Retaining bearings with Loctite 641 self trial

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BrettTRay
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Retaining bearings with Loctite 641 self trial

Post by BrettTRay » Tue Mar 28, 2023 7:47 pm

Been running my own little trial and testing out a hypothesis on bearings where I get loctite 641 and lock the bearing in place and see how the reel behaves and how much smoother, quieter, cast distance, etc I see in return. Started out just doing the one spool bearing on the non handle side. Seemed it casted further and everything seemed more responsive although I’ve yet to take any real measurements in distance.. Continued on to where I’m at now which I’m doing the spool bearing on non handle side, both pinion bearings, and the bearing on shaft opposite handle side, the shaft bearing on handle side has to be free to slide from pressure from star drag so make sure not to do it. You could technically do the levelwind bearings but I don’t think they would see any benefit. The important ones are the 4 bearings I said earlier. Bearings in reels are designed to be slip fit and manufactures now days have gotten the tolerances really close but there will always be a margin of error. The loctite 641 is the yellow loctite made for bearing retention but it’s a lower strength made for stuff that’s to be disassembled on occasion for periodic maintenance. I use a soldering iron and heat bearing when taking them out and takes 30 seconds to a minute to get them out. The bearing is applied with a very small amount that’s just enough for a film on bearing outside race and put in and I put the wire bearing retainer on to hold it in place and let it cure. My hypothesis on why reels get geary is because of several factors. Tolerance stacking, bearing wear, bearing deflection, etc. Retaining the bearing with Loctite keeps bearing perfectly centered in the place it needs to be to be aligned and allows zero movement when you have a load on your reel from reeling in your lure or bringing in a fish. That misalignment from bearings under load now causes misalignment with gear teeth, axial loads on bearings, which all contribute to excessive wear which causes noise and vibration. The loctite on spool bearing gave the impression that since bearing is completely locked in place there’s no vibrations between bearing and bearing holder when spool is being cast and spool is rotating at extremely high speeds. If anyone wants to experiment with doing this and hopefully take some measurements on cast distance, length of times of service between having to reapply gear grease, etc. I think everyone will find that it gives a very noticeable performance increase with a perceived decrease in gear noise, geary feeling, cast distance, and a better feeling responsiveness in reel from any slop being eleminated. I think doing this would take away 90% of the micro module gears going geary in Shimano reels. The gear teeth are so small, any bearing deflection at load can make the teeth misalignment be a great percentage off between pinion and main gear.

Real Pudd legend
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Re: Retaining bearings with Loctite 641 self trial

Post by Real Pudd legend » Wed Mar 29, 2023 8:05 am

Thanks for the info, that’s insane!

BrettTRay
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Re: Retaining bearings with Loctite 641 self trial

Post by BrettTRay » Wed Mar 29, 2023 4:44 pm

Real Pudd legend wrote:
Wed Mar 29, 2023 8:05 am
Thanks for the info, that’s insane!
Well you know we aren’t normal people here. We take our equipment to the extreme but coming from an engineering background I knew there was a better way of retaining these bearings in reels. The wire bearing retainer only works for axial loads and only keeps bearing from coming out of its recess. Using a bearing retention compound like Loctite 641 also keeps bearing from sliding out of its recessed area but the important factor is it locks bearing in so that any radial load on bearing has zero effect on it because the small gap that’s machined in the reel that allows the bearing to slip in has now been filled with the compound. During high load events there is massive force on those bearings in a combined direction both radially and axially and it causes gear teeth to wear abnormally and of course that’s were noise and geary feeling come from. This is why round feels like the Ryoga and Conquest stay smooth longer than low profiles because these round reels don’t allow as much flex under load and are machines at higher tolerances. If you could look at the gear teeth under a microscope you would see a wear pattern that’s off axis in low profile reels that’s proportional to how tight the tolerances are in reel. Still working on a couple other hypotheses on ways to prolong feel of smoothness in a reel. Using retention compound like loctite for bearings I had never heard of and I search high and low of any mention of anyone ever doing this before putting this out there so if anyone ever claims to take credit for this, they are probably full of crap. I know if I just bought a brand new Shimano or Diawa with micro cut gears (of which I’m a big proponent of as long as the manufacturer goes to extra lengths to limit movement under load of reel) I’d tearing real down and doing this ASAP cause it’s gonna prolong that smoothness by a greatly longer margin. In my opinion Daiwa is the clear leader in this just from looking at and tearing down countless Ryogas, Millionaires, and Conquests, along with a ton of low pro’s. I almost wish they did this at factory before reel is even sold. It would actually save them money in manufacturing cost because tolerances can be relaxed a bit because retention compound erases tolerance effects up to a certain level. There’s really no con to doing this that I can think of other than the little extra time it takes to pull bearings to clean.

Slazmo
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Re: Retaining bearings with Loctite 641 self trial

Post by Slazmo » Wed Mar 29, 2023 5:21 pm

A long while back with the Stradic F CI4, and since then many others I started wrapping the bearings with aluminium foil extremely tightly to take out the 0.02mm of cup and bearing play that was causing all sorts of movement issues in the gearbox.

I tried various types of engineering paper and the rest, including Loctite compounds sparingly found here in Australia and found that the humble aluminium foil works a treat in spinning reels. Also easily remedied when servicing.

BrettTRay
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Re: Retaining bearings with Loctite 641 self trial

Post by BrettTRay » Wed Mar 29, 2023 5:56 pm

Slazmo wrote:
Wed Mar 29, 2023 5:21 pm
A long while back with the Stradic F CI4, and since then many others I started wrapping the bearings with aluminium foil extremely tightly to take out the 0.02mm of cup and bearing play that was causing all sorts of movement issues in the gearbox.

I tried various types of engineering paper and the rest, including Loctite compounds sparingly found here in Australia and found that the humble aluminium foil works a treat in spinning reels. Also easily remedied when servicing.
Although I think Loctite 641 is the best option out of anything, you can buy stainless steel shim sheets in a pack of varying thickness. I’ve used Loctite 620 and shims to bed AR15/AR10 barrels where barrel goes into the upper to eliminate the movement between that joint. It does wonders for accuracy. You can use shim stock and put bearing in freezer to shrink it so you can create an interference fit by using a slight thicker shim stock

BrettTRay
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Re: Retaining bearings with Loctite 641 self trial

Post by BrettTRay » Wed Mar 29, 2023 6:01 pm

Slazmo wrote:
Wed Mar 29, 2023 5:21 pm
A long while back with the Stradic F CI4, and since then many others I started wrapping the bearings with aluminium foil extremely tightly to take out the 0.02mm of cup and bearing play that was causing all sorts of movement issues in the gearbox.

I tried various types of engineering paper and the rest, including Loctite compounds sparingly found here in Australia and found that the humble aluminium foil works a treat in spinning reels. Also easily remedied when servicing.
Try the 641. It’s yellow colored. Stay away from any green colored though like 620. It’s a mfer to get out. The 641 takes just a small amount of heat to pop bearing out. It’s super easy

Slazmo
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Re: Retaining bearings with Loctite 641 self trial

Post by Slazmo » Wed Mar 29, 2023 6:21 pm

Problem was the heat on a polyamide carbon reinforced plastic.

Also there wasn't any guarantees from Loctite / Henkel Australia that it wouldn't react with the plastic and cause the reel frame to melt into a blob either.

BrettTRay
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Re: Retaining bearings with Loctite 641 self trial

Post by BrettTRay » Wed Mar 29, 2023 8:58 pm

I’ve used it on plastic and it reacted fine but I’m not sure of the polymer it was on. I’d assume some carbon based polymer.

mark poulson
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Re: Retaining bearings with Loctite 641 self trial

Post by mark poulson » Mon Apr 03, 2023 5:53 pm

Does the Z bushing material used in 13Fishing reels eliminate all the excess movement and uneven loading?
I am fishing my half a dozen Concept Z baitcasters for the fourth+ year, and they are still smooth as when they were new. I did add a drop of bearing oil to each bushing when I first got the reels, but nothing since.

BrettTRay
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Re: Retaining bearings with Loctite 641 self trial

Post by BrettTRay » Tue Apr 04, 2023 1:58 am

mark poulson wrote:
Mon Apr 03, 2023 5:53 pm
Does the Z bushing material used in 13Fishing reels eliminate all the excess movement and uneven loading?
I am fishing my half a dozen Concept Z baitcasters for the fourth+ year, and they are still smooth as when they were new. I did add a drop of bearing oil to each bushing when I first got the reels, but nothing since.
In my opinion, just based on my experience with bearings and not having fished a reel with bushings other than in level wind, I’ve always said a reel with Teflon bushings at the spool would do better than a reel with bearings. Now at the pinion or main shaft I’m not positive Teflon would be hard enough. Maybe it would have to be Teflon coated bronze but it’s not hard to find the parts to swap all that out to a bearingless real.

mark poulson
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Re: Retaining bearings with Loctite 641 self trial

Post by mark poulson » Tue Apr 04, 2023 11:03 am

BrettTRay wrote:
Tue Apr 04, 2023 1:58 am
mark poulson wrote:
Mon Apr 03, 2023 5:53 pm
Does the Z bushing material used in 13Fishing reels eliminate all the excess movement and uneven loading?
I am fishing my half a dozen Concept Z baitcasters for the fourth+ year, and they are still smooth as when they were new. I did add a drop of bearing oil to each bushing when I first got the reels, but nothing since.
In my opinion, just based on my experience with bearings and not having fished a reel with bushings other than in level wind, I’ve always said a reel with Teflon bushings at the spool would do better than a reel with bearings. Now at the pinion or main shaft I’m not positive Teflon would be hard enough. Maybe it would have to be Teflon coated bronze but it’s not hard to find the parts to swap all that out to a bearingless real.
From what I've read, the bushing material that 13 Fishing uses is not Teflon. It a proprietary material they developed. My original Concept Z baitcasters have all bushing, instead of bearings. I see that the newer models use the bushings on the spindle, and bearings everywhere else. I don't know why they did that, unless it's to save money.

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