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last night my best friend's father gave me two Penn International 80 that were left neglected for a while on top of a "bar setting" at his house. Reels are fine......as usual Penn quality...........but I need to oil them...........oddly enough, after 20 years or so of marlin fishing, I have never openned a penn reel..........therefore, where do I start and what oil and/or grease should I use, other than the one originally provided by Penn that may help me do the job.............................those reels have more marlin in them than what I have in life years...help me here guys

"First you make a roux" oh wait wrong subject

Take the side plates off and spray everything down with Corrosion X. Thats what I have done and it works great. Corrosion X actually markets their product in smaller cans and calls it REEL X . You can buy the stuff from our own Uncle Vic.

Way to help the guy out Timmy.

Good one Thudd!!!

Wipe any CX residue off the reel before spooling mono.

Try this link it is not the same reel but it will give you a good start.


http://www.thehulltruth.com/forums/thre ... 78&start=1

AC thanks.......that's a good post

Hueso - Amigo, I was like you years ago, had been scared to take down a Penn Int'l, had visions of springs and stuff flying all over. First take the screws out of the handle side plate and pull it off and prepare for a belly laugh.....it's built like a boat trailer winch. Nothing much in there at all but a couple of gears. The lever drag works by pushing sideways on the spool shaft, the drag washers are on the other (left) side. Take that side off and you will see the drag washer cover that's held on by three very small screws....take them out and you can look at/service the drag washers and stainless plates. The newer Teflon drag washers are way better than the original brake shoe material coated ones.

After shooting some CX on everything (the ball bearings in particular) I use Super Lube clear grease on the gears and clicker ball. The CX will be fine for the bearings. If the sleeve bearing that the handle turns in is sticky, take the handle out (do this from the handle side, take the retainer plate that's held in place with the little screw on the handle, unscrew the funny looking nut with a Penn wrench, and slide the gear out from the inside) and clean up with CX then coat with Super Lube grease. No grease or CX on the drag washers.

If the reels are badly corroded or sloppy in fit, there is a place in Connecticut, Reel Colors owned by Tom Testa, that can make them look and operate like new. I had 7 of my 80Ws (most were basket cases) done by Tom years ago and they came out better than new, he even does engraving. Yeah, mine have a picture of AJ, her name & home port on the side. He also re-anodizes them any color you want, I chose silver.

He did mine for 150 a pop including the engraving back then when he was first getting going. Think his website is reelcolors.com and my reels at one time were in his photo gallery.

UV

Thanks V........I'm printing out everything said here to do it myself..........very tempted to send my reels to reelcolors................some nice designs...................just a Question......if you engrave, aren't you compromising the integrity of the reel.....exposing the metal to corrosion or something like that?

David,

You're right, but the parts that are engraved can be re-anodized. That's the advantage of having the engraving done through Tom rather than just an engraving only shop. Also, anodizing is a fairly hard brittle surface & engraving through it could cause some minor chipping around the engraving. Those chips would show as a different color.

Even without re-anodizing, proper wash down and drying along with religious use of CX would offer plenty of protection from corrosion.

Br,

Patrick

The process that Tom uses is to first strip the original anodizing off with an acid solution, then re-machine the parts to closer tolerances than original, then computer engrave them, finally re-anodize to whatever color you want. The new anodizing is over the engraving so no corrosion, and of course, as Patrick points out, use CX.

UV