So first soak with Acetone then rinse with denatured alcohol? 

I just don't use acetone.   Mineral spirits for deep solvent cleaning.  DA for finish cleaning and drying. 

Ya - acetone is a bit too harsh and some older reels use plastic parts in them that acetone will dissolve....my old Ambassaduer 500R for one - push on retaining ring that just fell apart when I spritzed acetone on it...had to search hi-and-low for a replacement.

 

Mineral Spirits and DA or 91%+ Isopropyl....not the 70% OTC stuff you can get anywhere.

NGL this is all just making me think i should just get more hybrid ceramic bearings for all my reels and not have to worry about cleaning them haha

 

I got 3 rugrats at home and no space for all these chemicals, at first I was thinking okay I could do the alcohol in the basement with ZeRo ventilation, cheap and easy enough.

 

Looking at all these they need ventilation and each bottle is like 20 bucks and more than I'll ever need in a lifetime to clean like 4 or 5 reels' bearings. 

 

Unless I'm misinformed about hybrid and full ceramic bearings, my understanding is they don't need to be cleaned like this. No? 

 

1 hour ago, bulldog1935 said:

Mineral spirits for deep solvent cleaning.  DA for finish cleaning and drying. 

Do you rinse or dry first or right from MS to DA? in case I do decide to go down this road.  

 

For bearings and gears? 

58 minutes ago, Banned User said:

NGL this is all just making me think i should just get more hybrid ceramic bearings for all my reels and not have to worry about cleaning them haha

 

I got 3 rugrats at home and no space for all these chemicals, at first I was thinking okay I could do the alcohol in the basement with ZeRo ventilation, cheap and easy enough.

 

Looking at all these they need ventilation and each bottle is like 20 bucks and more than I'll ever need in a lifetime to clean like 4 or 5 reels' bearings. 

 

Unless I'm misinformed about hybrid and full ceramic bearings, my understanding is they don't need to be cleaned like this. No? 

 

Do you rinse or dry first or right from MS to DA? in case I do decide to go down this road.  

 

For bearings and gears? 

You still have to clean ceramic hybrids.  They also use stainless steel cages and raceways which should be lubricated regardless.  They can be run dry, but at the expense of lifespan.

All my new spool bearings. SiN, hybrid ceramic,  dual race, get ultrasonic in DA before they get installed,  then lubed with my favorite bearing oil (ZPI F Zero) - except SiN, they run dry. 

Whatever dust or residue came with them, you want it out.  

 

You only need mineral spirits for old oil and grease.  Knock it out on lint free cloth,  and right into DA.

 

Just took some tiny parts out of water wash in 100ml beaker.   Important tool - wire mesh colander to put in the sink and catch anything you drop.

26 minutes ago, bulldog1935 said:

mineral spirits for old oil and grease

So factory bearings that are greased (so dumb) need the spirits... what about a double wash of DA instead? 

 

And I'm keeping the ultrasonic cleaner regardless, I've never had clearer lenses to look through in my life. 

 

31 minutes ago, bulldog1935 said:

wire mesh colander

Good call

Imagine losing OP's 140 y-o screw down your garbage disposal 

 

Mineral spirits is better at removing grease, and old grease and wax - sticky viscous stuff.  When it's 70 y-o grease,  start with vinegar bath, etc.

Wrote this 15 years ago for FFR forum,  aimed for the audience at antique fly reels.  The reason I added it here,  it has details on vinegar bath and caveats.  Also note, reference to Hot Sauce is specific to fly reels.

Reels are loaded with gunk and corrosion - usually 70 to 80 years' worth by the time I get them. They're made out of aluminum, brass and steel, painted, anodized, or bare. Lubricants oxidize, releasing acids (or caustic in the case of lithium) form tars and waxes and eventually turn into polymers. Limestone residues from chalk streams are corrosive to aluminum.

Reels have it tough. I've never taken before photos, and I've had some nasty ones, but most of you have seen some of my after photos. Here's what I do. (credit to Richard Thomann who gave me this procedure 10 year ago, though, I've added my caveats, touches and insight from my experience working with it)

1) Take the reel down as far as you feel comfortable.
2) Wipe everything down with paper towels or q-tips and whatever you can to remove the loose debris and old lubricant.

3) Vinegar-water bath. This is generally four parts warm water to one part vinegar. Temperature, time and vinegar content can all go up (up to 3 hours) if you reel is all brass. (NOT painted brass - use only soapy water rinses and brushes on painted brass, because the hydrogen generated in any immersion solution will blow the paint right off.)

some basic guidelines - 30 to 45 minutes for painted reels, or rubber side plates and handles (bakelite is impervious)
wouldn't go past 1 hour for lead finished alloy fly reels
2 hours for plated brass
3 hours for bare brass or German silver

Generally, we're looking at finger-warm solution for about an hour or less. On a painted aluminum reel or lead finished reel, you might want to keep it down to a half-hour. Although, lead finish is usually more tolerant than paint, so you can push to the full hour if it needs it. And take it out when its visibly clean. Take a soft tooth brush to the debris every 10-15 minutes. This solution should do the bulk of your cleaning. If you have tenacious crud, rusted steel, dealloyed brass (looks pink) you may want to push it a little longer, but balance it against the visible effects on your finish. Rub out the insides of bushings with q-tips or twisted up paper towel.
Rinse well in lukewarm water.

4) dilute soap bath - very dilute. Alkalis cause corrosion of aluminum. Ammonia causes cracking of brass. Not to alarm you, but you're simply using this bath to wet and remove the tar remnants that were broken up by the vinegar, and to neutralize residual vinegar. Again use the soft toothbrush to break up any residues.

5) Final rinse - very thorough cold-water rinse here. Be careful of the sink rinsing off your tiny parts.
6) Air dry - overnight is good.

7) Rub with a wax or silicone guncloth. This is also a good time to put on a coating of Butcher's Bowling Alley Wax if you want to do that kind of thing.

8 ) Lube and reassemble - use Zebco Quantum Hot Sauce - the good stuff.
Hot Sauce Grease on drag gears, and on worn and wobbly spindles. Hot Sauce Lube (light oil) on spindles/bushings, handle spindles, pawl stanchions, bearings, drag blocks and threads.

___________________

special topics.

Magnesium reels - Marryat, Battenkill MkIII - exposed magnesium appears to react vigorously with vinegar, so it's probably wisest to bypass soaking in solutions and use Boeshield for cleaning.

Solvents - acetone is for removing paint and plastic handles - be very careful. Yes, it removes tars also. Be very careful.

One application for denatured alcohol is removing old line varnish from inside a spool. It will usually come out with a good swipe, but try to avoid drips, keep it away from handles, follow quickly with a dry swab and even limit exposure to the paint.

oxidizers/colorants/patinating agents with their steps and rinses would fit between steps 6 and 7 above, but this is real art that I'm going to dodge here.

Abrasives/polishes.
I'm going to mostly stay away from this, because I usually quit at wax.
But OK, I keep Pol metal polish around, and always have "Miracle" lemon-oil polishing cloths.
I lightly and quickly rub down my rods with Miracle polishing cloths to keep the calcium buildup down, and chase that with a chamois.
They are also very useful for rubbing out rust on steel 

Hope this helps,
Ron Mc

p.s. here's the goal 

Ive got a reel that gives a high pitched squeak every cast. I had it professionally serviced about two months ago and it was normal after that but starting a few days ago it gives a screech basically every cast. Not sure what the issue is here. Any advice? It doesn’t seem like it’s impacting the casting distance but it’s pretty annoying. 

1 hour ago, 10,000 lakes Bassin said:

Ive got a reel that gives a high pitched squeak every cast. I had it professionally serviced about two months ago and it was normal after that but starting a few days ago it gives a screech basically every cast. Not sure what the issue is here. Any advice? It doesn’t seem like it’s impacting the casting distance but it’s pretty annoying. 

Spool bearings might be dry. Put some oil in both bearings.

@10,000 lakes Bassin, would be a tough call without knowing more about the reel,  how you set it up,  etc.

could be a dry spool bearing,  end shim, or centrifugal brake.

Good news, any of those would be cured by a drop of oil.

@10,000 lakes Bassin Is it a screech or a squeal?

 

I feel like screeching is more often dry bearings

 

But squeals are usually dry centrifugal break ring

 

Oil a q tip and wipe the break ring

 

What reel is it?

35 minutes ago, Banned User said:

@10,000 lakes Bassin Is it a screech or a squeal?

 

I feel like screeching is more often dry bearings

 

But squeals are usually dry centrifugal break ring

 

Oil a q tip and wipe the break ring

 

What reel is it?

It’s a zillion I bought from Japan about a year ago. Not exactly sure if it’s a screech or squeal, it’s a high pitched REEEE at the beginning of every cast. 

I was being a little facetious 🙃

 

same thing happened with my Zillion. Bearings need oil, I was too nervous at the time to open it up so I only did the side place bearing and tried to drip some down into the other side through the pinion hole... it worked. 

On 6/1/2025 at 12:09 PM, Banned User said:

NGL this is all just making me think i should just get more hybrid ceramic bearings for all my reels and not have to worry about cleaning them haha

 

I got 3 rugrats at home and no space for all these chemicals, at first I was thinking okay I could do the alcohol in the basement with ZeRo ventilation, cheap and easy enough.

 

Looking at all these they need ventilation and each bottle is like 20 bucks and more than I'll ever need in a lifetime to clean like 4 or 5 reels' bearings. 

 

Unless I'm misinformed about hybrid and full ceramic bearings, my understanding is they don't need to be cleaned like this. No? 

 

Do you rinse or dry first or right from MS to DA? in case I do decide to go down this road.  

 

For bearings and gears? 

Totally understand concerns about chemicals vs storage vs children but bearings (ceramic) will only carry you so far, my point is there are plenty of other parts that will need attention also. Clutch parts, main/pinion - idler gears, worm gears etc. that’s when I’d simply hire out a skilled reel tech who can provide the exact service for you. 
 

You could use a beaker for bearings which cuts way down on the amount of chemicals you need while using water in an ultrasonic cleaner. The ideal comes from another board member whom I hesitate to tag and put on front street 😉 but it’s a great game plan for sure. Simple green is a great cleaner but you have to have mechanical agitation for it to be effective. (Toothbrush on gears etc is perfect) I use to do my own, particularly baitcasters. Spinning is a bit more involved and now I’m hearing Shimano has re-engineered the anti-reverse bearing and it’s supposedly a pita.. 

I'm not shy @F14A-B. '18 Stella a/r roller bearing (used in all following worm drive) is more than a pita to service  - it's a beast that won't cry uncle and slip w high drag.

 

@10,000 lakes Bassin, Zillion rules out centrifugal,  so spool bearing is highest probability.  One scary thought is tight Zero set. Make sure you have tiny end play in freespool.  Too tight zero set could buckle spindle to rub spool on frame.   Could also damage palm plate latch.  I always loosen zero before removing palm plate,  and reset zero last thing. 

1 minute ago, bulldog1935 said:

I'm not shy @F14A-B. '18 Stella a/r roller bearing is more than a pita to service  - it's a beast that won't cry uncle and slip w high drag.

Haha, I’ve heard that more than a few times.. so I’m assuming that means the FL Stradic and old-new Vanford are sporting the same bearing? 

@F14A-B

Yes, worm drive series beginning w '18 Stella is the first ever over-engineered spinning reel. 

Stradic 5000FL on kingfish rod

I killed a Penn 4400SS in this service 

1 hour ago, bulldog1935 said:

I'm not shy @F14A-B. '18 Stella a/r roller bearing (used in all following worm drive) is more than a pita to service  - it's a beast that won't cry uncle and slip w high drag.

 

@10,000 lakes Bassin, Zillion rules out centrifugal,  so spool bearing is highest probability.  One scary thought is tight Zero set. Make sure you have tiny end play in freespool.  Too tight zero set could buckle spindle to rub spool on frame.   Could also damage palm plate latch.  I always loosen zero before removing palm plate,  and reset zero last thing. 

I appreciate that tip on Zero set.. I did not know this information. Quite frankly that’s pretty d**n important to know and incorporate. 

Please recommend a good oil and grease for maintenance for bait casters, spinning and spin casts reels. 

Good Fishing

@GreenTrout, you might want to review this thread. 

I'm already shopping in Japan,  so i use MTCW-B for freshwater grease (MTCW-SW in salt).  All my reels have unshielded spool bearings,  and my go-to bearing oil is ZPI F Zero. 

I can vouch for Super Lube, it's great stuff.  Their oils are also very good.  I keep three grades of grease; NLGI 0, NLGI 1, and NLGI 2.  I don't use the 2 on most casting/spinning reels, but on bigger trolling reels because it stays put and those charters are running hard 6-8 months per year.  NLGI 0 gets used on clutch cams, pinion yoke pins, and other sliding areas.  The gears and drag stack get NLGI 1.  I also keep a few different oils; ISO 10, 22, 68, 100, and 220.  While all of that isn't needed, I can tailor the exact feel anybody is looking for just by the grades of lubricants used. 

 

I also use TSI 321 but mix it with medical grade isopropyl and make a bearing dip for spool bearings.  Being that it's a thin film lubricant, even a single drop is too much.  This is the stuff NASA uses on the hard drive platters of space bound instruments.  Use it very sparingly for best results.

Putting some new line on a ‘21 zillion and I pulled hard to tighten the knot at the bottom of the spool. I heard a little “pop” and it got me really worried I messed something up by pulling on the spool too hard. If it casts fine and reels normally is there anything to worry about? I’m not to good with reels so I’m not confident in taking it apart and double checking to make sure it’s all good.
So fish it and see if there are any issues? @Delaware Valley Tackle has some advice? Thanks. 

3 hours ago, 10,000 lakes Bassin said:

Putting some new line on a reel and I pulled pretty hard to tighten the knot at the bottom of the spool. I heard a little “pop” and it got me really worried I messed something up by pulling on the spool too hard. If it casts fine and reels normally is there anything to worry about? I’m not to good with reels so I’m not confident in taking it apart and double checking to make sure it’s all good. 

I don't see how you would damage a normal spool from just tightening a knot. And there's no need to tighten it that hard, just put a small piece of masking tape on the knot, and the line won't have any way of slipping on the spool.