Abu 6500 Hi Speed Gear Change

[BaggieRich]

I managed to figure out a problem with my 6500 Hi Speed today and thought I'd share with the forum to save anyone the head scratching I've been though this weekend.

The 6.1:1 gears on the high speed are a touch over geared in my view and sure enough after 18 months of hard use, they have finally started to give up the ghost. Remembering that I had an old green CS Mag Elite in my shed, I stripped the parts down (Welly, yer reels been canabilsed! ) and took the 5.3:1 main and pinion gears out and a put them back into the Hi Speed thinking I'd been all clever!

I got to the beach on Saturday night and the reel just wasn't right. Even though the clutch was engaged, the reel wouldn't spin freely and even worse when it was spinning freely it would re-engage the clutch mid cast and slam the lead into the water a few yards out. Not good for your rod! On top of this, the few occasions where I did actually manage to get a good cast away produced a hell of a racket from the spool.

I stripped it down again this afternoon and discovered that there are two different types of pinion gear in the 6500's. The first is a "two slot" type that couples up to the old style brake block holder from the Mag Elite. The newer pinion has four slots and is obviously designed to couple with the newer six pin braking system on the new series of 6500s.

Therefore all I had to do was swap over the brake block clips and my Hi Speed is running great again.

The only problem is that I managed to loose the brake blocks from the elite months ago, so my reel is now quicker than Hussane Bolt on steroids. Hey ho, birdy picking practice if nothing else!

[cuckoo]

Priceless info there rich very good to know ps good luck with your new one

[pingu]

thank god for that as your reel was def sounding worse than mine filled with sand on saturday


dave

[geejayy]

Originally Posted by BaggieRich

The only problem is that I managed to loose the brake blocks from the elite months ago, so my reel is now quicker than Hussane Bolt on steroids. Hey ho, birdy picking practice if nothing else!

use higher viscosity oil if youve problems with it or buy/cadge or improvise fresh blocks.
i've got some spares kicking about somewhere.

[browners]

same with all reels you look after them they will look after you . i break mine down every trip clean , grease and oil . im runnung my hi speed on only 2 brake blocks and 2 magnets , cast a dream and along way . if more people looked after there gear after spending a small fortune on them . they will last longer and reward you with trouble free fishing

[lazy hooker]

baggie

if you give keens a bell
http://www.keenstackleandguns.co.uk/

ask for warren he will get a set of high speed gears sent out to you...there only about a tenner if you don't need the pinion. and he'll always have them in stock...they have every concievable abu part and tournament conversion bits.

john

[geejayy]

personally speaking i don't rate reels with a hi ratio of retrieve,
they have limmited use ie, hauling light weights in over weed & rocks
as soon as you have to haul anything heavey about ,pref' a fish, the gearing works against you , ie- try peddleing a cycle up hill in top gear, this will put exessive strain on your knees & the drive train.
no different in a fishing reel under load, the higher the gear ratio the less efficient it is against heavey loads, add a power handle and that just makes it more tempting to winch in , coz you can, which all contributes towards the early demise of the reel. yes, in theory you should pump in and wind down but the only time i do & see this being done is when the resistance is too heavey to winch or if your chicken chucking
i'm sure that abu, penn, & shimano would hope that their reels would each last a life time s0 they only ever sell only one of each model to each angler.
& that this new 'hi speed ' bandwagon is not just the latest gimick to sell more new reels in much the same manner as :-
you just must have these new13ft stiff tounament poles to cast any real distance , and lets face its only the good anglers and real men who can cast in exess of 200yds
which left a lot of anglers with 300 notes worth of rod that was too stiff for them to use propperly
funnily though, 10years later its lets go continental, long softer rods, longer the better . more leaverage , more distance for less effort & a slower more forgiveing compression stroke .
best throw they 13ft zippys away now

sorry to kidnap your thread baggie, i'll get off my soap box now, b4 someone throws something

no, bugger it, i've one more point- why do manufacturers make such a big deal about how fast a reel can run then make a bigger point about how efficient the dam brakeing system is too slow it down gain so it can actually be used??

caution;- post may contain a hint of sarcasm.

[BaggieRich]

That's alright Gord, it's good to get these things off your chest. Do ya feel better now???

I agree with you about the "Hi Speed" gearing, I've just replaced the 6.3:1 with the standard 5.1:1 in my reel and I'll probably do the same thing with another one I'm about to aquire (I love this forum!). If you need to get rigs up and over snags when fishing rough ground, use a lead lift or just wind quicker!

The real (No pun intended) plus of the Hi Speed for me is the combination of a stock mag system and a ratchet. I love abu's, but why can I only get a ratchet and a mag system in one over geared reel without having to do a mag conversion or down rate the gears in a Hi Speed? I real think Abu have made a glaring ommision here.

As for the distance casting, I wouldn't know about that. My current fave rods are a pair of 13' TTLD's and they bend in half when you get a moderate doggie on 'em. Gaud knows what's gonna happen should I eventually lift into a decent fish with 'em (Dave seems to be doing all that stuff for the team this year!) They cast far enough for me though... Havin g said that, if you do happen to chuck the zippies out, make sure you chuck 'em in this direction eh?