avet sx rebuild

alantani · 03-13-2007, 09:06 PM

i've got photos of several avets that i'm going to post. i will start with the sx tear down because it's the one that i took a complete set of photos for. go to the avet website for schematics. you can also call them for any parts that you might need. the tear down on these reels is one of the most simple lever drag tear downs i know.

a local kid brought this reel over. it was fine. he was just looking for a little more drag.

pulling the right side plate off takes only two screws (key #31).

remove the right side plate and spool as a unit, then set it aside. let's take a look inside. the most common avet problem in the last half dozen reels i worked on was a stuck clicker assembly. this one is fine. if your's is stuck, drop a little corrosion x on it from both sides and work it, or let it soak. then slap some grease on top.

the screws (key #56) of the reel seat of this particular reel were already greased. check your reel, because that may not always be the case.

now to the guts of the reel. remove the preset knob and spring (key #'s 41 and 42). you'll have to hold the spool shaft on the other side. leave the lever exactly where it is and don't move it.

it comes apart pretty easily at this point. um, this is good and bad. for the photo, i've put the spool shaft back together so that you can see the bellevilles (key #5), the pusher bushing (key #6), the left spool bearing (key #7), the spool tube or bearing sleeve (key #8), the right spool bearing (key #14), two spool washers (key #16) with a spool spring (key #15) in between, and the brake bearing (key #17). note that i've already changed the configuration of the belleville washers from "()()" to "(())".

now, on to the drag washer. this one's clean as a whistle, front ....

.... and back.

i've applied a thick coat of shimano drag grease to the inside of the spool and to both sides of the drag washer. the purpose is to protect these surfaces from salt water intrusion. apply enough grease to prevent water from getting in between the drag washer and the spool.

now wipe all the excess grease. and i mean all of it! when you're done, you should be able to look at a greased washer and a dry washer and not be able to tell the difference.

lube the bearings with corrosion x. i've noted that some of the bearings have shields and some are open. either way is fine.

now put it all back together again

slide the spool shaft back through the side plate, hold the spool shaft on the left side and re-install the preset knob.

grease the screw holes, put everything back together.....

.... and watch it spin!

now, you will recall that this reel was brought to me because the owner wanted a little more drag range. to acomplish this, i changed the belleville configuration from "()()" to "(())". the result was interesting. with every click of the knob, the drag increased predictably, going from 2.5 pounds, to 4, to 6, then 8, 10, 12, then it jumped to 15 and then to 18 before i finally lost freespool. yup, 18 pounds of drag and i still had 45 seconds freespool!

the problem was that at 10 pounds of drag, i started noticing a lateral load on the right side plate bearing. the handle became increasingly difficult to crank. so from a practical point of view, 10 pounds is still the maximum drag setting that you can use. come to think of it, i should probably get this reel back and changed out the bellevilles again. there's no point in having anything more than 10 pounds of drag at strike. i'm sure the engineers at avet had already thought this through. still, it was fun to do, even just this once!

feeder · 03-13-2007, 11:59 PM

Alan, you rule! If you ever get your hands on an Avet Pro 30 (narrow) please post that tutorial on here as well. I'd love to see that one and how much drag you could get out of it

lite-liner · 03-14-2007, 08:11 AM

Mr Tani, perhaps you saw my post on the Hoo-X thread.
I would like to see if it is poss. to increase the drag in my LX.
I would like to have 20#-strike, 30#-full
secondly, my SX bait clicker seems to engage when it wants to,
and I would like to either remove or "quiet up" the retreive clicker on the SX
My LX has no retreive clicker ( that I can hear), & I like that.
Thanks so much for your tutorials regarding Avets. keep'em coming!
I think you're starting to become a real asset to this community
thanks again.
Now put down those reels & go fishing!
-Brian

SkeeterRonnie · 03-14-2007, 08:39 AM

i think I am going to pull my LX apart and turn the bellville washers like Mr Alan did to the SX above.(thanks to OSO, I now know tho watch out for the "jumping" spring...lol). This is gonna be so fun. I love getting my hands dirty!

alantani · 03-14-2007, 11:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lite-liner

Mr Tani, perhaps you saw my post on the Hoo-X thread.
I would like to see if it is poss. to increase the drag in my LX.
I would like to have 20#-strike, 30#-full
secondly, my SX bait clicker seems to engage when it wants to,
and I would like to either remove or "quiet up" the retreive clicker on the SX
My LX has no retreive clicker ( that I can hear), & I like that.
Thanks so much for your tutorials regarding Avets. keep'em coming!
I think you're starting to become a real asset to this community
thanks again.
Now put down those reels & go fishing!
-Brian

fishing season is coming up soon!

for the lx, once you pass 15#'s of drag, the right main side plate bearing starts to load up and it becomes progressively more difficult to turn the handle. it is simply a design limitation of the reel because it only has one drag washer. that's why i'm going with all accurate reels. you can get 25-30#'s of drag on the 870 and 665 before that becomes an issue. the accurate has two drag washers.

for the sx, check out the schematics at http://avetreels.com/pdf/SX5-1.pdf key #58 is the pin support. you need a new one. call avet at (818)576-9895and ask for part # SX501-058. they should be able to send one out to you, most likely for free. when it arrives, remove the three side plate screws (key #31). the right side plate and spool come out cleanly as a unit. set it aside. now you have access to the inside of the left side plate. remove the clicker arm (key #61) and all the little parts with it. punch out the pin support it should be pretty straight forward.

on the retrieve, the anti-reverse "click" is what it is. some reels just make more noise than others. you could try packing that side with grease if it really bothers you, but that's really your only option. lightening up the spring actually would decrease the noise, but you run the risk of the anti-reverse pawls not engaging properly. the reel might go knuckle buster on you, and at the worst possible time. if you don't mind, i'd say just leave it. let me know if you have any problems. thanks! alan

alantani · 03-14-2007, 11:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SkeeterRonnie

i think I am going to pull my LX apart and turn the bellville washers like Mr Alan did to the SX above.(thanks to OSO, I now know tho watch out for the "jumping" spring...lol). This is gonna be so fun. I love getting my hands dirty!

carefully pack the two handle bearings and the single right side plate bearing full of grease! for the spool bearing, i like them open. i fear there is simply no easy way around the spool bearings. let me know how things progress. alan

lite-liner · 03-14-2007, 08:29 PM

Once again, your talent has backed up my assumptions.this is after I went back to my schematic & stared for a few minutes. I had actually considered
removing the clicker asm completely, because this is strictly a casting setup.
Which kind of leads me into the LX issue. I"m not really worried about great freespool, because it's on a jigging-specific setup, w/ 8-14oz jigs being the norm.
After seeing your point of heavier handle effort after 15#, can I use a narrower(.010-.020") rt. plate bearing, or would that negate the additional
drag from the stacked bellvilles
-Brian

alantani · 03-15-2007, 01:24 AM

brian, there is really nothing that will change the specs for your lx. personally, i would fish the reel at the 15# strike limit. just take the time to measure the drag setting at full. if you are in a situation where you need more drag, push the lever to full and to hell with the right main side plate bearing. after one big fish, i'm sure that bearing will be toast. they're $5 from avet. keep a couple as back up.

here's the deal. the smaller avets are what they are. you can't squeeze anything more out of them. they will always play second fiddle to accurate. and for the price, that's ok. i just won't be buying any avets. just wait till you see what i DO have on order!

lite-liner · 03-16-2007, 07:55 PM

Alan, I'm into the rebuild on my SX, & boy am I glad I did this.
You were right, it's a fairly simple reel w/ straightforeward procedure. had some corrosion on & behind the drag washer on the spool.
washer cleaned up ok w a toothbrush/WD-40. still useable?
corrosion pitted the spool a little around the snap ring, but it cleaned up well so I'm assuming it'll work. did your bellville washer change. As for theheavy crank effort,what if I leave out one of the little thrust washers(#16)from either end of the spool spring. No mike's here @ the house but it appears to be .010-.015
as the bellvilles compress the spool against the drag from the other side via the lever, will this releive some of the over-pressure against the rt side brg,
or will it negate the bellville switch, or worse, make the spool travel less and happen later on the lever?
I don't understand all the damage, the reel "only" has about 200 hrs on the water in the past 3 years........
BTW, you were right on about the clicker, support was cracked in half.
ordered 2 of those and a full set of brgs, $22.00 shipped
no biggie, but I'll do the teardown a lot sooner next time
thanks
-Brian

alantani · 03-16-2007, 08:59 PM

ok, here goes the editorial part.

i will start out by saying that these are tough little reels. you are about to see some pretty ugly stuff. remember while you are looking at these photos, that all of these reels had good to excellent freespool. they also all had good to excellent drag. well, one reel had a sticky drag, but it would have still caught fish. so i'm going to show you the photos and make a few explanations. then i'm going to say what i like about the reel, then what i do not like, and then i'm going to duck out for a little bit while the fur flies! i know these are very popular reels. that's why it's taken me so long to work up the courage to write this post. so here goes.....

so a guys sends me six avets just before christmas. ok, fine, i don't get many of these (this is a good thing). i've never written an avet rebuild post so i grab my camera and i take a shot of the reels....

i open up the first reel and i'm horrified! here was the working side of the drag washer....

but this is what i found underneath. we'll call this reel #1

i called avet and they said to just clean it and reinstall it. so i cleaned it....

but decided to order new washers....

and some grease from cal sheets.

here's reel #2 with drag washer that's clean as a whistle.

here's reel #3 with a stuck clicker and minimal salt water corrosion in the drag.

here's reel #4 with extensive salt water intrusion .

here's reel #5 with moderate salt water intrusion

and here's the jx, in perfect condition

the reels were all rebuilt with no change in bellville configuration. the first three mxj's had drag washers that were greased with shimano drag grease and all three delivered 9 pound of drag at strike before losing freespool. the last two mxj's and the jx were rebuilt with cal's drag grease. the two mxj's delivered 9 pound of drag at strike before losing freespool. the jx delivered 12 pound of drag at strike.

so here's what i like. i like the open design of the avet drag chamber. without a spool cap to cover the drag chamber, yes water will get in, but it will also get out. sure, a cap on the drag chamber will keep small amounts of water out. but if water gets in, it's trapped. that's the main and fatal problem with the penn 975 lever drag.

i don't like the fact that avet uses a dry drag washer. i saw no loss of drag range in these six reels with grease on the drag washers. and i'm certain no one would disagree that grease would stop the corrosion dead in it's tracks. it's my opinion that a grease drag is a good thing. either shimano or cal's drag grease should work just fine.

so now that everyone knows how to tear down and rebuild these reels, i have a question.....

what's in your avet?

03-13-2007, 09:06 PM	#1 (permalink)
alantani Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: saratoga, ca Posts: 176	avet sx rebuild i've got photos of several avets that i'm going to post. i will start with the sx tear down because it's the one that i took a complete set of photos for. go to the avet website for schematics. you can also call them for any parts that you might need. the tear down on these reels is one of the most simple lever drag tear downs i know. a local kid brought this reel over. it was fine. he was just looking for a little more drag. pulling the right side plate off takes only two screws (key #31). remove the right side plate and spool as a unit, then set it aside. let's take a look inside. the most common avet problem in the last half dozen reels i worked on was a stuck clicker assembly. this one is fine. if your's is stuck, drop a little corrosion x on it from both sides and work it, or let it soak. then slap some grease on top. the screws (key #56) of the reel seat of this particular reel were already greased. check your reel, because that may not always be the case. now to the guts of the reel. remove the preset knob and spring (key #'s 41 and 42). you'll have to hold the spool shaft on the other side. leave the lever exactly where it is and don't move it. it comes apart pretty easily at this point. um, this is good and bad. for the photo, i've put the spool shaft back together so that you can see the bellevilles (key #5), the pusher bushing (key #6), the left spool bearing (key #7), the spool tube or bearing sleeve (key #8), the right spool bearing (key #14), two spool washers (key #16) with a spool spring (key #15) in between, and the brake bearing (key #17). note that i've already changed the configuration of the belleville washers from "()()" to "(())". now, on to the drag washer. this one's clean as a whistle, front .... .... and back. i've applied a thick coat of shimano drag grease to the inside of the spool and to both sides of the drag washer. the purpose is to protect these surfaces from salt water intrusion. apply enough grease to prevent water from getting in between the drag washer and the spool. now wipe all the excess grease. and i mean all of it! when you're done, you should be able to look at a greased washer and a dry washer and not be able to tell the difference. lube the bearings with corrosion x. i've noted that some of the bearings have shields and some are open. either way is fine. now put it all back together again slide the spool shaft back through the side plate, hold the spool shaft on the left side and re-install the preset knob. grease the screw holes, put everything back together..... .... and watch it spin! now, you will recall that this reel was brought to me because the owner wanted a little more drag range. to acomplish this, i changed the belleville configuration from "()()" to "(())". the result was interesting. with every click of the knob, the drag increased predictably, going from 2.5 pounds, to 4, to 6, then 8, 10, 12, then it jumped to 15 and then to 18 before i finally lost freespool. yup, 18 pounds of drag and i still had 45 seconds freespool! the problem was that at 10 pounds of drag, i started noticing a lateral load on the right side plate bearing. the handle became increasingly difficult to crank. so from a practical point of view, 10 pounds is still the maximum drag setting that you can use. come to think of it, i should probably get this reel back and changed out the bellevilles again. there's no point in having anything more than 10 pounds of drag at strike. i'm sure the engineers at avet had already thought this through. still, it was fun to do, even just this once!

03-14-2007, 08:39 AM	#4 (permalink)
SkeeterRonnie Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 1,204	i think I am going to pull my LX apart and turn the bellville washers like Mr Alan did to the SX above.(thanks to OSO, I now know tho watch out for the "jumping" spring...lol). This is gonna be so fun. I love getting my hands dirty! __________________ www.navionics.com (prostaff)

03-16-2007, 07:55 PM	#9 (permalink)
lite-liner Senior Member Join Date: May 2006 Location: little elm, tx., USA Posts: 463	Alan, I'm into the rebuild on my SX, & boy am I glad I did this. You were right, it's a fairly simple reel w/ straightforeward procedure. had some corrosion on & behind the drag washer on the spool. washer cleaned up ok w a toothbrush/WD-40. still useable? corrosion pitted the spool a little around the snap ring, but it cleaned up well so I'm assuming it'll work. did your bellville washer change. As for theheavy crank effort,what if I leave out one of the little thrust washers(#16)from either end of the spool spring. No mike's here @ the house but it appears to be .010-.015 as the bellvilles compress the spool against the drag from the other side via the lever, will this releive some of the over-pressure against the rt side brg, or will it negate the bellville switch, or worse, make the spool travel less and happen later on the lever? I don't understand all the damage, the reel "only" has about 200 hrs on the water in the past 3 years........ BTW, you were right on about the clicker, support was cracked in half. ordered 2 of those and a full set of brgs, $22.00 shipped no biggie, but I'll do the teardown a lot sooner next time thanks -Brian Last edited by lite-liner : 03-16-2007 at 07:59 PM.

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version Email this Page	Search this Thread: Advanced Search
Display Modes
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode

03-13-2007, 11:59 PM	#2 (permalink)
feeder Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 123	Alan, you rule! If you ever get your hands on an Avet Pro 30 (narrow) please post that tutorial on here as well. I'd love to see that one and how much drag you could get out of it

03-14-2007, 08:11 AM	#3 (permalink)
lite-liner Senior Member Join Date: May 2006 Location: little elm, tx., USA Posts: 463	Mr Tani, perhaps you saw my post on the Hoo-X thread. I would like to see if it is poss. to increase the drag in my LX. I would like to have 20#-strike, 30#-full secondly, my SX bait clicker seems to engage when it wants to, and I would like to either remove or "quiet up" the retreive clicker on the SX My LX has no retreive clicker ( that I can hear), & I like that. Thanks so much for your tutorials regarding Avets. keep'em coming! I think you're starting to become a real asset to this community thanks again. Now put down those reels & go fishing! -Brian

03-14-2007, 08:29 PM	#7 (permalink)
lite-liner Senior Member Join Date: May 2006 Location: little elm, tx., USA Posts: 463	Once again, your talent has backed up my assumptions.this is after I went back to my schematic & stared for a few minutes. I had actually considered removing the clicker asm completely, because this is strictly a casting setup. Which kind of leads me into the LX issue. I"m not really worried about great freespool, because it's on a jigging-specific setup, w/ 8-14oz jigs being the norm. After seeing your point of heavier handle effort after 15#, can I use a narrower(.010-.020") rt. plate bearing, or would that negate the additional drag from the stacked bellvilles -Brian

03-15-2007, 01:24 AM	#8 (permalink)
alantani Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: saratoga, ca Posts: 176	brian, there is really nothing that will change the specs for your lx. personally, i would fish the reel at the 15# strike limit. just take the time to measure the drag setting at full. if you are in a situation where you need more drag, push the lever to full and to hell with the right main side plate bearing. after one big fish, i'm sure that bearing will be toast. they're $5 from avet. keep a couple as back up. here's the deal. the smaller avets are what they are. you can't squeeze anything more out of them. they will always play second fiddle to accurate. and for the price, that's ok. i just won't be buying any avets. just wait till you see what i DO have on order!

03-16-2007, 08:59 PM	#10 (permalink)
alantani Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: saratoga, ca Posts: 176	ok, here goes the editorial part. i will start out by saying that these are tough little reels. you are about to see some pretty ugly stuff. remember while you are looking at these photos, that all of these reels had good to excellent freespool. they also all had good to excellent drag. well, one reel had a sticky drag, but it would have still caught fish. so i'm going to show you the photos and make a few explanations. then i'm going to say what i like about the reel, then what i do not like, and then i'm going to duck out for a little bit while the fur flies! i know these are very popular reels. that's why it's taken me so long to work up the courage to write this post. so here goes..... so a guys sends me six avets just before christmas. ok, fine, i don't get many of these (this is a good thing). i've never written an avet rebuild post so i grab my camera and i take a shot of the reels.... i open up the first reel and i'm horrified! here was the working side of the drag washer.... but this is what i found underneath. we'll call this reel #1 i called avet and they said to just clean it and reinstall it. so i cleaned it.... but decided to order new washers.... and some grease from cal sheets. here's reel #2 with drag washer that's clean as a whistle. here's reel #3 with a stuck clicker and minimal salt water corrosion in the drag. here's reel #4 with extensive salt water intrusion . here's reel #5 with moderate salt water intrusion and here's the jx, in perfect condition the reels were all rebuilt with no change in bellville configuration. the first three mxj's had drag washers that were greased with shimano drag grease and all three delivered 9 pound of drag at strike before losing freespool. the last two mxj's and the jx were rebuilt with cal's drag grease. the two mxj's delivered 9 pound of drag at strike before losing freespool. the jx delivered 12 pound of drag at strike. so here's what i like. i like the open design of the avet drag chamber. without a spool cap to cover the drag chamber, yes water will get in, but it will also get out. sure, a cap on the drag chamber will keep small amounts of water out. but if water gets in, it's trapped. that's the main and fatal problem with the penn 975 lever drag. i don't like the fact that avet uses a dry drag washer. i saw no loss of drag range in these six reels with grease on the drag washers. and i'm certain no one would disagree that grease would stop the corrosion dead in it's tracks. it's my opinion that a grease drag is a good thing. either shimano or cal's drag grease should work just fine. so now that everyone knows how to tear down and rebuild these reels, i have a question..... what's in your avet?

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)