Upgrade drags on newer Daiwa Seagates and Sealines?

[vetting]

Upgrade drags on newer Daiwa Seagates and Sealines?

Due to the lack of safe ice in Wisconsin I've been hunting around for deals on reels and have amassed a bunch of new daiwa reels.  I ran the 4 of the newer Seagates (orange body) and Sealines (all black body) reel last year.  Before I realized it, adding reels one by one over the last 2 months I ended up with a total of 15 reels.  Only the seagates come stock with carbon drags.  The drags are ok when fighting a fish, but I dont like them when Im setting up inline boards.  The drags seem to be more difficult to get set properly.  On my other reels the line pulls out nice and easy when you pull on it by hand but dont leak line every time a board hits a wave.  On the sealines and seagates, it seem like I have to crank the drags down a lot tighter in order to get them to not leak line.  I was thinking about doing the drags myself.  So just let me know if you think replacing the drags would improve what I mentioned above.  I'd just have Tuna do them but that would be almost $400....so going to try to tackle this one myself if upgrading the drags is worth it. 

 

[JAYRFRED]

Some of those reels you mention, have decent drags from the factory. I would suggest disassembling all of the drags, cleaning, (I use brake clean) sanding the discs (fiber and steel) on a flat surface (kitchen counter works great when no one is looking)  with fine sandpaper and reassembling them. I like my drags dry, but I know many fisherman that like to put Cals lube on them. I have found that some reels come from the factory with grease on the drag washers that thickens with time an causes inconsistent performance. If you have any questions, give Paulie a call at Tuna Tom's. He is always willing to give advice.

Jay

Edited February 17, 2017 by JAYRFRED