A couple of years ago I sold a local fisherman a PENN 130 Rod & Reel Combo. One lucky day he hooked up a giant bluefin. During the battle the reel locked solid. As luck would have it another fisherman on board had experienced a similar problem and was able to unlock the reel by releasing and immediately resetting the drag lever. They landed the fish.
My customer sent the reel out to an authorized Penn repair center and they informed him that there was nothing wrong with the reel. He then brought me the reel and I took it apart several times without finding the problem. It continued to lock, not all the time, maybe 20% of the time. I gave up and sent the reel out to a repair center. Not once but three times, the last time I sent it directly to PENN in Philadelphia. Each time I was told there was nothing wrong with the reel.
Now I am not an expert, but my right arm is an inch longer than my left from cranking on PENN 130’s. Between loading reels and fighting fish I know when a reel is not right.
I was at a loss until a fellow tuna fisherman came into the shop and I told him about the problem. He owns another make of reel, TICA, and had a reel blowup with a bluefin on the end of the line. He chased his problem to the clicker assembly.
When I replaced the clicker assembly on the PENN the problem went away.
I spent probably 12 hours of my time plus $120 in shipping and $75 in parts to solve this problem. I pass this on in hopes that it may help someone.
The problem with Penn now is half the service techs don't know what they are talking about. When I had a problem with a P70VS I called to ask for information on how to take the handle off the reel so I could get it apart since I didn't have a schematic. After talking to the tech that could n't even help tell me how to take the reel apart, I finally figured it out my self and told him while I had him on the telephone. Now Penn is starting to discontinue some of the older reel parts. that use to be the best thing about Penn. You could always get parts to fix you reel. Not any more! The worse thing Penn ever did was to discontinue their old TW series internationals and make the new P.O.S. VS series. You don't change whats works for something new and shiny.
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