I'm lucky enough to own a couple of Altex reels which Nobby has worked his magic on and I couldn't be more happier!
Very clever chap and an absolute gentleman
![cheers :cheers:](./images/smilies/icon_drinks.gif)
Indeed he is.
Well done Nobby, patience pays off big time with these reels.Nobby wrote: ↑Tue Dec 12, 2017 4:17 pm Well we have some progress. ish. The reel arrived and the bail arm was indeed quite bent. I removed it and straightened it carefully, tweaking one end and then the other until the line roller lower side was exactly lined up with the back of the spool when it was fully extended. Absurdly, that took well over two hours. The line roller mounting screw was actually loose, but corroded into position, perhaps as a result of being dropped many years ago, but it loosened up again with a little tightening and loosening after the application of some trombone slide oil, the thinnest oil I know of.
I went over the rest of the reel cleaning and re-oiling until I put a drop of oil behind the rotor, to try and dribble it down to the rotor bearing race. Big mistake!
The drop of oil loosened a bit of grit which promptly ran into the race making the already noisy reel sound like a coffee grinder.........
The only answer was a complete strip down; something I have never managed to achieve before.
It was then that I realised the reel had been stripped down before, probably twice. The wire twists that held the 'connecting rod' ends in place were steel, not copper based, and the aluminium pins that hold the spool carrier and handle on were clearly re-used items. I say '"twice" because although Hardy wouldn't have done this the reel also had what I now believe to be a conversion fitted during service that wasn't part of the original reel at sales. I have seen early reels with this conversion and late reels with it too, but I've seen lots of late reels without it, so I've come to the conclusion it is an after-sales modification that gets rid of the slop on the rotor head as the big end, small end and their pins wear. It consists of a rail mounted onto the left side of the reel and its presence is indicated by two screws going through the reel body to mount it. The small end pin is extended and carries a roller that slides back and forth in a groove along this rail.
Well, the con-rod wire twists came out OK and the mounting pins drifted out OK too. You have to be really careful with the spool carrier mounting pin or you'll bend the axle and it will jam as it goes back into the reel. It is a ridiculously small diameter even if it does have lovely lubrication groves machined into it to draw oil inside!
The brass nut that holds the spiral gear to the rotor came undone OK by using a pair of circlip pliers to lock into its two holes deep inside the back of the reel.
And that was it...the reel fully dismantled and that's when I found the cause of the noise. Grit and damage to the thrust faces of the washers either side of the ball race. Unfortunately they had already been turned once before in the reels life and both sides were damaged so I couldn't just flip[ them over.
That's when the bail arm spring broke. Oh, ....and the line roller has a groove in it too.......
So today I contacted RB, who has a few spares and he immediately offered the needed parts in exchange for a small contribution to the forum. That seemed the only good news all day......What a gent!
The remainder of the second day was spent hand-polishing the damaged thrust washers and then cutting a paper shim out to regain the correct clearances afterwards. I wasn't too sure this would work, but what option was there? Re-assembling the rotor with its bearings later proved that it did, so there was a bit more good news after all today. The reel is now fully re-assembled, bar a bail arm spring, and after a few false starts it runs smoothly and quietly. I had fun with the bronze section to the handle which has three mounting screws .... some how the three holes were not lined up correctly and one had to be filed with a watchmakers file to get it to go on again...On to where it had already been for probably sixty years.......grumble.
If you look really carefully at the very first image you might be able to make out two things.....the groove in the line roller, cutting through a patch of bright reflected light and that the arm that locks the bail arm open was bent backwards. This had caused the cam on the bail arm mounting plate to try and 'ride' over it consequently wearing the cam and the arm considerably, so that they had a large contact area and jammed a little. I've come across this issue on Mitchell 300 style reels before a lot and its a real pain; polishing bits just doesn't reduce the coefficient of friction sufficiently to make the reel work nicely again. In this case it was a matter of two grades of wet and dry, Scotchbrite 1000 grade and then even Solvol Autosol and Brasso before the parts slid smoothly over one another gain...and then only be reducing the spring pressure of the bail arm latch a little.
To say these reels are hard to work on is an understatement........and I could make a few points to the designer should I ever meet him...tiny 6 ball race for a rotor head indeed...even the Ambidex one is twice as big!
But I'm nearly there....my first complete Altex rebuild.