Shimano oil port

[BRONZEBACK32]

How is everyone's Shimano spinning reels holding up now that they removed the oil port?
How are you keeping the gears lubed?
Are they are to disassemble?

I haven't purchased a new spinning reel since my Vanquish 12 (it has the oil port) but once they started selling
the newer models without, it kinda turned me off of the spinning selection.

I noticed Shimano has a new Exsence spinning reel coming out soon, but before I drop money on one I had to ask...

This is my old model and it still runs super smooth as the day I got it.

[Hulkster]

I hate the fact that they removed it but I imagine it was to keep the reels as water tight as possible - since they seem to be emphasizing that now with Core Protect.

to me, it was a unique feature that set them apart from everybody else.

[dustlane]

if you need to add oil or grease to your reel then you need to have it serviced anyway. When you start adding grease or oil to gears that already have grease or oil on them you're not doing anything but making your problem worse. I've had a reel repair business for 15 years and i have always hated those ports. People squirt oil and grease all up in their reels and then bring them to me when the problem isn't fixed or has usually gotten worse. Then I have a dirt, nasty, oily, greasy mess. I rough gear will always be a rough gear until it is replaced with a new one. I say good riddance to all external oil/grease ports.

[uljersey]

Useless feature that needed to go away. You don't change the oil in your car without draining the dirty oil first.

[alafly]

Nice bag man! I have the same one and love it!

That oil maintenance hole is good enough for me and I don't bother taking the spinning reel apart.

I am fully agree with you for new shimano spinning reel, missing reverse spinning is fine for me but that maintenance hole is big sales point I can't give up. That's the main reason I sold shimano ci4 FB and bought back old version shimano ci4 FA. And it's also the same reason I never like shimano stradic FK which is missing maintenance hole.

How is everyone's Shimano spinning reels holding up now that they removed the oil port?
How are you keeping the gears lubed?
Are they are to disassemble?

I haven't purchased a new spinning reel since my Vanquish 12 (it has the oil port) but once they started selling
the newer models without, it kinda turned me off of the spinning selection.

I noticed Shimano has a new Exsence spinning reel coming out soon, but before I drop money on one I had to ask...

This is my old model and it still runs super smooth as the day I got it.

[brownhl]

I clean the bearings and gears and relube every year. A good January activity.

[Slazmo]

Back in the day the service oil port was on the opposite side of the main drive gear face. This allowed either grease or oil to be applied to the pinion and or main gear if you had a pin point greaser tip handy. Made most of the reels inner workings quiet accessible and free to view.

Then they went and moved it to the opposite side which made it difficult to apply lubricants to the pinion or main gear, literally have to get a torch to shine in to see what little of the pinion is viewable to apply lubricant to. None of the worm drive oscillation is able to be reached either... one of the most critical things needing lubrication IMHO.

I applied some modified oil to my Ultegra C200S yesterday before heading out and it made the world of difference due to the zinc alloy / brass gear set. This is only a temporary thing however, oil seems to do well on smaller reels gears however is prone to fling off, especially in high heat or boat thumping through swell.

Shimano does have a spray oil and grease which can help those "inter-yearly" servicing touch ups however force spraying a grease into a reel can lead to build up / over application as you can't effectively tell how much you've sprayed in.

Depending on environment and fishing frequency the servicing intervals change hugely!

On a side note also the LRB service port hole has been removed, that I guess because of the change in LR&B design being one piece now. No big issue undoing it and oiling, however unable to open the LRB bearing and pack with a good grease oil mix to avoid wear and corrosion.

[Kurt L]

I rely heavily on the maintenance port to keep my reels running like new, I have stocked up on FJ's, Ci4+ FA's and Sustains since my FK and FB's have not been what I hoped for yet. I'm curious to see how other people's "Hagne" reels are performing for them.

Kurt

[Slazmo]

I'm curious to see how other people's "Hagne" reels are performing for them. Kurt

They're going well enough - however the core protect physical seals are quite a joke in the great scheme of things. I have done quite a few drowned FK's and or even the FB Ci4+ as they're starting to become reasonably priced and people like them for kayak fishing...

The physical lip seal on the AR bearing is not supple enough to make full contact with the sleeve unlike the Stella waterproofing seal above the AR.

Picture - compressed it to 88kb and its still too large... Anyone got some tips for keeping a pic large enough to see but small enough to upload without linking pics?

[alafly]

I believe some bugs there. Yesterday one picture could be uploaded successfully around 80kb and the other 60kb one said too large...

I'm curious to see how other people's "Hagne" reels are performing for them. Kurt

They're going well enough - however the core protect physical seals are quite a joke in the great scheme of things. I have done quite a few drowned FK's and or even the FB Ci4+ as they're starting to become reasonably priced and people like them for kayak fishing...

The physical lip seal on the AR bearing is not supple enough to make full contact with the sleeve unlike the Stella waterproofing seal above the AR.

Picture - compressed it to 88kb and its still too large... Anyone got some tips for keeping a pic large enough to see but small enough to upload without linking pics?

[LowRange]

I'm curious to see how other people's "Hagne" reels are performing for them. Kurt

They're going well enough - however the core protect physical seals are quite a joke in the great scheme of things. I have done quite a few drowned FK's and or even the FB Ci4+ as they're starting to become reasonably priced and people like them for kayak fishing...

The physical lip seal on the AR bearing is not supple enough to make full contact with the sleeve unlike the Stella waterproofing seal above the AR.

Picture - compressed it to 88kb and its still too large... Anyone got some tips for keeping a pic large enough to see but small enough to upload without linking pics?

Use an image hosting service and paste their imageboard link. I re-size my images to 800 wide keeping aspect ratio so the height adjusts along with it, upload to postimage.org, copy the imageboard link of [img]filename[/img]and past into the TT forum text box.