here's a follow up. with dale's help, i finally got the right drag washer after ordering up the wrong one first. it's the drag washer from the shimano tiagra 30. yup, the reel is nearly an exact copy.
here's the stock drag washer. yeeccchhh!
i pulled off the old drag washer and found that the tiagra 30 washer was a perfect fit. i greased both sides of the new carbon fiber drag washer, as well as the contact surface of the aluminum pressure plate. i've seen only one drag failure in the tiagra line. that reel had corrosion underneath drag washer.
even the screw holes matched up!!!!!!!!!!
off came the excess grease.
say your last goodbyes!
on to the spool shaft it goes.
on goes the spool cover.
into the frame goes the spool assembly.
and on goes the left side plate.
now, the stock reel didn't deliver near enough drag pressure. it was probably 10# at strike before losing freespool. you remember the configuration of the bellevilles on the spool shaft, right?
what i ended doing was to change the belleville/thrust washer configuration of "(())||||" to an all belleville stack of "))))))))" using the same bellevilles found in the shimano tld 30 two speed. i was able to nearly double the strike drag setting to 20#'s, maybe even 24# if i sacrificed a little freespool, and +30#'s at full. i'm hoping that the drag might "settle in" a little bit and give this reel a little bit more range, but i am not going to be overly optimistic.
other than redesigning the cam underneath the right main side plate bearing, i see no other way to get anymore drag pressure out of this reel.
so there you go. i would call this reel barely adequate for straight 80# mono with maybe 24#'s of drag at strike and an optimistic 30# at full. if you install a $38 shimano drag washer and can get the manufacturer to give you a cam that ramps up more quickly, you might be able to go with the 150-200# spectra and the 100-200# topshots that are being used out here on the westcoast. if you're ok with straight 60-80# mono, then you're all set!