wants to seize up completely, i.e. it jams.
Before we get going, big thanks to Reefman for the step-by-step of your Exceller. Turns out these reels are pretty much the same in their workings and with the parts diagram at hand; you can pretty much see what you are in for.
The handle is off. Note the corrosion. That is a plastic part but the coating contains metal and this is what turned such a nice blue.
The drag knob, washers, click gear and spool off. I’m not going to touch there for now as it all seems to be working fine.
Rear housing and rotor nut with its locking screw removed.
The rotor was stuck on real well and I was starting to wonder if I missed something. It would simply not budge. I took a chance and started to tap on it to slide it off the axle and luckily it moved. It seems the bail arm trip wire was stuck behind the collar of the main housing and it got damaged there. Make sure the bail arm is in a tripped (closed) position and not open as I had it. You can see the culprit sitting proud on the inside of the rotor.
This rubber seal does not seem to be doing much, but it is stuck on to the body, so just leave it.
Remove the bail trip retaining screw and prize off the plastic bit. Needless to say, put all the parts in line as you remove them. I used a wooden mokoro I bought in Rundu to put everything in – out the way of handy little helpers.
Next, remove the main side cover screws and open the sucker up. You can see lots of corrosion in there. Not good I tell you.
We are looking at the anti reverse cam retaining screw here. Remove it, and pull out the anti-reverse shaft to the rear. Like so:
Now we can also remove the main drive gear.
Oops, where did this little bugger come from? Tell you what; take the last 4 parts you removed: the shaft, cam with retaining screw and this little spring clip and throw it away. I’ll show you why in a few steps. Please don’t throw away the main drive gear – this is definitely required!
I re-inserted the anti-reverse shaft to see how the spring clip fits in.
Continue laying everything out in line.
Next, remove the bearing retaining plate. Be careful not to strip the screws. These were not that tight though.
Here I’m removing the anti-reverse cam and on the next picture you can see the white actuator. The white particles all over is actually salt crystals. That cannot be good!
Pull off the 1[suP]st[/suP] bearing like so. Followed by the main bearing bush.
What we are looking at here is the feeble little return spring for the anti-reverse. Any build-up of gunk (salt, in this case) will render the anti-reverse useless, because as soon as you deactivate the A.R., and try to reactivate it, the spring is too weak to pull back. For this reason it is also not advisable to grease this area at all. But in my case I decided to chuck away the anti reverse mech parts, effectively leaving the reel in permanent anti-reverse mode. Being able to wind backwards is just a nice-to-have for me and not really required.
Right, next. Remove the main shaft retaining screw and pull the shaft out. This all needs to be cleaned and greased up, as it’s all looking pretty horrible.
This is where I stop the disassembly and start cleaning. I’m too scared to remove the main bearing since it’s late at night, and to remove the sliding mech required removal of the shaft, which seems not do-able. I’ll just throw the whole lot in good old unleaded with a bit of 2 stroke oil added (straight from the tank!) This is probably not the right thing to clean these parts with, so please refer to Reefman’s post on how to do it correctly!
Just look at the nasty pitting on this bearing housing constructed from aluminium. I can only guess that someone does not know that you cannot just mix steel and aluminium willy-nilly. Especially in a corrosive environment like the sea.
All these parts show signs of corrosion. It seems there was no lube on any of them for protection. It might be a good idea in future to open a new reel up soon after purchase and ensuring everything is lubed up and greased. Especially the “budget†reels like these. In its off the shelf state this little reel was definitely NOT suited for salt water work.
Right, next! Assembly. Simple, just like Reefman said. Just do everything in reverse. I greased everything up good and proper to keep saltwater off the crucial bits. Watch those little hands, they’re up to no good!
This is where the anti-reverse cam used to sit. I made sure the anti-reverse was “on†and filled the whole cavity with grease. Goodbye.
Like I said: These parts – throw away. Do wannit.
To prevent dirt/water entering the hole where the anti-reverse axle came out, I cut a small piece of inner tube, placed it over the openings like such:
And screwed on the rear cap, before trimming off the excess rubber.
Tadaa! Better than new. Let’s go. After its 1[suP]st[/suP] outing into the salt this reel’s anti-reverse bombed out and I lost respect for it. It somehow managed to sort itself out for a while and I landed a few nice leeries with it, but after that it really was in bad shape. There is really no protection from salt water entering the housing so one should be very careful not to drop it in the water of get excessive spray on it. I think I have now made it a bit more saltwater proof and time will tell if it was a success. It’s nice and smooth again though and does not get sticky under strain anymore. Hold thumbs!