my curado seems to be having a hard time when pressing the thumb bar. its been getting increasingly harder to press down. it will go for awhile with little problem then all of a sudden i have to press quite hard to cast then sometimes it will stay down and loose and floppy after a cast and i have to lift it and it clicks in ive opened it up and cant find anything broken or damaged any ideas???? last thing is when realling you can hear the gears inside ?

Might want to grease the part where the thumb bar actuates. It looks like a fork and it should slide along a round disc. 

I had the same issue with the gear noise as well.  my solution was to break the reel down and do a thorough cleansing and de-greasing then use shimano ace star drag grease liberally enough to cover all the teeth on the drive gear then reassemble.  this so far has solved the problem for me

It's really hard to diagnose something without seeing it. If you'd like to send it in, I'll give it a good cleaning and lube and diagnose from there. http://www.delawarevalleytackle.com/

Mike

fixed it thumb bar was bent and driving into the plate