I just recieved the newest, baddest, high speed reel on the market. It was ordered for a customer, (Our own Iron Thrower, Ray Jarvis!), who will shortly be using it on a 10 day trip and will no doubt give us a report on this newest offering from Penn in their International lineup!
When I took it out of the box, I put it in freespool and spun the spool. It didn't freespool as well as I thought it should so I checked the adjustment and tried it again. Same thing. OK now, it's brand new, it's not mine, do I open it up?
Hell yes!
Tools were procured and I removed the left side plate to gain access to the spool bearings. The bearings were cleaned out a little and relubed with M Pro 7, a gun product that is an excellent light bearing lube as well. I reassembled the reel and now the spool spun pretty well!
But I wanted to see the rest of the reel too! So OK, if I'm REALLY careful.........
I removed the left side plate again.
For those of you that didn't already know, the TRQ is similar in design to several of Daiwa's reels and Penn's 113hn Baja Special in the way the pinion gear disengages fron the spool. Note the slot in the end of the spool shaft. Inside of this shaft is a TINY bearing for the pinion gear shaft to seat in. This shaft rides on bearings on both ends. It is almost unnoticed sitting inside of the pinion gear when the reel is disassembled to this point.
The first time you will generally notice this small shaft, (At the end of the needle nose pliers.), is when you turn the reel on it's side to remove the handle and it falls out of the reel!
There were no surprises when removing the handle. At first glance the drag star appeared made of plastic ala the Baja Special. Closer inspection revealed a substantial piece of what looks like a powder coated aluminum alloy. Under this was the drag clicker followed by two heavy belleville washers arranged ().
A really convenient feature of this reel is that the whole side plate doesn't have to be removed to service the drags. Once the handle and drag star are off, remove the four screws on top of the gear case cover as well as the two small screws on the bottom to the inside, (These are in the same place as the two small side plate screws on TLD two speeds for those that are familiar with that reel.), and it lifts right off. There is a one way roller bearing which gives the reel an instant anti-reverse feature and the collar inside of it. This collar rides on two more heavy belleville washers on top of the drag stack arranged )).
The first thing that struck me was that the main gear in this thing is MASSIVE in relation to the size of the reel! It's about two inches across!
Accordingly, the drag surface area of this reel is also impressive! It is a four stack drag. The drag washers are keyed into the inside of the main gear via six "nubs" that are diecut on the washers to fit the slots inside of the main gear. The metal washers are keyed to the gear shaft by the square cut center hole in them.
Underneath the main gear, the double dog anti reverse is visable along with the gear shaft bearing. The main gear also rides on this bearing.
From this side you can access the drags, main and pinion gears, clutch springs, and pinion yoke.
If you wish or need to access the ecentric or the ecentric jack, this can be done by removing the last two right sideplate screws and removing the sideplate. The eccentric jack and eccentric are on the inside area of the sideplate and may be removed by means of the screw visable on the top of the eccentric jack which is visable here.
One nice thing I noticed in disassembling this reel is that all of the sideplate screws were greased durring assembly.
One bad thing I noticed was that a total of 3 sideplate screws, (Two on the left side and one on the right!), were not even finger tight! If you buy one of these reels, CHECK ALL OF THE SCREWS FOR TIGHTNESS!!!
Comments
The overall fit and finish of this reel are very nice. And it is heavy! Make no mistake, this baby is built like a tank!!!
It has what feels like incerdible cranking power as well as speed. Speaking of speed, I had to watch the foot pedal on my line winder so as not to melt the spool that the spectra was on or burn my hand while filling it!
The capacity is enough that I have loaded it with 300 yards of 80lb. Izorline solid spectra, (Seen in the pics.), and it should have enough capacity left over for between 65 and 85 yards of 50lb mono. With the speed and power, and capacity of this reel, it should be a real wahoo slayer and a maniac yo yo reel!
The handle feels comfortable and the outer hole extends it out to a length that should give everyone plenty of leverage to grind on a fish even with it's 6.3:1 gear ratio!
Thanks to Ray for trusting me to be careful with his new baby so I could get the pics. I promise that I will finish filling it up and ship it out just as soon as I figure out how to put this sumbitch back in one piece!
It gots a lots a parts Ray!
Just kiddin'!
FISH HARD!
Chris
)!
or do I have to send it too "Cals" LMAO Thanks so much, now ship Jr to me so I can sit an cradle it in my paws.
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