I bought this Abu Garcia fishing reel at a yardsale for like three bucks. When I got it, it was kinda dirty and it had some issues with it. It would go into cast mode okay, but when I spun the reel it wouldn’t kick back into reel mode. The reel handles just spun freely. After spinning the reel handles for a while it would finally ‘catch’ on something and kick back in to reel mode. It was also hard to push the cast button at times. So I knew it would need some work and that’s why I bought it. I wanted to fix it and learn how it worked inside….and because it looked cool 😛
So I’m not going to go into great details of disassembly and reassembly, but I have included a few pictures of the process. What I found was the problem with the going from cast mode to reel mode was there was a spacer that had been worn down so it wasn’t thick enough. Since the spacer was too thin, it made it to where the reel spindle couldn’t catch on the cast-release-mechanism. To fix this, I substituted the old spacer with a flat washer and it just happen to be the right thickness. The other issues were resolved by cleaning and re-lubing with White Lithium Grease.
I was going to clean the outside more, but when as I cleaned it the green paint started coming off. I wanted to keep the green paint, so I just lightly cleaned the outside so it would still look old-ish. I feel like, and I may be wrong, that the reel used to be red. The inside of the reel housing is this really nice red color, and as I cleaned a little I could see some red here and there. I also see quite a bit of red on the drag setting wheel.
I really don’t know much about this reel at all, except for that it says Abu Garcia Sweden on one side. So if anyone has any info on the reel (model name or number, year they were made, anything really) I would love to know.
