There's no doubt in my mind that it has stiffened up...but why?
Then I reached across for the faithfull old grey Delmatic....and just as I suspected..it turns perfectly...as they always do.
After much hair pulling I may have the answer.....and it's going to send the price of a Delmatic through the roof!
The Ambidex has a tiny spool and the only way it gets a decent retrieval rate is to turn very fast indeed. Now friction increases exponentially with speed; if we give friction a value of x at 100rpm, at 2000rpm friction will not be 2x, but more likely 3x. Put simply, the faster you go the stiffer the reel gets.
This means that anything that is creating friction is having a greater and greater effect the faster you go.
I had wondered if the spiral gears might be the culprit....they have a massive contact area ( that's why they never wear out despite being made of ...well, a sort of fibreglass!), but Altexes, Abu Cardinals and DAM Finessas have the same gears, albeit in metal....
Various Ambidex models have various main rotor gears, I found after a wanton pillage through the scrap box, but whether 'captive' or not, thay are all a radial ball race bearing on two fibre or plastic discs. Then I noticed that those fibre discs are only polished smooth on one side...and the plastic ones are bendy and had a deep groove worn in it by the balls..increasing surface contact significantly. Add that with the high rotor speed and Bob's your uncle...the reel gets stiff.
But why does it stiffen after time? It turns out the plastic ones...some are green some are blue.....are plastic. Plastic gives, it's bendy.
Over-tighten the rear bearing adjuster that the early reels have..the castelated nut....and the plastic is crushed by the balls, wearing a temporary groove.
Put the reel away for a few months and the grooves in the plastic 'recover'....try and use the reel and it is stiff.
So the answer is to not over-tighten that castellated nut......I think a drop of threadlock is going to be needed though, or the thing might fall off!
Later reels do not have the castellated nut and instead a circlip holds it all togehter, but I'd still be dressing the back of the rear bearing to get it adjusted correctly and turning freely.
Back to the Delmatic...why don't they go stiff?
It turns out the washers for the main bearing are delrin plastic this time...the grey stuff. It is hard and doesn't groove nearly as much.
So putting a Delmatic main bearing in another Ambudex version gives a far smoother reel.
Only it doesn't fit.
But it does fit if you relieve both the central holes in the bearing race, also delrin plastic and those in both washers with a craft knife.
The Delmatic must have a slightly smaller diameter rotor shaft...though it looks the same.
One last thought...sorry to go on so long....It's a pain to dismantle these reels to lubricate this all-important bearing......why not cut a hole in the rear-most washer and set that up so it available to oil when you remove the side cover? There's a little access area there at the front of the reel body for some inexplicable reason....just don't make your hole so big the balls can fall out through it
Here it is, just out of focus, but visible:
