I picked up a couple of these during last year's Spring Classic and was pleasantly surprised. When I tore them apart for cleaning this offseason, I lightly greased the drag washers with Cal's as I do with all my reels.  Problem is, now there is a very fine adjustment range between no drag resistance and moderate drag.  I've never heard of the use of drag grease adversely affecting a drag's performance this way.  I'll be breaking down these two again and running the washers dry, but was wondering if anyone has experienced this with  any other reels. 

I am in the process of cleaning a couple of my BPS reels and I noticed that their is no noticeable lube on any of the drag washers or plates.  I was wondering if they needed to be done or not.  Sounds like that they do not.

 

Be interested if cleaning the lube off the drag washers fixes your problem.

I am in the process of cleaning a couple of my BPS reels and I noticed that their is no noticeable lube on any of the drag washers or plates.  I was wondering if they needed to be done or not.  Sounds like that they do not.

 

Be interested if cleaning the lube off the drag washers fixes your problem.

I was experiencing this on one of the two reels I have. The's no indication of a problem with the other reel. I'll be tearing the problem reel down again. It isn't likely, but I may have reassembled the stack incorrectly.  I doubt if adding grease is the culprit.  As with many of the problems I run into in my life, operator error is usually the culprit.

As I suspected, my gremlin must have been in a cheeky mood when I was reassembling this one.  I had the drag stack right, but the star washers weren't installed correctly, so the tension wasn't being applied correctly.  Oh well, I've probably cleaned and lubed a reel  hundreds of times. A 99% success rate is acceptable as long as that 1% is on my own equipment. Trouble is, I worked on quite a few reels that weren't mine this off season.  Guess I'll find out what my real (pun intended) performance rating is in a few weeks.