I posted a message last month about my penn 6500ss. The two problems
were that the bail would close on the cast and that the crank
would bind up when fishing heavy plugs and fighting fish.
I brought my reel to a local repair (bucko's in Fall River)shop. They took apart the entire
reel, Cleaned it and replaced the crank bearing. The old crank bearing
was shot. They also re-lubed the entire reel with blue grease.
Don't know what it is but the person at the store stated that
penn used to use it but switched to a less expensive lube. He
said the blue grease performs better. The price $28.
He said penn cut back on some quality materials when they switched from
the 650 to the 6500. He said the 650 was much tougher to kill.
It took awhile for me to kill the 6500. I was pleased with the service
it gave me before it started acting - up. I should be all set now.
As far as the bail flipping during the cast. They said it has to do with where the handle
(crank) is positioned when you cast. If the handle is pointing up to the sky
or slightly
foward (when your rod is pointing staight out in front of you) when you cast,
there is a good chance that the bail will flip. The reason is that when you
cast the foward motion of the rod will actually drive the handle from the up
position to the down position. When this happend the bail flips.
They recommend that the crank be pointing down to the ground before casting.
I tried this on Sat. and didn't have any bail flip. Hopefully this is the
only reason for the bail trip. I would suspect that the bail shoudn't be
pointing up during the cast eigther. The foward motion of the cast
(especially if you snap the rod hard) can close the bail.