Islander Stealheader reel

[Paulus]

This is really late in the discussion, but I have an old Raven SST that used to make grinding noises and still has some wobble. The grinding noise I eliminated by first changing the bearings - which I ordered and then changed myself - only to find that the new bearings weren't as good as the old. So a friend of mine - you may know him on this board - suggested I dunk the old ones in kerosene overnight. I had nothing to lose, so I tried it. Once I rinsed the bearings and put them back in, the reel spun like new. The wobble was still there, but that's because I did fall on it probably a half dozen times slipping on river banks etc... but it never affected the quality of the drift - so I just put it in the "live with" category. Essentially, the fish don't care about it - so why should I !!!

 

p.-

[Ralph Field]

Remember the reel could have easily been dropped in the store before you purchased the reel. I have seen anglers drop reels on more than one occasion and Joc's store isn't immune from this. Easier for the store to sell the reel than send it back if they don't notice the damage. Your reel spins better than any Islander I have ever seen , so maybe you should fish it and just keep replacing the bearings every year.

[icefisherman]

OK, Did a side by side comparison over the weekend with another Islander, swapped the spools etc. It looked like it might be the spool but the other reel has some (smaller) wobble itself so it is hard to say. In any event I took the reel and went fishing on Sunday and it performed much much better compared to before changing the bearings...It took me a while to get used to how nicely the reel was spinning when it was new...

Spoke to Islander again today and we both agreed I'll keep using it as is and observe and see if bearing go bad again in the next year or so...then we'll speak again with Heather this time next year before warranty expires. She promised she'll take care of me should the wobble cause the bearing to go bad again. Seemed like a fair solution to me so I agreed.

Now...time to put it to some more good use...need some good rain first though

Thanks to all who commented in this thread.

 

Cheers,

Ice Fisherman

[Guest ----]

Remember the reel could have easily been dropped in the store before you purchased the reel. I have seen anglers drop reels on more than one occasion and Joc's store isn't immune from this. Easier for the store to sell the reel than send it back if they don't notice the damage.

 

More true than you know. When I returned my bum islander the young salesperson who was swapping the line onto the new one dropped the one I was returning twice on the hard cement floor:blink:. It Happens.