My Piscifun inline arrived today. Seems to be a pretty well made little reel, overall. Full aluminum frame and spool, mostly metal components, with the exception of the freefall trigger and EVA foam handle knobs on the outside, and a couple small parts on the inside. Not bad for $40.
Right off the bat, I can tell that the anti-reverse roller bearing is somewhat lacking. There is a tiny bit of backlash, and some noticeable side-to-side wobble. This tells me that it's not a super precise bearing (you'll see later).
The spool is noticeably smaller than most any inline I've ever seen, by 50% at least. In that respect, it almost looks like a toy. However, this dimunitive size is what also makes it nice to hold in the palm of your hand. It will lend itself to the gun-grip style of jigging quite nicely as a result.
Enough chit chat, on to the teardown!
Couple shots of the frontside of the reel.
Backside of the reel.
The backside of the spool. Not much to see here, so I didn't take it apart. The steel star gear engages the brass crank on the reel, every other tooth.
Side of the reel after removing the spool. Note the brass drive gear and the different screws. The 5 Philip's-head screws need to be removed in order to separate the reel. The two Allen-head cap screws can stay put.
Brass drive gear in normal position when reeling.
Brass drive gear when freefall lever is pulled. This retracts the brass drive gear out of the spool, allowing the spool to spin freely on two bearings.
The 5 Philip's head screws that need to be removed in order to separate the frame from the cover plate. Note the 4 tapered-head screws that hold the two main parts together, and the one flat head that goes into the handle shaft.
The inside of the reel frame. This shows the freefall actuation mechanism. The lever engages a slot in the metal carrier, which then rotates. The plastic ramps then lift the plastic gear carrier, which disengages the drive gear from the spool. Pretty simple.
Unfortunately, the use of plastic here in these two parts is probably the weakest point in the reel. Eventually, it is pretty likely that these two plastic parts will wear out and/or fail well before anything else on the reel.
Gear carrier and gear removed from the spool shaft. The plastic ramps are easily visible.
Inside of the outer cover. This piece carries the spool shaft, the crank handle, the drag, and the freefall trigger.
Close-up showing the drag mechanism with the brass primary drive gear.
Another close-up, using flash.
Handle side of the reel. The handle nut keeper screw and keeper have to be removed before the handle nut can be unscrewed. The handle nut can then be removed. NOTE, THESE ARE REVERSE THREADS!
A couple pictures of the disassembled handle and drag assembly. Once you remove the handle nut and lift the handle off of the keyed (flat) shaft, the thin spring washer also lifts off.
Next, the drag knob needs to be threaded off of the shaft. Remember, these are REVERSE THREADS. With that off, the clicker lifts off the shaft (note orientation, the hollowed-out side faces up toward the drag knob. Next, there are two spacer washers that lift off.
Finally, the drag mechanism itself lifts off. There is a sandwich of a flat metal washer, a carbon fiber washer, the brass gear, another carbon fiber washer, and another flat metal washer.
Everything was pretty well-oiled and greased here.
This is the roller bearing bushing. It's keyed on the inside (flats on both sides) to fit the drag/handle shaft, and smooth and round on the outside to engage the one-way roller bearing. NOTE: I do not recommend taking this piece completely out of the roller bearing. On some cheaper roller bearings, the rollers can fall out if not supported, and I did not care to find out the hard way here if that was the case or not.
Roller bearing bushing and roller bearing from inside of the reel.
That's it!
Reassemble in reverse order.
There are a handful of other parts that can be disassembled from the frame if necessary, but I did not see the need to do that here. The screws are obvious.
Hope this helps someone out in the future, and helps to show what kind of quality we're dealing with here. Overall, not bad for the money in my opinion.
I just wish the two plastic parts for the freefall mechanism were made out of metal and not plastic. The reel would be FAR more robust if that were the case, and it would last a LOT longer!
Take care!
