After 4 years in salt service, my oldest Super Duty G showed its first rust sign - only in the magnets (everything else all through the reel looks pristine).
This is filliform corrosion - sideways under a coating - a mechanism for a little bit of salt from the air, combined with condensation, to concentrate in place - and you can't remove it, without removing the coating (which is there to protect the magnets, etc.)
I did clean and rebuild the whole brake plate, and everything inside was pristine
on that brake rebuild, getting the knob and cam plate in phase - 6th time's a charm...I ordered Momo N52 magnets through Ali Express (AMO store). While their piece-price on these looks dirt cheap, they hit you with a big shipping charge.
I ordered 8, and they came prepackaged as 10 - the $17 total price was still fair.
Those are not the original spool bearings, but unshielded Air HD (rust resistant) I swapped in 2 years ago for longer casts - they're faring quite well, and of course they get flushed every time they get oiled.
BTW, every old magnet that came out showed incipient attack on the bottom. The Momo N52 magnets are gold-plated - will be interesting to see how this fares compared to the coating on the stock magnets.
These magnets are powerful. In my 1/4-oz niche on the 8 old magnets, I had the mag set a notch above 50% for total-reliable casting, and great cast distance.
Test casting with the 8 new magnets, incipient backlash was only about 20% mag adjustment, and the next two notches were excessive step changes on the cam - too much mag.
So I took two magnets out.
Trying again, didn't cast or adjust enough to find incipient backlash, but was getting 120' reliable cast at a little over 40%, and several notches in that range felt better graduated - that is, narrow changes in mag over several notches. And plenty of adjustment left to add mag for casting 1/8 oz.
The importance of getting salt rust out of a reel can't be overstated.
Salt rust is more corrosive than salt itself, and you don't want it moving around inside your reel. (I'm a metallurgist and corrosion engineer)
Many metals are resistant to salt, but salt rust carries hydrochloric acid, and those same salt-resistant metals will be attacked.
While I was buying, I bought the HCRB (Daiwa mag seal) ball bearing replacements for the last 3 shielded drive bearings in the reel (worm shaft and main drive shaft).
But the original bearings still look so good, I stashed the new bearings in the reel box for later.
