ampersat
08-20-2005, 11:40 PM
You asked for it, so here you go: an Abu teardown. Abu's differ from year to year with regard to their internals but they are, for the most part, alike. Your particular reel may look a little different from this one (5600CB). I've taken apart most of the Abu's I've owned and they all look about the same on the inside. If you happen to have an Abu reel handy and feel up to it, grab a couple of screwdrivers and a wrench (or pliers as long as your careful) and follow along. Pick a nice stable area with plenty of light where you can afford to leave everything in pieces for a day or two if needed.
One thing I do when tearing apart, well anything, is to methodically lay out each part in order on a piece of clean white paper, from right to left, top to bottom. This makes reassembly easier because putting stuff back together is mostly just a matter of retracing your steps across the page.
Let's get started:
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SVL2stz2yhI/AAAAAAAABY0/mAOhwbhELxA/Image1.jpg
If you can't manage to get this far on your own, you should probably just take your reel to a shop somewhere and have them deal with it for you. One thing to note: every Abu I've ever laid hands on is "synchronized"; that is to say, the position of line guide is synched up to the spool. Make sure you do not muck about too much with the line on the spool or the line guide or you'll end up with your reel out of synch and performance will suffer. If you do get it out of synch, it's best to unspool the line and respool it. The line on the reel is of less importance than the line guide; if you make note of the position and direction of the line guide prior to mucking with it and as long as you make sure you reposition it properly, you should be fine.
If you're looking for casting distance, here are a couple of likely suspects.
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SVL2syDF9WI/AAAAAAAABY8/dE2Y9RVq3UA/s576/Image2.jpg
The Abu design is fairly "open" and water gets into all sorts of places. A few drops of lubricant on these spots will add 10 yards to your average cast.
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SVL2tKEJEFI/AAAAAAAABZE/VtyYVrLp3Mk/s512/Image3.jpg
This little guy is the pinion and it's what makes the line guide go back and forth. A drop of lubricant at either end and in the middle certainly doesn't hurt. While you're at it, check that cap on the bottom of the line guide (it's slotted for a reason) and make sure it's on tight. I got a free Diawa Millionaire from a fellow Ifisher because he didn't check it and the little thingy inside ruined the pinion. A drop of lubricant into the hole is also a good idea.
Here's one end of the spool.
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SVL2tRAn9mI/AAAAAAAABZM/GmjUAi_sbHQ/s512/Image4.jpg
On some spools, the shaft is part of the spool and the bearings are on either side of the reel and on others it's like this with the bearings in the spool and the shaft being another part of the reel. If this freaks you out, get over it. Hey look, there's a bearing in there! You could take it out and clean it, then relubricate it and reinstall, or you could just hit it with a drop of lubricant and call it good. Those little white doohickeys are your casting brakes (yours most likely look different in some way) and along with the tension cap on the side of the reel, they help keep you looking like the casting pro you really are. Unless they're really buggered up, you shouldn't worry about them too much.
Here's the other side of the spool.
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SVL2tr0dF7I/AAAAAAAABZU/XiS3lra0zhw/s400/Image5.jpg
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SVL2vf5m73I/AAAAAAAABaU/txyVwNgxnrU/s512/Image6.jpg
Hey look, another bearing! That little gear thingy drives the stuff on "the other side of the reel" and as long as it snaps securely into the reel when you're done it'll keep doing its job.
Here's the reel with the handle and star drag removed.
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SVL2t1ELu5I/AAAAAAAABZc/f_k1bxAWfSA/s512/Image7.jpg
The first step in taking the reel apart is to remove the cap that is on top of the reel handle (usually held on with a screw). Here's where I really should have taken a picture: just below that cap is the "darn clip" (so named because sooner or later you'll pop it off and it'll fly across the room somewhere and you'll spend a good twenty minutes looking for that darn clip). Be very careful when removing and reinstalling it. Pop the darn clip with a small flat bladed screwdriver while keeping your thumb on top of it, then use your wrench or pliers to remove the nut holding the handle on. Remove the handle and the spring washers underneath. Then unscrew the star drag off the end of the shaft. The yellow arrow points to the spring washers that are underneath the star drag. They are what provides the pressure on the drag stack and makes your drag adjustable. Be very careful when taking the reel part to make sure you don't lose them (they tend to fall out in the darnedest ways) and when reinstalling them. They go back together with "the edges" together, not the centers. Trust me, it'll make sense when you have them out of the reel. By the way, notice that they are "keyed"; that is, they are slotted to fit against the flat spots on the shaft. They are that way so that "the edges" stay against each other.
Here's all the stuff that came off the "reeling" side of the reel, minus the spring washers. "Darn clip" is at position 3.
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SVL2tzkHavI/AAAAAAAABZk/scTNJsIawws/Image8.jpg
If you take the two screws out of the top of the casing and carefully pull the two pieces apart you'll end up with something like this:
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SVL2uXzofVI/AAAAAAAABZs/CardGtWu5sY/Image9.jpg
On the left side, I've highlighted what I refer to as the "drag stack". We'll explore it in more detail in just a moment. On the right, there are those drag spring washers again. Because of the way this reel is put together, they stayed on this side in the disassembly. On yours, they may end up on top of the drag stack (or if you're not paying attention they'll end up on the floor somewhere).
Here's that drag stack again:
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SVL2uuqbkUI/AAAAAAAABZ0/akS4jCA7mSA/Image10.jpg
Grab that top brass area and remove it from the shaft. Again, be careful here because on some reels there's plastic piece on the bottom of the stack which isn't actually attached to the stack. Its purpose in life is to return the reel to the "reeling" position when you crank the handle after casting. On this one, it's actually part of the shaft and you can see the teeth under the brass gear at the bottom of the drag stack.
Here we see the entire drag assembly, disassembled from the top to the bottom, left to right:
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SV...Nk/Image12.jpghttp://lh3.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SVL2u8ER0uI/AAAAAAAABZ8/01p7v4JRjNk/Image12.jpg
For you folks who catch a lot of fish, this is what you're looking for. The black pieces across the top are the actual drag washers. Wipe them down with a paper towel and inspect them. If they don't look right for some reason (scoring, distortion, whatever) then they aren't right and need to be replaced. If you're having problems with your drag and nothing else has changed on the reel, this is where your problems are. While you're at it, look over the metal washers and make sure that they look right too. Now would be a good time to perform a Carbontex upgrade to the drag washers if you happened to remember to order it a few days beforehand.
For those of you who like to know how stuff works, note the differences in the various parts across the bottom of the picture. They are keyed in various ways that connect them to either the shaft or the gear and along with the pressure on the drag stack provided by the star drag, control the drag on the reel.
There's other stuff in the reel that's important too, but if you have problems with any of that stuff, you should probably just send the reel to a shop.
Last, here's a shot of all the parts on this reel taken apart.
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SVL2u7aZ4uI/AAAAAAAABaE/z1nbUlpN6UM/s512/Image13.jpg
Not mentioned in the disassembly is the spool shaft at #4. On this model, and many like it, you can grasp it and pull and it'll just pop right out. Before you try to rip it out of your reel, take off of the spool tension cap and have a look underneath to see what it might be attached to.
The last two pieces before the chassis piece in the bottom right are the two pieces which contact the pin in the thumbar to release the spool on the reel. For non-thumbar reels, you'll have only one piece instead of two and it will include the little doohicky that sticks out of the reel which you press just prior to backlashing your reel, again.
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly. If you've taken care in the disassembly process, the reassembly process will be a piece of cake. What you do while you're in your reel is more or less up to you. I tend to stay conservative and use Abu reel lube. I just wipe everything clean with paper towel and hit anything that moves with a drop or two of lube. The exception is the drag stack which I will clean with a degreaser like Simple Green or rubbing alcohol and reinstall bone dry.
If you have any questions, please feel free to post them here. If your question is about what used to be a reel and is now just a box of parts, seek professional help.
One thing I do when tearing apart, well anything, is to methodically lay out each part in order on a piece of clean white paper, from right to left, top to bottom. This makes reassembly easier because putting stuff back together is mostly just a matter of retracing your steps across the page.
Let's get started:
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SVL2stz2yhI/AAAAAAAABY0/mAOhwbhELxA/Image1.jpg
If you can't manage to get this far on your own, you should probably just take your reel to a shop somewhere and have them deal with it for you. One thing to note: every Abu I've ever laid hands on is "synchronized"; that is to say, the position of line guide is synched up to the spool. Make sure you do not muck about too much with the line on the spool or the line guide or you'll end up with your reel out of synch and performance will suffer. If you do get it out of synch, it's best to unspool the line and respool it. The line on the reel is of less importance than the line guide; if you make note of the position and direction of the line guide prior to mucking with it and as long as you make sure you reposition it properly, you should be fine.
If you're looking for casting distance, here are a couple of likely suspects.
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SVL2syDF9WI/AAAAAAAABY8/dE2Y9RVq3UA/s576/Image2.jpg
The Abu design is fairly "open" and water gets into all sorts of places. A few drops of lubricant on these spots will add 10 yards to your average cast.
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SVL2tKEJEFI/AAAAAAAABZE/VtyYVrLp3Mk/s512/Image3.jpg
This little guy is the pinion and it's what makes the line guide go back and forth. A drop of lubricant at either end and in the middle certainly doesn't hurt. While you're at it, check that cap on the bottom of the line guide (it's slotted for a reason) and make sure it's on tight. I got a free Diawa Millionaire from a fellow Ifisher because he didn't check it and the little thingy inside ruined the pinion. A drop of lubricant into the hole is also a good idea.
Here's one end of the spool.
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SVL2tRAn9mI/AAAAAAAABZM/GmjUAi_sbHQ/s512/Image4.jpg
On some spools, the shaft is part of the spool and the bearings are on either side of the reel and on others it's like this with the bearings in the spool and the shaft being another part of the reel. If this freaks you out, get over it. Hey look, there's a bearing in there! You could take it out and clean it, then relubricate it and reinstall, or you could just hit it with a drop of lubricant and call it good. Those little white doohickeys are your casting brakes (yours most likely look different in some way) and along with the tension cap on the side of the reel, they help keep you looking like the casting pro you really are. Unless they're really buggered up, you shouldn't worry about them too much.
Here's the other side of the spool.
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SVL2tr0dF7I/AAAAAAAABZU/XiS3lra0zhw/s400/Image5.jpg
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SVL2vf5m73I/AAAAAAAABaU/txyVwNgxnrU/s512/Image6.jpg
Hey look, another bearing! That little gear thingy drives the stuff on "the other side of the reel" and as long as it snaps securely into the reel when you're done it'll keep doing its job.
Here's the reel with the handle and star drag removed.
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SVL2t1ELu5I/AAAAAAAABZc/f_k1bxAWfSA/s512/Image7.jpg
The first step in taking the reel apart is to remove the cap that is on top of the reel handle (usually held on with a screw). Here's where I really should have taken a picture: just below that cap is the "darn clip" (so named because sooner or later you'll pop it off and it'll fly across the room somewhere and you'll spend a good twenty minutes looking for that darn clip). Be very careful when removing and reinstalling it. Pop the darn clip with a small flat bladed screwdriver while keeping your thumb on top of it, then use your wrench or pliers to remove the nut holding the handle on. Remove the handle and the spring washers underneath. Then unscrew the star drag off the end of the shaft. The yellow arrow points to the spring washers that are underneath the star drag. They are what provides the pressure on the drag stack and makes your drag adjustable. Be very careful when taking the reel part to make sure you don't lose them (they tend to fall out in the darnedest ways) and when reinstalling them. They go back together with "the edges" together, not the centers. Trust me, it'll make sense when you have them out of the reel. By the way, notice that they are "keyed"; that is, they are slotted to fit against the flat spots on the shaft. They are that way so that "the edges" stay against each other.
Here's all the stuff that came off the "reeling" side of the reel, minus the spring washers. "Darn clip" is at position 3.
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SVL2tzkHavI/AAAAAAAABZk/scTNJsIawws/Image8.jpg
If you take the two screws out of the top of the casing and carefully pull the two pieces apart you'll end up with something like this:
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SVL2uXzofVI/AAAAAAAABZs/CardGtWu5sY/Image9.jpg
On the left side, I've highlighted what I refer to as the "drag stack". We'll explore it in more detail in just a moment. On the right, there are those drag spring washers again. Because of the way this reel is put together, they stayed on this side in the disassembly. On yours, they may end up on top of the drag stack (or if you're not paying attention they'll end up on the floor somewhere).
Here's that drag stack again:
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SVL2uuqbkUI/AAAAAAAABZ0/akS4jCA7mSA/Image10.jpg
Grab that top brass area and remove it from the shaft. Again, be careful here because on some reels there's plastic piece on the bottom of the stack which isn't actually attached to the stack. Its purpose in life is to return the reel to the "reeling" position when you crank the handle after casting. On this one, it's actually part of the shaft and you can see the teeth under the brass gear at the bottom of the drag stack.
Here we see the entire drag assembly, disassembled from the top to the bottom, left to right:
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SV...Nk/Image12.jpghttp://lh3.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SVL2u8ER0uI/AAAAAAAABZ8/01p7v4JRjNk/Image12.jpg
For you folks who catch a lot of fish, this is what you're looking for. The black pieces across the top are the actual drag washers. Wipe them down with a paper towel and inspect them. If they don't look right for some reason (scoring, distortion, whatever) then they aren't right and need to be replaced. If you're having problems with your drag and nothing else has changed on the reel, this is where your problems are. While you're at it, look over the metal washers and make sure that they look right too. Now would be a good time to perform a Carbontex upgrade to the drag washers if you happened to remember to order it a few days beforehand.
For those of you who like to know how stuff works, note the differences in the various parts across the bottom of the picture. They are keyed in various ways that connect them to either the shaft or the gear and along with the pressure on the drag stack provided by the star drag, control the drag on the reel.
There's other stuff in the reel that's important too, but if you have problems with any of that stuff, you should probably just send the reel to a shop.
Last, here's a shot of all the parts on this reel taken apart.
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_i5OiHXcKJUs/SVL2u7aZ4uI/AAAAAAAABaE/z1nbUlpN6UM/s512/Image13.jpg
Not mentioned in the disassembly is the spool shaft at #4. On this model, and many like it, you can grasp it and pull and it'll just pop right out. Before you try to rip it out of your reel, take off of the spool tension cap and have a look underneath to see what it might be attached to.
The last two pieces before the chassis piece in the bottom right are the two pieces which contact the pin in the thumbar to release the spool on the reel. For non-thumbar reels, you'll have only one piece instead of two and it will include the little doohicky that sticks out of the reel which you press just prior to backlashing your reel, again.
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly. If you've taken care in the disassembly process, the reassembly process will be a piece of cake. What you do while you're in your reel is more or less up to you. I tend to stay conservative and use Abu reel lube. I just wipe everything clean with paper towel and hit anything that moves with a drop or two of lube. The exception is the drag stack which I will clean with a degreaser like Simple Green or rubbing alcohol and reinstall bone dry.
If you have any questions, please feel free to post them here. If your question is about what used to be a reel and is now just a box of parts, seek professional help.