I have an ABU Garcia 6500 Ultra Cast which Abu discontinued. It’s a good reel, but one of the bearings was a little rough. I took it out of the reel and was able to remove the side shield and get rid of the gritty feeling by flushing it.

My question is do I put the side shield back on? Do I remove both side shields so I can lube easier and keep it clean?

Exellent Question--I would think that a bearing that was supposed to be lubed would not have shields to begin with but they use them on a lot that I have seen.I would also imagine that if it had a gritty feel that it had not been lubed in a long time and though now free it must be well on its way to being Junk and both sides should be replaced.If you leave it in I would leave the shield off only on the side of the cover or oil port(towards the outside of reel.If replacing does it have a bearing that interchanges with any of the multitude of other 6500 reels they made.You can now even get ceramic bearings for a lot of these.Try HatterasJack.

That's an odd bearing set in the Ultracast. its like the Morum. One big diameter and one smaller diameter. Not like the standard bearings found in the Big Game or Mag Elite type or normal C3 reels. I guess if you can get the shields back on , do it. the oil will get in there , the shields will hopefully keep a little sand out.

Kinda off the subject but I bought one of those 7700 ct morumms new on line and boy what a piece of crap.Crank and spool felt real tight. I had to disasemble the reel and play with it to get the spool to turn free.It just didnt feel as free as a c-3.Its fine now.Sure I could have returned it but what was the challenge in that.Once I got it and it wasnt right i just had to Know if I could fix it.What does the ultra cast look like.I have a bunch of abu reels but dont remember ever seeing one of these.Does it have the one piece frame?? also have the 6600clw and its a real nice small reel.I picked this up at red-top used for like 50 bucks in great shape.I just dont seem to be able to adjust to levelwinds.keep trying to thumb the line.

Ultra Cast looks just like a C# on the outside, but the bearings on held on the spool with tiny snap rings, they have a relatively large ID and a thin cross section. Didn't really want to put ceramics in, Boca Bearings does have them in stock though.

How much for the set (one each size) from Boca?

You can get a set of non ABEC bearigns for 13.95. Ceramics are 27.95 each ABEC 7 are 17.95.

I took it apart to see what I could see....................

go with the abec 7 stainless...

http://www.bocabearings.com/