FS Digest

My dad was out fishing and caught a fishing rod. It had a Penn 5500 attached and it looks mint, but he wants to be able to clean it super deep so there is no residual salt water inside. He was thinking to soak it in fresh water and let it dry but I am wondering if there is a better way. I googled, and the general consensus was to just spray with water but I feel like that might be insufficient because of the unknown length of time it was submerged in 30ish feet of water.

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by HesJustALittleBoy

FS Digest

This is going to seem very odd but please do it if it was fully submerged.

Soak it in warm soapy water for 2 hours. Work the reel underwater for around 5 minutes. Take the reel out and completely dis assemble. Soak all gears and bearings in the water for a couple minutes. Scrub gears with old toothbrush and put aside.

Remove seals from bearings if possible. Do an acetone soak for 30 minutes to break down all the grease that is trapping debris. Take the bearings and blast them out with pressurized air or water. Then soak the bearings in corrosionX or wd-40 for a protective coating. pack non spool bearings (or all bearings on spinning reels) with tefgel or yamaha blue.

Completely soak the frame, rotor, and spool in the soapy water. spray them down with a hose. Take the spool, take out all the drag washers if it is not sealed, and wipe them dry. re assemble with cals drag grease. Grease all moving parts on rotor.

get all the parts and re assemble the reel applying yamaha blue or royal purple grease. oil handle bearings.

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by a6

FS Digest

Being submerged I agree with the complete disassembly. I was always taught to soak reels not to spray them, the salt is going to dissolve with fresh water.

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by kcinnick1982

audigger53 Loc: Severn, MD

At Ace hardware you can get Blower Motor oil. I would advise that not the WD-40. The blower motor oil will not harm the oilite bearings.

flyguy Loc: Lake Onalaska, Sunfish Capitol of the World!

I have a reel guy that I take all of my freshwater and saltwater reels to clean/fix. I quit trying to clean/fix reels many years ago, life is to short to do that.

Flytier Loc: Wilmington Delaware

Or you can take it to a local shopand have them strip it down. For 20 bucks you've got a new reel.

Jeffchow88 Loc: San Francisco

I’ve had hand me down Penn reels that had some rust and corrosion. Soaked just the metal parts, frame, etc. in coke. Got a lot of it off.

hacksaw Loc: Pasadena, Texas

Take it to a professional to have it cleaned or watch how to do it properly on Utube.
Hack 🇺🇸🍺🍺

PierRat904 Loc: St. Augustine

Soaking with some Dawn dish washing soap helps cut old oxidized lubricant.

Kerry Hansen Loc: Bremerton, WA

Get some SALT-X. Mix up a batch and soak your reel in it. It is not a solvent so won't bother oil/grease or your line. It neutralizes SALT.