TackleTour

Lets just be honest. When have you needed to change gear sets in a reel?

-feel?

-noise?

And why did the reel get that way?

-abuse?

-normal fishing?

-what in your opinion was the culprit?

Also, give examples of the reels in question if you can.

Both noise and feel from normal fishing due to gear material (aluminum). The only brass gear sets I have replaced were from manufacturing defects or swaps to faster ratios.

Noise can be fixed. If a reel gets noisey and wasn't before, there's a reason and it can be fixed fairly easily.
Feel is the only reason I've replaced gears. I want my reels to feel butter smooth. Off the top of my head I've only had to replace 2 sets of brass gears and 4 aluminium/aluminium (non brass) for my own reels.

1 OG zillion just got rough after 5(ish) years. It's only use was for frogs so I suppose that's inevitable.
1 t31016-Might have looked at it funny or a stiff wind blew by it. I hate these reels. I think everything that could break on mine has broke at one point. Once this one goes I'm sending it back to hell where it came from.
1 TDZ 7:1 LH brass set. Clutch slipped on a cast. Gear's were done after that.
1 Curado 51e after 6 years. Not sure what happened . It's only used for topwater poppers. One day it was just rough. Put Core gears in it and it's a much smoother reel.
1 Steez SV. Clutch didn't completely disengage bombing a lipless.....that's all she wrote for that set.
1 Steez SV TW after 2 1/2 years. I have it on a custom rod I use for pitching Jigs /w 20# fluoro in laydowns/wood/etc. I knew full well it was only a matter of time but I love the reel so it wasn't a big deal. Just love the Steez SV TW and Steez A platforms. My other 3 have held up perfectly but are used for moving baits.


I've replaced 2 more gear sets in TD-Z's that I bought that had "less than smooth" retrieve's after I got them 2, 3, or 4th hand. Excuse to put 7:1's in them though so no big loss.

The gears I've replaced for others were just old, neglected, and/or abused reels. Gear replacement is also the last resort. i swap pinion/drive shaft/levelwind/frame/spool bearings /w brand new before I consider gears.

replaced two gear sets on the Met2013. Those thin and ultra light alumium gears shimano uses in many reels are garbage in my opinion. This raspy noise and feel is so annoying when you're retrieving a decent resistance bait such as a spinnerbait

SSS wrote:replaced two gear sets on the Met2013. Those thin and ultra light alumium gears shimano uses in many reels are garbage in my opinion. This raspy noise and feel is so annoying when you're retrieving a decent resistance bait such as a spinnerbait

The Met 2013 stock gears are notoriously bad for producing the "Metanium buzz", even with relatively new gear sets. Problem solved by using the Met 2013 pinion gear with a brass Curado K drive gear. Smooth as silk. Interestingly, the alloy gears in my Steez A reels are super smooth, even after 100s of large fish.

Strewth wrote:

SSS wrote:replaced two gear sets on the Met2013. Those thin and ultra light alumium gears shimano uses in many reels are garbage in my opinion. This raspy noise and feel is so annoying when you're retrieving a decent resistance bait such as a spinnerbait

The Met 2013 stock gears are notoriously bad for producing the "Metanium buzz", even with relatively new gear sets. Problem solved by using the Met 2013 pinion gear with a brass Curado K drive gear. Smooth as silk. Interestingly, the alloy gears in my Steez A reels are super smooth, even after 100s of large fish.

The Steez A still using a larger gear tooth rather than micro gears is probably a big part of the equation.

BARRAMANIAC wrote:

Strewth wrote:

SSS wrote:replaced two gear sets on the Met2013. Those thin and ultra light alumium gears shimano uses in many reels are garbage in my opinion. This raspy noise and feel is so annoying when you're retrieving a decent resistance bait such as a spinnerbait

The Met 2013 stock gears are notoriously bad for producing the "Metanium buzz", even with relatively new gear sets. Problem solved by using the Met 2013 pinion gear with a brass Curado K drive gear. Smooth as silk. Interestingly, the alloy gears in my Steez A reels are super smooth, even after 100s of large fish.

The Steez A still using a larger gear tooth rather than micro gears is probably a big part of the equation.

Its not only the tooth of the gears, its the whole thing. Just look at how thin the gear is. I haven't had a single Daiwa main gear that had such thin walls and was this light. Shimano uses this kind of gear in a lot of their reels, i don't know how is this even a thing.

SSS wrote:

BARRAMANIAC wrote:

Strewth wrote:

SSS wrote:replaced two gear sets on the Met2013. Those thin and ultra light alumium gears shimano uses in many reels are garbage in my opinion. This raspy noise and feel is so annoying when you're retrieving a decent resistance bait such as a spinnerbait

The Met 2013 stock gears are notoriously bad for producing the "Metanium buzz", even with relatively new gear sets. Problem solved by using the Met 2013 pinion gear with a brass Curado K drive gear. Smooth as silk. Interestingly, the alloy gears in my Steez A reels are super smooth, even after 100s of large fish.

The Steez A still using a larger gear tooth rather than micro gears is probably a big part of the equation.

Its not only the tooth of the gears, its the whole thing. Just look at how thin the gear is. I haven't had a single Daiwa main gear that had such thin walls and was this light. Shimano uses this kind of gear in a lot of their reels, i don't know how is this even a thing.

The micro gears on the new Ryoga is the main reason stopping me getting one, I am a tradesman in the mining industry it is known that you need larger gear teeth for high loads, The Ryoga is supposed to be a heavy duty reel so the addition of micro mesh gears just doesn't make sense.

I had to replace a 6.8 gear set in an Alphas Finesse Custom after a hookset on a 35# flathead(high drag setting with carbontex and braid). He inhaled a plastic worm. I thought I was snagged until he took off. After I set the hook, I noticed a tick in the gearing. They still worked after that, but the tick was maddening. Luckily, that was just after the PX-R parts became available domestically.
I also replaced a gear set in an OG Steez 100H that was just not smooth anymore. No tick or hard-crank feeling, but that buttery feeling was gone.

BARRAMANIAC wrote:

SSS wrote:

BARRAMANIAC wrote:

Strewth wrote:

SSS wrote:replaced two gear sets on the Met2013. Those thin and ultra light alumium gears shimano uses in many reels are garbage in my opinion. This raspy noise and feel is so annoying when you're retrieving a decent resistance bait such as a spinnerbait

The Met 2013 stock gears are notoriously bad for producing the "Metanium buzz", even with relatively new gear sets. Problem solved by using the Met 2013 pinion gear with a brass Curado K drive gear. Smooth as silk. Interestingly, the alloy gears in my Steez A reels are super smooth, even after 100s of large fish.

The Steez A still using a larger gear tooth rather than micro gears is probably a big part of the equation.

Its not only the tooth of the gears, its the whole thing. Just look at how thin the gear is. I haven't had a single Daiwa main gear that had such thin walls and was this light. Shimano uses this kind of gear in a lot of their reels, i don't know how is this even a thing.

The micro gears on the new Ryoga is the main reason stopping me getting one, I am a tradesman in the mining industry it is known that you need larger gear teeth for high loads, The Ryoga is supposed to be a heavy duty reel so the addition of micro mesh gears just doesn't make sense.

Its also the main reason im keeping my OG ryoga instead of "upgrading" to the new one.

I've replaced many brass gear sets in shimano low pro casting reels. In my youth I had a bunch of old curado B reels that I used until shelled out. The gears were dry and although still worked, they were loud and had lots of vibration. I've also replaced gears in several curado E7s. The reels I use for frog fishing seem to have the gears not last as long. Once you learn to do your own reel maintenance and keep grease on your gears they last much longer. I have reels now that I'm sure I'll have till I croak.

Good topics man

It’s very rare for me to need to swap out a gear set. Only time I’ve had to swap them out because of failure was the Metanium gears corroding away. Last set looked good when they were changed to brass, but the first set disintigrated and I had never seen that happen before. Also can’t stand the feel of aluminum gears so they get swapped to brass.
Never had a set of brass gears go bad. I think the big issue with brass getting rough is people using reels like a winch. Bass pros do it, so I can do it too! Keep the reels serviced(fresh grease and oil regularly) and fight the fish with the rod and shouldn’t have any issues.

JBcrankaddict wrote:Good topics man

It’s very rare for me to need to swap out a gear set. Only time I’ve had to swap them out because of failure was the Metanium gears corroding away. Last set looked good when they were changed to brass, but the first set disintigrated and I had never seen that happen before. Also can’t stand the feel of aluminum gears so they get swapped to brass.
Never had a set of brass gears go bad. I think the big issue with brass getting rough is people using reels like a winch. Bass pros do it, so I can do it too! Keep the reels serviced(fresh grease and oil regularly) and fight the fish with the rod and shouldn’t have any issues.

Thank you. I felt this would be the appropriate forum to bring these questions to the table. Most other forums dont have the enthusiasts that we have here. And I have to agree about people using the reel to fight everything. I mean, that is what the baitcaster really is, a winch. But, I also fight the fish more with the rod than anything to keep the stress off the reel.

The only reason I've changed gear sets was to change ratios

oe