Chronarch MGL clicking sound

[hokiehi]

Hey guys,

I just went to relube one of my ChMGLs and was less than satisfied with my job, so i went back in to redo it. After that, my reel started clicking multiple times with every handle turn and I cannot figure out for the life of me what it is. I’ve isolated it down to likely being the X-Ship bearing in the sideplate, since i removed everything around it from the inside out, but i can’t figure out what could have happened in the 5 minutes that could cause this. Someone please tell me i’m being an idiot before i rip my hair out and order a new pinion bearing set and spring set.

The clicking gets worse with additional spool tension and definitely isn’t because of the spool tension spring or spool bearing, because it was still there when i removed both the spring and bearing. I tried turning the drive shaft without the sideplate on and there was no clicking, so i put the sideplate on and the clicking came back.

[Slazmo]

Definable 'tick' sound at a certain point of rotation or a rattling kind of 'tickty tick, tickty tick et al' when thumb on the spool and winding...

Did you flush your bearings?

[hokiehi]

I did not flush my bearings, but i got home and played around with another chronarch i own and swapped the sideplates, yokes, springs, and pinion gears around and i think it’s the pinion gear. Replacing a gearset is easy enough. Of course, now the other chronarch also has a similar, but much less noticable ticking sound, so the old lesson of not mixing gears strikes again.

As far as the clicking, it's almost sort of a knock that happens 5 or 6 times per handle turn, which would definitely point towards it pinion related, since the pinion turns multiple times per handle turn.

[Slazmo]

Always mark your gears and reinstall at the same point.

[mark poulson]

Always mark your gears and reinstall at the same point.

I have never done that, and haven't had any problems.

[Slazmo]

I know people see the gears meshing randomly but as you can appreciate every 4th rotation on a 5.0:1 ratio the gears come back to the same point, high gear reels are more rotations from memory and reliant on ratio.

I always run on the rule of 'mark them and they go back in at the same point'. May not work for all but I'm comfortable with said theory...

[ShimanoFan]

Always mark your gears and reinstall at the same point.

I have never done that, and haven't had any problems.

Very true. This is not something any brand of reels would recommend except for spinning reels where some gears have to be set in specific places due to the irregular shape of the oscillation gear. Those have to be aligned, but baitcast reels do not ever have to be aligned because when the cast button is pushed and the pinion is separated from the main drive gear, it almost NEVER goes back to the same exact precise alignment upon turning the handle out of the cast mode.

When the pinion gear re-engages the main drive gear it can be on any gear teeth alignment by random choice. Makes no difference. It changes with every cast anyway.

But if slazmo wants to go to the extra trouble to do something like this, it is an OK thing to do, but very unnecessary because as I said this gear positioning changes with each and every cast a person makes. Click the button, pinion is disconnected. Turn the handle to re-engage and main drive gear is spinning some changes gear teeth alignment on every cast. So this is a useless harmless thing to do.

As to the problem of this reel, reel techs can not really say with any positive conclusions what the problem is without having the reel in hand and seeing for ourselves. So we watch threads like this out of curiosity...

I can venture some guesses... like sometimes if the ratchet gear is bound up, then the drive shaft clicker will make noise clicking. But without reel in hand, all we can do is guess since we can not be certain of correct order of parts on reassembly.

[Bantam1]

It's not needed on the casting reels. We suggest it for spinning reel drive and pinion, and of course if it has a variable oscillation gear that needs to be lined up as well.

Noises are hard to diagnose over the web without a video. Even with a video it can be difficult. I doubt it's the X-Ship bearing. Typically bearings will not make a ticking sound. They will squeal or growl for lack of better terms.

Did you take the wormshaft apart? Is it possible you have the spacer out of place or not installed for the pawl?

[hokiehi]

I did not take the worm shaft apart. It was a simple clean and grease job for the gears.

You're right that it isn't the x-ship bearing. I swapped the handle sideplate of the other chronarch i own onto the problem reel and the clicking persisted. I then proceeded to try to swap out the pinion gear, pinion bearing, yoke, and yoke springs one at a time to isolate a cause and the pinion gear turned out to be the culprit, since nothing else changed the sound. I've been thinking about putting a new set of gears into the reel anyways so it should be an easy fix. Thanks everyone for all your help.

[mark poulson]

I did not take the worm shaft apart. It was a simple clean and grease job for the gears.

You're right that it isn't the x-ship bearing. I swapped the handle sideplate of the other chronarch i own onto the problem reel and the clicking persisted. I then proceeded to try to swap out the pinion gear, pinion bearing, yoke, and yoke springs one at a time to isolate a cause and the pinion gear turned out to be the culprit, since nothing else changed the sound. I've been thinking about putting a new set of gears into the reel anyways so it should be an easy fix. Thanks everyone for all your help.

I had a clicking sound that turned out to be a piece of junk wedged at the end of the levelwind worm gear. Once I removed the junk, the clicking stopped.

[ss30378]

I did not take the worm shaft apart. It was a simple clean and grease job for the gears.

You're right that it isn't the x-ship bearing. I swapped the handle sideplate of the other chronarch i own onto the problem reel and the clicking persisted. I then proceeded to try to swap out the pinion gear, pinion bearing, yoke, and yoke springs one at a time to isolate a cause and the pinion gear turned out to be the culprit, since nothing else changed the sound. I've been thinking about putting a new set of gears into the reel anyways so it should be an easy fix. Thanks everyone for all your help.

I had a clicking sound that turned out to be a piece of junk wedged at the end of the levelwind worm gear. Once I removed the junk, the clicking stopped.

I think more times than not it is most likely what Mark said. There is a little piece of debris, hair, dirt etc, on the pinion that is causing the tick. Once you find it and remove it the tick will go away. I've also had it to where its just grease that needs to work itself smooth. Sometimes I can add decent thumb pressure to the spool and reel and the tick will work itself out or I will align the gear with the spot where the tick is and engage the clutch (no thumb pressure on spool so you dont mar the gears) and I can work ticks out.

[hokiehi]

I did not take the worm shaft apart. It was a simple clean and grease job for the gears.

You're right that it isn't the x-ship bearing. I swapped the handle sideplate of the other chronarch i own onto the problem reel and the clicking persisted. I then proceeded to try to swap out the pinion gear, pinion bearing, yoke, and yoke springs one at a time to isolate a cause and the pinion gear turned out to be the culprit, since nothing else changed the sound. I've been thinking about putting a new set of gears into the reel anyways so it should be an easy fix. Thanks everyone for all your help.

I had a clicking sound that turned out to be a piece of junk wedged at the end of the levelwind worm gear. Once I removed the junk, the clicking stopped.

I think more times than not it is most likely what Mark said. There is a little piece of debris, hair, dirt etc, on the pinion that is causing the tick. Once you find it and remove it the tick will go away. I've also had it to where its just grease that needs to work itself smooth. Sometimes I can add decent thumb pressure to the spool and reel and the tick will work itself out or I will align the gear with the spot where the tick is and engage the clutch (no thumb pressure on spool so you dont mar the gears) and I can work ticks out.

I thought it was just a piece of grime on the pinion too, so I took a toothbrush and thoroughly scrubbed both the pinion and drive gears with warm water and soap without success. I went back in a swapped the whole gear set over to my non-problem chronarch just to be sure it wasn't anything to do with the frame, drive shaft, etc. and the ticking followed the gears over.

[ss30378]

I did not take the worm shaft apart. It was a simple clean and grease job for the gears.

You're right that it isn't the x-ship bearing. I swapped the handle sideplate of the other chronarch i own onto the problem reel and the clicking persisted. I then proceeded to try to swap out the pinion gear, pinion bearing, yoke, and yoke springs one at a time to isolate a cause and the pinion gear turned out to be the culprit, since nothing else changed the sound. I've been thinking about putting a new set of gears into the reel anyways so it should be an easy fix. Thanks everyone for all your help.

I had a clicking sound that turned out to be a piece of junk wedged at the end of the levelwind worm gear. Once I removed the junk, the clicking stopped.

I think more times than not it is most likely what Mark said. There is a little piece of debris, hair, dirt etc, on the pinion that is causing the tick. Once you find it and remove it the tick will go away. I've also had it to where its just grease that needs to work itself smooth. Sometimes I can add decent thumb pressure to the spool and reel and the tick will work itself out or I will align the gear with the spot where the tick is and engage the clutch (no thumb pressure on spool so you dont mar the gears) and I can work ticks out.

I thought it was just a piece of grime on the pinion too, so I took a toothbrush and thoroughly scrubbed both the pinion and drive gears with warm water and soap without success. I went back in a swapped the whole gear set over to my non-problem chronarch just to be sure it wasn't anything to do with the frame, drive shaft, etc. and the ticking followed the gears over.

If that's the case then you'd be correct in getting a new gear set to solve the issue. Good luck!

[Bantam1]

There could be a ding or damage to one of the teeth, either drive or pinion. It could have happened during the cleaning process, assembly, disassembly. If you have isolated it to the gears I would go ahead and replace them.