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i think im gonna can these reels...ill try ebay since they are brand new...just sounds like too much trouble and i refuse to pay more money for good drag washers that should have been in there first.
jz, these are very easy reels to work on. when i get the carbon fiber drag plate, i'll post a picture so everyone knows what they have. please consider taking the time to go through your reel. it's a skill that will help you along for years to come. call okuma and see if they will charge you for the upgrade. maybe they will, maybe they won't. one think i can guarantee. anything else you get will be a hella lot more money than these, and i doubt that they will function any better. you will still need to tear down the new reels because all reels have these same bearing issues. did i mention that the titus silvers have a stainless steel handle arm, not chrome over bronze or aluminum? alan
__________________ eddie's brother, grady white 258 journey
Well, what am I supposed to say here? I told you so? Well, I did tell you so.
I don't need glasses.
Really Alan, I don't comment on your posts to be mean or nasty. There is nothing evil or menacing here. Often what I'm trying to do is tell you in a nice way that maybe you should look closer, or do some homework.
Preferably prior to posting these things at dozens of forums all over the world, racking up thousands of views... These are great posts; don't get me wrong-- but blanket statements of all reels are like this, or all bearings do that, or this drag is the only-- maybe require some balance.
Similar thought goes for the other Okuma reel post from last year sometime, only I didn't bother to mention it. I don't need to see the drag washer to notice that is canvas; the distinctive pattern on the stainless washer is a dead giveaway.
Thanks for the thread --and the correction; I'll bet that hurt a little to say-- and keep up the good work.
"how many years ago was it that people were so in doubt about greased carbon fiber?"
Not very many. The material was developed in the '70s and debuted in reels in 1985. Cal marketed his grease in what, 2003? Prior to this it was not entirely unusual for other lubricants to be used in reel drags, with far less satisfactory results. In other words, folks were using automotive or boat grease, WD-40, 3-in-1, teflon-added whatever (not all teflon greases are equal) with sometimes horrendous results. I began experimenting with lubricants in 1999, but found only one satisfactory and chose to abandon the idea because frankly, I just didn't know enough about it.
Not all carbon fiber materials are equal. There are several types. Some are decidedly not good drag materials-- wet or dry.
The type we often see in reels is an excellent material-- wet or dry.
"are the drags in your reels greased or not? and what do you think about that"
Sometimes. Depends. Not sure; am finding results inconclusive. It is okay, good even. But it is not a cure-all for all drags. It is far more complex than just wet vs dry.
"i wasn't sure if you still held your old position or if you had some recent research"
Jury is still out. Have a lot of recent research. Working on a new material offering far greater advantages. Patent pending.
And by the way, about the new Okuma nay-sayers: Well what man, it's like Alan said-- lo price reel, bang for the buck... Canvas is maybe not the best, but well what-- it works passably. Shimano used it for years.
dr. rob, you're going to get a kick out of this. this is my lab .......
i have the latest and greatest. all the equipment is state of the art! right down to the foot warmer. for what i have to work with, i think i'm doing pretty darned good. i have penn ht-100 drag washers, a full set of carbontex, and a brand new tub of cal's grease. that's it. you have new materials. i'm very happy for you. they offer advantages. that is wonderful. patents pending? they are quite necessary to support any additional scientific or commercial endeavors and i wish you well. i would think of you as a medical researcher in major medical center, perhaps like my own medical center at UCSF. you can think of me as a clinic physician in the amazon jungle. i have patient's lined up out the door and down the aisle and limited resources to treat them. help from someone like you is greatly appreciated. without your astute clinical observations, i never in the world would have guessed that the material i was looking at was canvas! i received an e-mail from john bretza of okuma stating that a canvas material was used in the titus silver series, similar to the one used in single speed shimano lever drag reels. i misinterpreted that to mean white in color. he also told me that new ones have carbon fiber. when i opened up the reel and saw black, i immediately presumed that the material was carbon fiber. as soon as i get a real carbon fiber washer from okuma, i will open up my patient, take a few more photos, and post them. yes, on all 40 websites, and 7 countries. hey, it's a jungle out there! you know, i found stuff translated into chinese, german and russian? it was funny as hell to look at the german and russian and guess what the words were!
as for the correction hurting, nothing could be farther from the truth. i welcome constructive criticism, help and information from any source. remember the saltiga 40 frame? that was a mistake that had a $200 sting. i ran a reel seminar and used shimano's bearing grease instead of drag grease because that's what shimano sent me. i changed out the drag washers on 50 reels. that took forever! trying to figure out how to open those stoopid bearings and mangling them at the cost of $8-10 each? yeeeccchhh! i've made a ton of mistakes. i've learned from each one. any time i screw something up, i try to let people know. it is so critical to learn from the mistakes of other! but to do that, the "mistakee" has to tell the next potential "mistaker." one of the greatest service that i could provide to these guys is a list in bold neon of all my mistakes! hmmm, guess i should have kept better track ........
i'm wondering if you were a little concerned about this temper of mine. yes, it's true. i do yell at my children. it is counterproductive with my wife. i can still scowl at the students, but most of them are still scared of their own shadows so just a glance can send then running for cover. what really ticks me off is conflict of interest. yeah, some guy that pimps a reel because he got a bunch of them at a discount, or even for free. the other thing that makes me angry is a little trickier. you see, i really do believe that the things i do will make a reel last longer and perform better. and i'm willing to post that stuff for all to see, and to criticize. the converse is also true. i believe that if you don't do some of these things, you will doom a reel to failure. i see it in my clinical practice every day. if i wanted to make more money, i believe that i could return a reel to exact manufacturer's specs and get a return customer when his reel fails AGAIN!!!!! so if another reel repair person out there does nothing but service a according to manufacturer's specs, and if he truly believes that this is the best thing, then we simply have a difference of professional opinion and we can discuss it on a professional basis. i am perfectly happy to agree to disagree. but if a reel repair person does so knowing that the reel will fail again with the hopes of getting a return customer and an additional service fee, i have a problem. and so should everyone else. how would you react if you were a patient and your doctor did this? oh, and this is the best one! squashing new information because you don't want to tick off a manufacturer that is giving you advertising dollars. that's my favorite.
so dr. rob, i deeply appreciate your clinical input. there is no one else with your level of expertise on this or any other board. i would deeply regret if this mistake would have gone unnoticed. and on a personal note, yes, i do sometimes have doubts about my work. am i the only one that advocates greasing these drags? the thousands of engineers out there are no dummies. what in the world is going on? thank you. dr. alan
__________________ eddie's brother, grady white 258 journey
ok, i finally got the scoop on the drag washer in this reel. dr. rob pointed out to me that the drag washer in the titus silver 50 II is not carbon fiber, it's canvas. the titus gold reel has carbon fiber and it fits in the titus silver. i had misunderstood an e-mail conversation with okuma. when i opened up this reel, i thought that this black canvas drag washer was carbon fiber. i called okuma and they shipped out a carbon fiber drag washer for the titus gold 50 II. here it is! canvas on the left, carbon fiber on the right.
the new carbon fiber drag washer got a nice even coat of cal's grease, including the edges and the holes in the backing plate. these are all the spots where salt water can intrude.
rub off all of the excess grease, hopefully with a rag that has less lint than this one.
ahhhh, nice and clean.
it took only 5 minutes to switch out the drag washer.
i benched out this reel at over 45 pounds of drag at strike before losing freespool. one thing i noticed was resistance when turning the handle at these higher ranges. this is most likely the same problem that is seen with the smaller avets. i backed the drag down to 30#'s and the resistance disappeared. this reel has a 60# topshot. a 20# drag setting will pose no difficulty at all.
despite the misunderstanding regarding the drag washer, i still give the reel high marks. i only hope this has not inconvenienced anyone. alan
__________________ eddie's brother, grady white 258 journey
After reading your description, I called and ordered a carbon drag for a ts-50 (the one from the tg50W single speed - the TG-50WII washer has no backing plate, it is a single carbon disk that press fits against a rubber backing pad). I actually cleaned and greased about 6 okuma 50's of varying pedigrees, which is how I know there is a difference in drags between the TG-50W and the TG-50WII. Without breaking down the bearings they only took about 10 minutes a reel!!
These reels are a dream to work on. They engineered them for the common mechanic - no special tools (unless you want to open bearings). I did strip two screws on the outer shells, but they were already damaged when I started. Must have been done at the factory or previously during a refurb. Not a big deal, I was able to get them out without damaging threads.
I then tried an alutechnos 50WII. Typical italian engineering. Specialized screw sizes, spanning rings, and all kinds of factory tool requirements. I'm seriously thinking of just putting it back together and sending it off instead of completing it myself.
Anyway, thanks Alan, your essay gave me the confidence and instruction to do this myself. Now it's on to my other reel types.....
Alan, superb post and follow up. I have two TS-50's and two TW-50's that have been sleeping peacefully in my closet for a couple of years. After reading this I'm going to "Tani" them and see what I come up with. I'd send them to you but I'm on the other side of the world.
TWOTEMS....so lets see if we can do proper modification with the okuma's. At least for some good jack crevale fishing.......... let me know if you upgrade them.....
hi alan, love your shop.and very well said .i would,nt hesitate to send all my reels to you for mods,repairs.mistakes?all the great ones had their share.keep up the great work and thankyou.
After extensive web research, I decided to go for the cheap approach, buy the cheap Okuma's and put a carbon drag washer and a whole bunch of elbow grease in them per Alan Tani. And per his and others request I decided to provide some information and a few pics of my experience.
Back in early July, I bought a couple new in-the-box graphite T-50W single speeds and a new in-the-box graphite T-20II 2-speed. I took them apart and greased them like Alan shows in this post. I have read several of Alan's other rebuild posts and there is a lot of good information in them. My favorite tip is to use a sharp fishhook to get the keeper circlips off the bearings, pure genius.
All of the bearings that came in my Okumas have the circlip keepers on the shields, none had to be punched out. Since I will not be doing any casting with these reels, I packed all the bearings with grease and re-installed the bearing shields, even the spool bearings.
All the bearings needed re-packing. Most of these new bearings had the "mentioned before" symptoms of under-filling and all the grease on one side. There was also another interesting thing I saw on the rest of them. The grease had balled-up between the balls and was not providing any lube for the bearing.
T-50W brg
I remember seeing something similar in the mid 80's when I was in the service, except it was on wheel bearings. They had a massive recall on defective (non-mil-spec) grease. We may haave found out where all that grease went. It was brown just like in that last pic. That was just some of the bearings though, the others had a kind-of clear grease and looked like this
T-20II brg 2 a
T-20II brg 2 b
Both of the T-50W's had the white canvass drag washer,
but the T-20II came with this one
T-20II spool 4
I don't know if it's the carbon one or the composite one but it seemed to be greased well enough with drag grease, Although the spool was NOT greased well enough under it.
T-20II spool 5
It looks like Okuma has taken care of the problem of the drag washer cover backing off, the T-20II had this screw to keep it tight.
T-20II spool 2.JPG
The two T-50W's did not have this new design. Maybe the 50's I got had been sitting on the shelf awhile and all the newer reels will have the new "screw lock drag cover" design. If you wind up getting a reel with the old design, it would be a simple up grade to buy the new spool, cover and screw and transplant them into the old reel. It might not make financial sense on the graphite ones but in my opinion, this new design (along with re-packing the bearings) would make the aluminum framed versions practically bulletproof.
I'm so confident in this new design that I just ordered seven brand new Okuma Titus Gold's (And I got a good deal on each of them).
i neglected to mention anything about the white nylon silent spring seen in the above photo. you got that lined up ok, right? there should be no clicking noise when you crank the handle. if there is, you missed the slots in the dogs that fit the two points of the silent spring.
__________________ eddie's brother, grady white 258 journey
No clicking for mine.
If I remember correctly, I was unsure if the posts went into the slots while I was reassembling the first one. So I carefully disassembled one of the others and determined that the posts do go in the slots.
I forgot to mention that I was able to get the side plate bearing out without completely disassembling everything on it. I still had to take some parts off, but on others I just loosened the screws and didn't take them all the way out. That gave me enough play to slip the bearing out. I did the same thing on a couple star drag level winds. Since the ones I did all had graphite end caps, I didn't have to worry about greasing underneath everything for corrosion protection, and since they were all brand new, the bearings were not stuck or corroded and came out easily.
Re: okuma titus silver 50 II rebuild 
