Lefty Van Staal drag knob flaw

blaminack · Lefty Van Staal drag knob flaw

As the only other owner of a lefty Van Staal that I know of I have a question about them. I have noticed that with light drag settings like I use for Kings, the drag knob will every once in a while rotate with the spool causing the drag to loosen and the knob to get dangerously loose. How have you dealt with this? The one flaw of the Lefty Van Staal is that they didn't follow the lead of lefty Mitchell's with reversed drag knobs. I am thinking of putting a little teflon tape on the threads of the shaft where the drag knob threads on to, so that it is just slightly tighter on the shaft for the light drag settings. Any advice otherwise?

Calvin

Drag knob spins off when line takes off at a high rate of speed. Been there several times before. That means you have an older Staal with a lifetime warranty. All the old lefties did that. You have to send it in and they will fix it with a slotted hub. If your yearly maintenance is not up to speed then they will likely find something else to charge you for and/or I think you can pay a fee to catch it up. Same thing.

That video of Obie pulling my line with his motorcycle is a an older 150 that VS fixed, evident of the video.

The newer Van Staals with the 1 year warranty do not have this problem. Sucks because you want the lifetime deal but the lifetime lefties are flawed unless fixed for free, so as long as your maintenance is on par.

blaminack

What is crazy is that I just got it from Van Staal. Two weeks ago! Yeah I noticed that mine didn't say made in China anywhere on it.

Half Hitch ordered it direct from Van Staal. They said it was the last black lefty 250 that they had in stock and all of the new ones would be gold only.

So, my yearly maintenance shouldn't be an issue. But it is weird that I got an older reel new from the company!

Thanks a ton for the info! I will give Rob at Half Hitch a call tomorrow and see what they can do because they are authorized service for Van Staal.

Calvin

blaminack

Mine has the # 12195 so then it should have the one year warranty then. I wonder at what point they sent the manufacturing to China? Mine doesn't say made in China...

Calvin

My newer one is 11958. No problems yet. If I were you I would contact Van Staal. I'm sure they'll fix it for free.

blaminack

Thanks bro!

blaminack

I took my VS to Half Hitch yesterday to get this issue resolved and Ron had it back to me today. It turned out that it was in fact an older reel that I got. It is a made in the USA reel. I do only have a year warranty but the issue is fixed. It did have the older round drag retainer. The newer ones have a keyed retainer that does rotate right under the drag knob. They replaced all of the seals and the retainer and line on the spool. They replaced the line because he wanted to make sure the spool was clean. Any ways it seems that the reel is right. They also fixed the drag clicker that had broken. Overall the reel even feels better and feels less stiff in reeling. But it seems all is right now.