Re: Reel bearings
 

I'm not gonna knock either... Although it's always good to support our locals. Bearings are like 10bucks each and around $25 for the service. There are like 6 bearings in there that "could" be bad and be replaced.

Re: Reel bearings
 

New bearings from Avet arrived in the mail today. I ordered 4 of the pinion bearings being that they seem to be the most problematic of the bunch, for $5 each I figured it was worth it to have a few extras. Took Anthony's advice and popped the new one open, barely any grease in there:eek: I was surprised being that it's a brand new bearing. Anyway, packed it tight with some Quicksilver marine grease with Teflon (just happen to have a new tube handy), put the shields back on and the reel feels like brand new. If you're mechanically inclined, the Avet is a pretty easy reel to work on, just print out one of their schematics from their website for reference. If not, there's a lot of local shops that can do it for you for a really good price too.

Re: Reel bearings
 

One upgrade I'm considering for a few of my Avets is the South Florida or Kodiak Cams. The problem it solves is common on most lever drag reels and that is you you have very little drag adjustment between the bait and strike setting. Once you move the lever from bait you almost immediately go to strike.

This would allow you to make adjustments to line out tention and in my opinion, would make them better for dead sticking drift baits as well as live lining larger baits like bunker.

http://www.avetreels.net/ACCESSORIES.html