Servicing shimano tekota 500lc

Well guess what. Winter is here. Gotta keep busy n crap so I guess I'll service my reels ... shimano tekota 500lc's. Which are, i believe, the best all purpose saltwater reels ever invented.

 I've been meaning to replace the drag with the carbontex washers for a while. And just crack it open and swab out the accumulated badness.

I got the washers from this site, and they arrived quickly.

http://www.johnnyspond.com/smooth-washer-replacement-carbontex---shimano.html

Get some star drag grease too.

DO NOT do business with reeldrags.com/castawaytackleshop.com (they come up first in a google search for this product), they took my money and never shipped my order. Had to file a claim with my cc. Bastards.

Anyway, I am the king of disassembling, reassembling, and realizing there's a mystery part left over.  This guy made the whole process super easy, bless his heart.

http://alantani.com/index.php?topic=357.0

Schematic helps too:

http://fish.shimano.com/media/fishing/techdocs/en/TEK500lc_v1_m56577569830498843.pdf

Doesn't take that long. Maybe 1-2 episodes of yer favorite nighttime serial drama, per reel.

Gotta get those reels in shape for lings 'n halibut. It's not that far off!

Thanks Rory - great stuff.  Thanks for posting.   I agree with you that the tekotas are great reels - drags are so smooth right out of the box that I'm almost afraid to "upgrade".

Alan Tani has great tutorials - on all sorts of reels.

I've always sent my Shimano reels down to the service center in CA. It takes a couple few weeks for them to turn it around, but they do the full cleaning and inspection and replace parts on 'as needed' basis.  Their labor charge has always been about 20 or 25 bucks. Never had a reel come back that cost more than 50 bucks to service with new drags and sometimes bearings and handles.... and I've sent in some very messy reels.

You just go to the website, print out a form and send it to them.

I've never seen a lefty Tekota...do they not make one?

I've never seen a lefty Tekota...do they not make one?

Nope .... If they did it would a perfect reel.