Stella 18000 SW Drag Washers

[Nicholas Moore]

Hey Guys,

Recently with the pretty crap weather we have been having here, a mate and I decided to get our Stella's serviced. His 3 months old mine 6 months old, only used for rec fishing.

On both reels, both the line rollers (the hard black layers) where peeling (We noticed this beforehand and thus sent them in) and the roller bearings both running very rough - according to Shimano this was normal ;-) . The drag washers on both the reels needed replacing.

My question to the GT community. Has any one else had similar problems with their drags and roller bearings after such a short time? Has anyone put in any third party upgrades (if there are any).

It is just a slight concern as there are 6 in our group, 2 of which use Stella's the others a range of others from Saragosa's to Mavericks of similar age that haven't encountered any major issues besides one noisy roller bearing that was replaced.

Also to note that we are both meticlous with our tackle - and definitiley not a case of misuse or abuse.

Any comments would be much appreciated.

Nick

[Hon-Su Chin]

Hmm.....line roller bearings running rough is NOT NORMAL. It means they are corroded!! Mine did it after 1 season but there were trips I took it out and came back not washed for a couple of weeks.

Stella's drag washers dont need replacing, unless it was sticking or coming off very roughly or you are not getting any drag til you nearly lock it up.
My old model stella 8k is 4 yrs old and Ive only replaced the line roller bearings twice and never need to replace the drag washers. Did re-greased it a few times.

Did they replace the line roller bearings?? The drag washers needing replacing sounds like BS to me......

Ive serviced a heap of stellas and none of them needed replacing as they are well sealed washers. Unless you dropped it in the drink and dragged it through sand and didnt wash it......

[Travis Heaps]

Ditto to Hon-Su RE: the drag washers needing replacing, sounds weird to me.  I don't think you'll find anyone on here that would reccomend 3rd party upgrades for the Stella drag, it's pretty much top of the heap straight out of the box.

The line roller bearing is something i've done once before and it needs doing again on my 10K FA so that's not too unusal - mine is about 3 years old.  I've never taken it apart but assume it's not a fully sealed bearing in there, a bit of salt, water and time sitting and it will start to break it down.  It's a tight little corner in there, probably not hard to leave a drop or two of water behind, even if you doing your maintenance after each trip.

Maybe ask the Shimano techs for some advice on maintenance, just to make sure your being meticulous in the right way? They are pretty but you don't want to love it to death 

[Jay Burgess]

Can't comment on the drag washers but I had to get my line roller bearing replaced on my 18k (JDM model)... it was pretty noisy after my last bugatti trip.

[Nicholas Moore]

Hi,

Thanks for the comments. The bigger washers are pretty bad and the smaller ones worse. One of the smaller ones on both reels cracked through. I have asked for the roller bearings and roller to be replaced. Shimano would only replace the roller and am still waiting on drag washers - should be on their way.

Other then that, cant fault the reel. It is incredible to fish with and certainly turned some really good fish. Maybe I was expecting a bit much - but i thought the drags would last longer then they have seemed to for A TOP NOTCH REEL. Will have to see how the next set of washers and roller go... I am a pretty small framed bloke so fishing drags maxed out or even close too max is not possible (Yet ;-). Apparently according to the tech if the roller is turning then its fine... Tried fishing with it for one more day and then couldn't handle the noise.

I am not to concerned about the roller bearings as they are generally the first thing that goes on spin reels, I expected them to at least last a year

Tight Lines boys.
Nick