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Ok, many people ask about bearings and speak of talking bearing upgrades, so I'm going to talk about it.

A few things first:

1. Bearings play a role in your reel smoothness, but more bearings doesn't mean the reel is better.
2. Bearings have no role in casting on your spinning reel.
3. There's usually only two bearings on your baitcaster that would affect casting. Both work together to hold your spool while it's spinning.

So you're thinking about upgrading your bearings and want to know what it could do for you.

1. Better distance
2. Easier start up
3. More consistent cast
4. less back lashes
5. replace your worn bearings

Now before you take the bearings off your brand new reel and install the latest *insert your favourite brand* Abec X bearings, I would suggest you to get familiar to your reel while it's stock to understand the limits of your current set up. On top of that, many spool bearings come greased up from the factory and that's a big nono. You could realize a performance gain after you flush out the grease and properly oil it!

So how to choose a bearing. Aside from asking for recommendations, there's not much we can do to help us choose because there's no way of measuring the performance of a bearing. So you might ask, isn't higher Abec rating better? In simple terms, yes. But you have to understand that Abec rating merely means that the bearings conforms to a certable level of tolerance! It does NOT tell you that one bearing is smoother, more durable or spin faster.

There are many who speak of ceramic bearings and say they spin better, this is a false conception. Given that all else is equal, the ceramic balls does not provide better spinning properties than SS bearings. Ceramic balls do give you some benefits such as longetivity and heat resistance.

Here's a food for thought, both of these bearings are made by Boca, both are Abec 7 rated and both were sold simutaneously at a certain point in time. As you can see below, it's obvious that they are two different bearings (cage, ball count, ball size..etc) .





That's all for right now. We'll talk about bearing maintenance and oil another day.

Looking forward to the Maintenance write up!

Good information here Long.

ah_long wrote:Ok, many people ask about bearings and speak of talking bearing upgrades, so I'm going to talk about it.

A few things first:

1. Bearings play a role in your reel smoothness, but more bearings doesn't mean the reel is better.
2. Bearings have no role in casting on your spinning reel.
3. There's usually only two bearings on your baitcaster that would affect casting. Both work together to hold your spool while it's spinning.

So you're thinking about upgrading your bearings and want to know what it could do for you.

1. Better distance
2. Easier start up
3. More consistent cast
4. less back lashes
5. replace your worn bearings

Now before you take the bearings off your brand new reel and install the latest *insert your favourite brand* Abec X bearings, I would suggest you to get familiar to your reel while it's stock to understand the limits of your current set up. On top of that, many spool bearings come greased up from the factory and that's a big nono. You could realize a performance gain after you flush out the grease and properly oil it!

So how to choose a bearing. Aside from asking for recommendations, there's not much we can do to help us choose because there's no way of measuring the performance of a bearing. So you might ask, isn't higher Abec rating better? In simple terms, yes. But you have to understand that Abec rating merely means that the bearings conforms to a certable level of tolerance! It does NOT tell you that one bearing is smoother, more durable or spin faster.

There are many who speak of ceramic bearings and say they spin better, this is a false conception. Given that all else is equal, the ceramic balls does not provide better spinning properties than SS bearings. Ceramic balls do give you some benefits such as longetivity and heat resistance.

Here's a food for thought, both of these bearings are made by Boca, both are Abec 7 rated and both were sold simutaneously at a certain point in time. As you can see below, it's obvious that they are two different bearings (cage, ball count, ball size..etc) .





That's all for right now. We'll talk about bearing maintenance and oil another day.

what's the best way to clean bearings without an ultrasonic ?

lape0019 wrote:Looking forward to the Maintenance write up!

Good information here Long.

x 2

Good info here, thanks. I just got my first baitcaster this year and know nothing of maintenance...looking forward to your maintenance write up.

cndbasshunter wrote:
what's the best way to clean bearings without an ultrasonic ?

brake/carb cleaner, but it's really bad for you so take precautions and do it outdoors

without a Ultrasonic, it's hard to do bearings with metal shields.

I have used carb cleaner and it did a good job.
I'll be trying some of the Clean Touch cleaner from Boca Bearing.
Good information on the Boca Bearing Company site.
Here is a link to a write up on "How To Maintain Your Bearings"

http://www.bocabearings.com/bearing-mai ... nance.aspx

Acetone

Acetone is certainly an excellent solvent. I used it almost daily at work for over 35 years. Expensive to buy in small quantities though. Coleman fuel should work well and is cheaper. Also used a lot of cans of spray contact cleaner which makes a good rinse after soaking. We were able to remove the fine clips holding the dust shields on with the tip of a new x-acto blade and thoroughly clean and relube with fine instrument oil or grease, depending on the application. Things like rotor bearings for gyros (22k rpm), and motors that generate a lot of heat all use grease.

One piece of good advice I can pass on about cleaning bearings applies to anyone using air pressure. Never spin a dry bearing at high speed. If you can hear it whine you are going way too fast. You can cause significant wear damage, which can affect performance and greatly shorten the life of the bearing. Quality bearings are made to tight specs, the inner and outer races need to line up perfectly and not floating.

It must be a huge difference in casting when you change spool bearings from grease to oil. For those that find it too free spooling, or even the pros who love to tinker, I can see where you could tune your bearings to best match your casting technique/abilities, by changing the viscosity of the oil. Just a thought I had while composing this post hehe.

Cheers