# Meet the HRLs



## histprof (Oct 30, 2011)

A few weeks ago, I started a project to refurbish an old rod and reel from my childhood. It has been a while since I have updated it, but there is a thread on the reel upgrade and repair forum about it.

In the process of searching for parts for the reel, I was able to acquire an almost pristine copy of it. Then, with more lurking on ebay, I found two more from the same family. I am no expert on old reels, but I thought that I would share these with you.

The reels are from the Diawa HRL series, made in the 1970s. My first saltwater reel was the 7650HRL that I am trying to rebuild. My copy came by way of two relatives, my Dad's cousin Ben, who bought it in Tokyo on shoreleave and his father, my Great Uncle Jack, who sent it to me as a child because he had no use for it in Amarillo.

Starting from the smallest, the baby of the family is the 7150HRL which appears to have been marketed as a light or ultralight reel. It is marked for 6-10# line with 195 yds of 8#. The 200-ish yard 8# capacity makes this very similar in size to the 13's reels marketed by Daiwa in the 80s. They still sell the BG13, which would be about the size equivalent to this reel.

The middle child is the 7450HRL which is marked for 8-12# line. I think that these ratings are a little off, because the reel is rated to take 315 yards of 10#. Using today's mono, a rating from 10-14# would be more realistic.

Finally, the big guy. The 7650HRL is not marked with line capacity. My old one could almost eat a whole 330 yard spool of 14# Trilene XL and would hold well over 200 yards of 17# I usually spooled mine with 14# because it seemed to cast better. At the time, my other rig was an ultralight with 4#, so I may have been biased toward the thinner lines. There is a bigger model, the 7850HRL, but I do not have one of them... yet.

All three reels have very short, deep spools. Daiwa went with a taller spool when they revamped their spinning line in the 80s. Compared to the tall, shallow long cast spools common today, these will seem really odd. I always thought that they cast just fine. I used to launch a 2oz weight off the old Gulf Coast pier in Galveston as a kid. The two smaller reels have push button release spools. All of the spools are aluminum and fairly heavy. They all have a ratchet under the spool so that there is an audible alarm when the spool is turning under drag.

They use a drag system of steel and cardboard washers which are held inside the spool by some spring clips. There is a second washer beneath the spool. I plan to experiment with upgrading these to carbon washers.

That is what I know about them off the top of my head. I'd love to hear other thoughts and stories about using old reels for surf fishing.


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## SurfRunner (May 22, 2004)

I bet they will work really good when refurbished. Probably as good as any modern reel.

Those piers were a lot of fun back then. They still bring the kid out in me.


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## sotexhookset (Jun 4, 2011)

That's kick ***. Good memories flowing right now.


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## 535 (May 23, 2004)

cool project, keep us updated

jc


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## Dave_E (Apr 11, 2015)

I'm working on the same project a model 7450 my first open real I bought for myself when I was 13 do you have the owners / parts manual? I've been looking online but have not had any luck [email protected]


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