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I own several (TD thinks I am trying to corner the market) Penn Leveline 350 reels. They are one of the better reels going for fishing for sturgeon. I would like to replace the drag washer in all of them. If anyone in the South Davis or SLC area has experience in replacing the drag washers on Penn Level Wind reels I would appreciate being shown how to do it. I will gladly make it worth your while for training me. If you are experienced in lubricating them so much the better.
Thanks,
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Hi Kent,
I'm not familiar with that particular model, but I've replaced or greased the drags in my Squidders, Senators, and 320 GT2's. They should be simliar to your reel.
There is a fellow in California, named Alan Tani, a pharmacist by profession but a reel repairman by avocation. He posts on both ifish and BATC. He does pictorials on all kinds of reels, giving step-by-step how-to instructions.
Penn reels are for the most part similar in design, at least all their star drags. It's all about the dog spring, and once you have that down, they're fairly easy.
Here's a link to one of Alan's posts. He has done tons of these, and is very good.
[url "http://www.offshoreanglers.com/discuss/forum_posts.asp?TID=2123&KW=alantani"]http://www.offshoreanglers.com/discuss/forum_posts.asp?TID=2123&KW=alantani[/url]
Let me know if you have any trouble. I recently replaced the original, 28-year-old leather drag washers with the HT100 carbon fiber ones in my two Squidders. I'm now getting 15# of drag out of those old reels, and plan to use them for albacore this year. The schematic of your reel should be similar to the 309, which you can find here:
[url "http://www.pennreels.com/01_products/reels/conventional/08_special_purpose/generalpurposelevelwind/309.htm"]http://www.pennreels.com/01_products/reels/conventional/08_special_purpose/generalpurposelevelwind/309.htm[/url]
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Single main, no kicker. 
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Just bumping this back to the top again. Hopefully, as popular as Penn reels are, there is someone on Utah BFT who has actual experience with replacing the drag washer and would be willing to demo this for me. Yes, I admit I am a wimp when it comes to working on reels.[blush]
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Ok kent, I'll give it a shoot if you would like me too. I never worked on that style of penn reels but I have worked on the old penn 500 and the 209. just let me know, talk to you later chuck
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