Grease & Oil

[La Mesan]

What brands of oil or grease do you prefer to lubricate your reels with?

(drag washers. spool bearings. worm gear. star drag. pinion gear etc.) Thanks

[Gotfish?]

Penn reel grease
3 in 1 oil

Both inexpensive and seem to work very well.

Skeptical that paying a lot more gets any better product. A reel is not like a car engine, there are no high temperatures to break down the lube and the temperature range the lube needs to operate over is narrow.

[William Ritchie]

Cals or Shimano drag grease . Blue marine grade grease on gears and for coating parts . Bearings get 0-20 oil which the blue bottle 3 in one is . . Clean and lube often is the key , particularly after a salt water dunk . Note , Cals is good stuff and I know people that use it for all grease needs . Tight lines

[Gotfish?]

Cals or Shimano drag grease . Blue marine grade grease on gears and for coating parts . Bearings get 0-20 oil which the blue bottle 3 in one is . . Clean and lube often is the key , particularly after a salt water dunk . Note , Cals is good stuff and I know people that use it for all grease needs . Tight lines

I'll second that frequency of lubrication is way more important that what brand of lube is used.

[inthedeep2]

i use cals for washers and gears. 1 drop of 3n1 oil to bearings. i mainly fish saltwater and tear my reels down every three months. little to no corrosion.

[Slater]

What WR said...
Cals drag grease turns my Avets into a different animal, its a must for Avet drags....

[Just_Bass]

I use bantam oil or Daiwa that come with the reels purchase. For all gears and drag stack get Shimano drag grease.

[Biggiez]

Many

First I use to 321 to lube/flush my bearings

Then Penn reel grease (the blue stuff) as general purpose lube

On my drags it’s only cals drag grease the yellow stuff

[La Mesan]

oil or grease on your worm gear? saltwater or freshwater?

[camobass]

Cals grease 100%. Cals grease on the worm gear salt and fresh. Any quality synthetic low viscosity bearing oil.

Oil quality definitely makes a difference on the spool bearings. You can tell if you use too thick of viscosity once you cast.

[Jenx]

oil or grease on your worm gear? saltwater or freshwater?

I don't like to use grease on my worm gears. I don't want sand sticking to it, but I guess if you don't surf fish that's not an issue.

I use CorrosionX.

[camobass]

Sand has a will…if there’s a will, there’s a way. Just ask the undercarriage

[OOlicon]

If it's freshwater only, or light saltwater I use lighter weight grease, while using either quantum red or t321for the spool bearings, dry carbon drags.

For kayak or heavy salt I use what ritchie recommends. Alan Tani has a nice forum where you can learn to service your gear.