Reel oil vs reel grease

[iiTzChunky]

Oil for bearings and grease for gears... Correct? 

 

Sorry for stupid questions using my maintenence background this makes sense 

[J Francho]

Generally, yes.  I have some reels that I pack knob bearings with grease to keep them smooth and prevent spinning excessively.  One part I use oil on is the worm gear for the level wind.  Grease attracts and holds too much grime.  If it gets dirty in there, it's okay to flush it with light oil.

[Choporoz]

Not a stupid question at all.   While reading a recent reel maintenance thread yesterday, I thought that a comprehensive thread, or even article is overdue.  The couple of articles that I've found don't answer many common questions....professional opinions or answers to some basic questions can be challenging to come by;

Suggested maintenance: each time out; couple/few times a season; annually; every couple years...with details for both baitcasting and spinning; special care after rain, freeze, sand, submerging, salt water use, etc..

Lube vs. Grease -- differences in composition; recommended brands; where to apply and when; greases or lubes that are actually harmful to a reel.....

Maybe suggested maintenance for engineers who want to break down a reel completely vs maintenance for people like me who have trouble operating a screwdriver, etc.

 

[J Francho]

1 minute ago, Choporoz said:

The couple of articles that I've found don't answer many common questions....professional opinions or answers to some basic questions can be challenging to come by;

There's no right answer - much depends on the application, along with some VERY passionate opinions on how to do it properly.  I've tried to write one a few times.  Not an easy task.

[iiTzChunky]

My spinning reel was getting a little rough when reeling in, poke up a oil grease combo set and put some grease on the reel gear. Seemed like that had done the trick but I'm pulling up to the lake now so I'll test it out 

[WRB]

Spinning reels are very different than a bait casting reel regarding lubrication because they don't rely on free turning spools to cast. You only need to lubricate the drive shaft,shaft bearing and gear with light weight reel grease, the cranking knob with light reel oil. Binding could be a result of a bad shaft bearing or bent drive/spool shaft.

A good reel repair service like site sponsor DVT can help you if the lube doesn't fix the problem.

Tom

[blckshirt98]

Whoops!  I got a used Citica E off the 'Bay and the freespool/retrieve wasn't super smooth.  Instead of getting it serviced I took some Ardent Reel Butter Oil and squirted it on pretty much every moving part.  I took out the spool and squirted some where the handle/gears are as well.  I haven't used it yet but when I put it back together everything felt like it was sprayed with WD40 and the freespool would spin forever.  Did I make a mistake here?

[J Francho]

1 minute ago, blckshirt98 said:

Did I make a mistake here?

More like used a band aid when you could probably used a couple stitches.  You aren't ruining anything, but it might not be a long lasting solution.  Many reels come from the factory greased up this way.  A deep clean frees things up, adds start up speed and smoothness.

[BobP]

Lubrication is lubrication.  But one problem is that oil tends to migrate away from where you put it while grease tends to stay where you put it.  So parts like the gears that undergo a lot of rotation and force will sling off an oil pretty quickly but will stay lubricated and smooth longer with a sparing coating of grease.  I think whoever cleans the reel properly next time will have a lot of cleaning to do before lubricating the reel.  Just shooting lots of lubricant into the reel is not the best way to optimize its performance.  It leaves dirty lubricant containing metal particles to eventually gum things up and increase wear.  But that's better than no lubrication.

[iiTzChunky]

On a side note when taking apart the reel, I couldn't help but notice there wasn't any sort of gasket to try to prevent water from getting in the reel, if for some reason it was submerged. Why is that? 

[J Francho]

There should actually be vent holes in the bottom, back of the reel to let water out.  Most are NOT sealed.

[OnthePotomac]

On 8/23/2016 at 9:45 AM, iiTzChunky said:

Oil for bearings and grease for gears... Correct? 

 

Sorry for stupid questions using my maintenence background this makes sense 

Don't know whose reels you have, but this is worth watching anyway

http://fish.shimano.com/content/dam/shimanosnaffish/shimano/support/maintenance-tips/Maintenance Tips- Baitcasting Reels.pdf

[J Francho]

Zombie thread.....the Shimano PDF is a good guide to basic maintenance of any brand reel.

[Xander]

So it is safe to use both oil and grease on spinning reels? Grease on gear oil on bearings. But what about baitcasters? Could I use the same heavy duty grease I use for large spinning reels? I will be using the baitcaster in both fresh and saltwater if that helps. 

[garroyo130]

21 hours ago, Xander said:

So it is safe to use both oil and grease on spinning reels? Grease on gear oil on bearings. But what about baitcasters? Could I use the same heavy duty grease I use for large spinning reels? I will be using the baitcaster in both fresh and saltwater if that helps. 

 

Yeah that should be fine. I havent really found gear grease viscosity to affect how "free" a baitcaster is, probably because excess grease migrates immediately. Now frame bearing lube viscosity definitely affects how the reel feels. 

[Xander]

Great, it should be fine since it is the peen precision grease and quantum hot sauce oil

[volzfan59]

I've always put just a small dab or two (scientific measurement) of reel grease on gears. Reel oil on everything else. This has worked great for me for years. Year before last I started using Lucas reel oil and grease.

 

Saw a Randy Blauket video not to long back saying that he only uses reel oil on everything. I found it interesting, but it didn't sway my opinion.

[Alex from GA]

I use Corrosion X mixed with grease for gears and 10/30 on everything else except baitcaster spool bearings which get 1 scant drop of hot sauce.

[Delaware Valley Tackle]

Adding oil to grease is an exercise in futility. The added oil will just drop out. Getting the oil bro stay suspended in the carrier is the science of grease. 

[redmeansdistortion]

If you want to learn about lubricants, good manufacturers have technical data sheets for their products you can look through.  For instance, most of your standard grease is NLGI2, which is the consistency of peanut butter.  The NLGI scale is a measure of the hardness of grease.  Some, such as Cal's Purple are NLGI1, which is the consistency of tomato paste.  Cal's Tan is NLGI2 which is why it's marketed more towards larger conventional reels, and the former towards cold weather gear and lighter tackle.  Many oils suitable for reels will have a viscosity of somewhere between 30 cSt and 100 cSt at 40C.  Lower viscosity stuff like TSI 321, Super Lube ISO 10, and Mobile Velocite #6 will be anywhere from 5 cSt to 10 cSt at 40C.  As a rule, I don't use any lubricants without a readily available technical data sheet or MSDS.  I want to know what I'm using so I have an idea how it will behave.  I suspect many of the whiz bang reel lubricants sold by some companies without any available tech docs are most likely repackaged lubricants with a pretty label and a much higher price.  

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLGI_consistency_number

 

https://www.machinerylubrication.com/Read/411/oil-viscosity#:~:text=The viscosity is typically reported,constant supplied for each tube.

[Kev-mo]

28 minutes ago, redmeansdistortion said:

If you want to learn about lubricants, good manufacturers have technical data sheets for their products you can look through.  For instance, most of your standard grease is NLGI2, which is the consistency of peanut butter.  The NLGI scale is a measure of the hardness of grease.  Some, such as Cal's Purple are NLGI1, which is the consistency of tomato paste.  Cal's Tan is NLGI2 which is why it's marketed more towards larger conventional reels, and the former towards cold weather gear and lighter tackle.  Many oils suitable for reels will have a viscosity of somewhere between 30 cSt and 100 cSt at 40C.  Lower viscosity stuff like TSI 321, Super Lube ISO 10, and Mobile Velocite #6 will be anywhere from 5 cSt to 10 cSt at 40C.  As a rule, I don't use any lubricants without a readily available technical data sheet or MSDS.  I want to know what I'm using so I have an idea how it will behave.  I suspect many of the whiz bang reel lubricants sold by some companies without any available tech docs are most likely repackaged lubricants with a pretty label and a much higher price.  

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLGI_consistency_number

 

https://www.machinerylubrication.com/Read/411/oil-viscosity#:~:text=The viscosity is typically reported,constant supplied for each tube.

So with the above said would you grease and oil differently for cold weather fishing? By cold I mean 30's maybe low 40's? It could be in my head but feel my reels don't perform as well in the colder months that I fish.

[redmeansdistortion]

15 minutes ago, Kev-mo said:

So with the above said would you grease and oil differently for cold weather fishing? By cold I mean 30's maybe low 40's? It could be in my head but feel my reels don't perform as well in the colder months that I fish.

It isn't in your head, lubricants thicken as the mercury drops which does have an effect on performance.  The higher the temp the thinner the lubricants will be.  I typically run the thinner stuff year round, it holds up well in the summer too.  I'm not running the thicker stuff unless it's a conventional like a Penn GTi, Shimano Tekota, or Okuma Coldwater.