TackleTour

I have a new Stradic 2500HG FL and the gear ratio is listed as 6.0:1 , as far as I know gears should always be of a value that is not divisible by whole numbers. as with a whole number the gears will always contact the same points and create wear issues. can someone shed any light as to why the gear ratio is what it is.

Good question, wondered the same.
A lot of the Daiwa gear ratios are non-whole numbers, so I never bothered to line up the gears when servicing my own reels.

I mark them and rematch them. You will always find wear greater on the area of the power stroke of the handle on the main gear through the Paladin gear coating.

Gear ratio is determined by the number of teeth on the drive and pinion gears. Divide the number of drive gear teeth by the number of teeth on the pinion. That will give you the gear ratio. Typically there is some rounding when stating the gear ratio because is it really important if the gear ratio is 6.04444444444 vs. 6.0?

With ring and pinion gears you have the drive and coast wear patterns. Drive is the front side of the gear based on rotation direction, coast is the back side of the gear. When there is no load the coast side does see some wear. I always suggest marking the drive and pinion gears when doing a service. This ensures the alignment is the same as it was before you took it apart. A sharpie marker works perfectly for this application.

In reality there should not be an issue because of how the gears are placed and supported in the reel. Give things like flex and varying torque on fishing reels, the gears may have wear differently on different places of the gear. These are not steel gears like you would find in your car/truck. We typically do not see unevenly worn gears in our reels. The methods of marking the gears was more during the times with zinc cast gears. Now that our drive gears are cold forged, we rarely see issues when we do not mark the gears.