A thorough cleaning is necessary only once a season, or sooner if you dunk your reel.

A good reel oil, like Shimano, Diawa or Abu Garcia all you need for day-to-day maintenance.

After each outing, wipe your reel down. If it gets dirty, rinse it BRIEFLY under clear water. Don't do it for long, just enough to rinse the crap away. Shake it dry. A drop of oil on the handle spindles, a drop or two on the level wind, a drop on the level wind shield will do. Open the cover (most baitcasters have a side plate that opens up to give access to the spool) and remove the spool. A single drop of oil on the spool bearings will do. You can wipe your rods and reels down with Lemon Pledge. This keeps them clean, counteracts salt (if you fish in salt or brackish water) and keeps things from sticking to them.

Each season opening your reel up to expose the gears for cleaning and lubing is a good idea. ALWAYS HAVE YOUR SCHEMATIC HANDY WHEN YOU OPEN A REEL UNLESS YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH IT. Things come off and go on in a specific order and if you don't put it back together exactly right it won't work. Unless your reel gets dunked, the inside of a reel rarely gets that dirty, but cleaning off old grease will help performance. Clean off obvious filth. A little grease on gear teeth goes a long way. Pull your drag stack off the shaft and make sure the drag discs are clean and free of heavy grease. Depending on your reel, some drag discs perform better and more smoothly with a little (and I mean damned little) grease. Others perform better dry. I prefer a tiny bit of grease on mine. Sometime there is a bearing at the bottom of the crank shaft. A drop of oil on that will do. Re-assemble.

Reels will last a long time with proper maintenance. If you want detailed information, join a fishing website and ask questions. I'm a member of Bassresource.com. It's a excellent site for information and they have a very friendly bunch there.

Oh boy, I lost the manual minutes after purchasing it. Perhaps I can find it online. It is a Daiwa Takara. Bought it from Dicks on sale for $50. Nothing special, but it's kind of like your first car. It is perfect.

I will take a look at the reel soon, and see what I can figure out. Thank you for the post. I am somewhat lost as to what I need to do, but once i have the reel in my hand, and sit down to do it, hopefully it will be a manageable little project.

Keep comments coming. Also, if this is a repeat thread, please point to that. I am suprised this hasnt happened yet. I look for a little while.