1 hour ago, FloridaFishinFool said:

You can play around with the positioning of those 4 washers under the click holder. Leave that one where it is, but take one of those 49's and try it on top of the belleville washers.

 

As long as you keep the same stack height, you can move them around some. Just keep those belleville's opposed to each other and never aligned.

I have worked a lot of reels over the years but I have never seen an extra washer, installed at the factory, on the crank shaft that was not on the schematic. Also, they are different types of washer which seems weird. It does say optional but two optional parts that are not the same when the schematic only has one, also odd. But with that said, I wouldn't think it would cause the OP problem.  Something else is going on. Without seeing it, it may be hard to pinpoint.  

 

If it operates smoothly when the drag isn't fully locked down, there has to be something binding it up. The only time I have seen this was on a Lew's Super Duty. The guy I cleaned the reel for liked to lock his drag down so tight the washers would bend and have creases in them. I cleaned it, replaced the drag washers and crush washers (they were flat). That seemed to fix it but I was skeptical as I didn't think that would be what the issue was. The guy was happy with it so I moved on. 

That’s a nice reel. It’d be worth the money to send it to Mike for a little pampering 

56 minutes ago, FishTank said:

I have worked a lot of reels over the years but I have never seen an extra washer, installed at the factory, on the crank shaft that was not on the schematic. Also, they are different types of washer which seems weird. It does say optional but two optional parts that are not the same when the schematic only has one, also odd.

 

Well they do it. These are shim washers. All they do is take up space to adjust the drag stack so the drag star is balanced in between two opposing ends of the sweep of the drag star.

 

Factories do adjust each reel sometimes slightly different. This is not the only place in reels that you will find this situation. Sometimes in the pawl you will find 2 shim washers or none while at least one is normal. And at the base of the drive shaft where it mounts into the frame can be shimmed differently too. I do it all the time. How many techs check that one? Pull in and out on the handle and remove that extra play. I hate it on my reels. I shim 'em tight.

 

Concerning the two washers you say are not the same. I agree they are not the same. But if you look at what each is doing it is the same. We would need a micrometer to double check, but my eye says both washers appear to be of the same thickness. Both are 49's and it does not matter what they look like. Just made by different companies or different batch type of thing.

 

Another thing you might find with these reels is if you took 10 or 20 of them apart at same time you might even find some reels have shim washers of different sizes. They are all 49's.

 

Factories purchase them by the tens of thousands and one batch may be different from another or sourced from a different source. They are both steel. They are both about the same size. Color is irrelevant. They are the same thing according to the schematic. Both are #49 and put in there as shims.

 

So far none of us are seeing anything wrong. Nothing obvious. So is there really anything wrong with this reel or is it simply just not as well built as the other one and maybe has some parts just not fitting together well? Tolerances again?

 

Try removing one of those 49's and put it back together and see how it is. He may not be able to crank it down as tight as before with two of those washers. Pull one and try it.

If the reels been cranked on as hard as described, the clicker in the star might have been damaged. There’s nothing I can see that will affect the drag itself’s performance. 

If that is the case then he can remove 2 parts and put it back together and try it.

 

He won't need the retainer clip 76 and I can't really see that schematic well or enlarge it enough, but the clicker spring 74 can be removed as well. But to keep the height of the drag stack the same keep the clicker plate 75 in there.

 

In looking at schematic more closely #49 shim washer(s) are called "sleeve washer."

 

This is a link directly related to the AR bearing.

 

What we out here don't know and aren't told is that Lews does not make AR bearings at all. They buy them from other companies. And what this is telling me is that Lews is purchasing AR bearings of various sizes and so the sleeves in each AR bearing are of different lengths.

 

So one reel may have an AR bearing from one company while another reel of same model may have an AR bearing from a different company. The sleeves may be different and so Lews added #49 optional based on whichever AR bearing is in any given reel.

 

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Im just going to fish with the reel and enjoy it, everything functions as it should.

53 minutes ago, FloridaFishinFool said:

I can't really see that schematic well or enlarge it enough

Just for your curiosity: 

 

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