I found a cool article on super-tuning baitcasters and thought I would ask to see who has replaced their bearings and if you thought it was worthwhile. The ceramic ball, stainless race bearing are not very expensive.

I have done this to just about all my baitcasters now. The only ones that I haven't installed them in are my Viento and my Advantage 150H. You will notice a slight performance gain in casting and pitching. I like to tinker with reels so it was a no-brainer with me on the decision to upgrade. I used ZPI SiC bearings in most of mine.

I tore down my Cruxis Saturday night because it was not casting well at all and the thumb bar was sticking. Apparently I did not put enough lube in the bearings on my first tear down; I used three drops from my needle dropper and distance is back.

I still want to try the ceramic composite bearings in this reel. If it works well for me, I am going to look for some used Shimano Bantams and work them over.

SV1000,

Next time you go to add oil to your bearings try cleaning them out first. Putting new oil over old, only makes excess old oil...Try reading the article on super tuning, it takes quality CLEANING of the reel first, learn how to do that first then you have half the battle done.

Placing $90 worth of (2) spool support bearings in a $90 reel is over kill IMPO.

Good Luck & Tight Lines!!!!

I did a 90% teardown and cleaned the entire reel including bearings in acetone. The bearings were soaked in acetone for about an hour and spun periodically to dispace the old lube. I used compressed air too.

I only used one drop of "Rem Oil" per bearing, this time I used three and did not find it leaking out while they were on a paper towel.

I was looking at VBX ABEC-7 Ceramic:Stainless:Shielded for 14.95, not full ceramic bearings. If I had a 5-10 bearing reel I probably would not consider even ceramic composiste bearings.

I have experience with ceremic bearings from the cycling industry. From what I know of them I am unsure of how much they would help a fishing reel. Their cycling claim-to-fame is that they are much harder/more durable than all-steel bearing. If anything, I would think that a ceramic bearing on a steel race could casue the race to pit faster than if it were an all-steel bearing. Since reel bearings don't don't see anywhere near the loads of a bicycle component, I think that they are overkill. You'll knock a few grams off of your reel, but I think thats about it.