donzie67

Does anyone know where I can get one of these conversion kits?

demonfish

I never had any problems with my Shimmanos bails closing. Penn can shove it up the ol' tailpipe for moving the operations to China. My family fished nothing but Penn for decades. My grandfather had over a hundred trophies on Penn. Now I fish Shimmano and Avet. To hell with buying American when the product isnt made here.

Scup

I was not impressed with Penn's entire black and gold spinning reel series. The problem of the bail snapping closed during a cast is a common one. The manual pickup should work out as one of my friends had one. Usually the problem associated with a bail unexpectedly snapping shut is due to poor design, wear on the bail's detent, or a weaken spring that forces the arm against the detent. These reels have had a whole host of other problems as well. My bail would hit the handle, and it was a new reel. I brought it into a local tackle shop and they fixed it by bending the bail. That did not sit well with me, but it did work. A few months later the handle broke. Take a close look at your handle and it is obvious where the weakest point is. A new handle was approximately 20% of the cost of the entire reel. The new replacement handle had an offset in it that the original handle did not have to prevent it from contacting the bail. Penn obviously knew about their defect and did nothing offset the repair cost to its original owners. Other problems included excessive corrosion; line twist, uneven line build up, and the bail's roller bearing that your line passes over would wear very rapidly. That had to be replaced at least once a season. Penn has really soured me on this series especially when one would compare it to their old "green spinfisher" series. These old reels would never die; not a ball bearing in them and certainly not a smooth reel, however, you just could not kill them. I like my tackle to be decent but inexpensive so now I watch Ebay for a decent green spinfisher going out on bid and then make my move. Originally, Penn was the common man's reel supplier. They always made great low cost conventional reels. Their original spinning reels were not great but they were rugged and more than adequate. Then things seemed to go very wrong with Penn. They started to supply a horrible line of imported spinning reels and as described above, put out poorly designed USA spinning reels, and eventually were taken over by another company who was just about impossible to do business with. It was frustrating trying to get parts from them. Then, they in turn were taken over again. This time around I hope they return to what they had been in the past but we will have to wait and see.

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"Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go" by William Feather

old mud

GEEZZZZ Demonfish, Don't hold back , tell us what you really think !! . That is one of my pet peeves. American business having their products manufactured offshore. Unless there is no other way I will not do business with them. The American dream is a great thing as is free enterprise, but I say if you want to have your products made offshore take your Office, your CEO and go with them !!! become a Citizen of that country and I wont hold it against you !

While were at it All the company's who wish to have me talk to Indians to solve my problems, Move to India. !!!! I wont mind !! If you can't afford to do business here, MOVE your whole operation. Sorry for the rant !!

Don

Nope, Changed my mind !!! I'm NOT sorry !!

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"I was so poor growing up that if I wasn't a BOY I'd have had nothing to play with"
Piker Ancient Mariner

old mud

Donzie, Sorry I got off tract... I love my Penn reels. All Old . You can try where I get my parts for my 706 Z and my 130s. Also go to Reel Schematic and see what you need.


706Z Schematic & Parts List

Don

BTW I just went back and saw your's is a 704 Z, Just change it when you get to the site.

__________________
"I was so poor growing up that if I wasn't a BOY I'd have had nothing to play with"
Piker Ancient Mariner

74Formula233

For the record, I have not had a lick of trouble with these 704z's EXCEPT for the bails.....and these (one is 5, one is 10 yrs old) are Made in USA......today's are not......

However, the bails closing on these was a problem going back to the green ones way back even (design flaw more than quality control issue). It has to do with the rubber friction bushing wearing out, combined with the inertia of the large handle......i.e. if you have the handle in the "right" position, when you cast, it lurches forward, rotating the spool, and closing the bail. I used to just be careful what position it was in.

However, I must say I like the bailless version now

Anyway, Donzie, good luck finding the conversion kit. There's a shop on LI that pops up when you Google the kit, but they told me they were backordered indefinitely, and that they weren't even sure if they were going to ship any more. Probably a marketing ploy, maybe they're planning a bailless reel soon LOL.

I bought Joe Mollica's last 2 down at Snug Harbor, which were in very old packages. I got lucky.

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donzie67

Does anyone know where I can get the part #69-704 conversion kit for the 704Z?