Stripping Down an Okuma Lever Drag Reel

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In the previous post I talked about pimping out your reel a bit, so here I thought I would show you the pictures of the reel being taken a part so you can all see it's not that hard.


Step 1 - The reel ready to be taken apart, so far I've just removed the drag knob, adjust block and drag lever


Step 2 - Remove the screws on the left hand side of the reel, where the clicker is.


When you flip the left sideplate, check for salt deposits. This reel had salt building up as it wasnt greased.


Step 3 - Back the drag off to zero, and unscrew the drag knob completely. As you remove it you will find a spring and the adjust block, remove that with the drag lever. Remove the right side plate screws (no need to remove the handle) and then separate the right plate from the reel body.



Step 4 - You can now slide the reel spool out from the frame


This is the reel frame standing on its own after the reel spool has been taken out.



Step 5 - Remove the spool cover but unscrewing it.

This is the underneath of the spool cover where the drag washer exerts pressure on the pressure plate.


Step 6 - Note the drag washer which has an even application of grease. Lift the drag washer out, in this reel it's glued to a retaining plate.




Step 7 - Now that you have the drag washer removed you can see how that's held in place. Flip the spool over to the other side.



Step 8 - Remove the four click pawl screws that hold the clickl pawl in place



Step 9 - Now you can slide the shaft out so that you can inspect it and clean it up.


I havent yet taken the left hand slide plate apart yet, but need to do some in order to get to the bearing, the one that usually fails first on all lever drag reels. Will take some pictures when I do that.