Oldfisher,
Welcome to the Mitchell Reel Museum (MRM).
I agree with Bonanza, your reel appears to be a 3rd version Mitchell. Later on, Mitchell gave this reel a model number of 300, but your reel is an early model. Wipe away some of the grease from the pinion gear and post a photo, this will tell us how early your reel may be.
These reels are not rare and not worth a lot of money but we still love them here.
When the Mitchell (300) reels first started they did not have serial numbers on them. As time went on, during the 3rd version series, they began to get serial numbers. First serial numbers (S/N) were placed on the bottom of the reel foot. Then they moved the S/N's to the top rear face of the housing.
How about that grease!! LOL
This could very well be the original grease that came on the reel. I suggest you remove every bit of it if you are planning on fishing with the reel, and not just keeping it on the mantle piece for show. I suggest a thorough cleaning and lubrication. Give us a shout if you need help.
The gear you are missing is called the transfer gear. You can get a transfer gear from the big auction site. Now the transfer gear #31, for 1/2 bail reels, is a level wind gear. Mitchell switched to cross wind gears when the full bail reels came out. (See Schematic Below)
- 1953 Mitchell 300 Schematic page-edited.jpg (197.1 KiB) Viewed 11597 times
If you look at the lower schematic image and you will see #
31. Look on the parts list, to the left, to find
# 31 Transfer gear(underlined in red). You may also notice that there is a:
#31CW Transfer Gear-cross wind action, this is
not what you want. You want the level wind:
Transfer gear #31.
When shopping for a
transfer gear #31 for a 1/2 bail reel, I recommend you try and get a
#25 Driving gear along with it (Not 25L, 25CW, or 25LCW), especially if you are planning on fishing with the reel. Sellers on the big auction site sell them together all the time and because they are used, the price can be reasonable, but watch out for over priced parts or claims that the gears are new which are quite rare and very expensive. Also watch out for Cross Wind Gears (CW), your reel should have Level Wind Gears.
Note the anti-reverse dog lying in the grease inside the housing to the rear in your first photo-right hand image. This needs to go on the smallest pin on the cover plate-minus that grease!
As you remove the Pinion gear from the cover plate look for one or two tiny shims on the pin, between the pinion gear and the housing. They can hide very well in that grease so keep a sharp look out. There may be a shim on the underside of the drive gear so check when you remove that. Then as you remove the rotating head there may be a shim between the pinion gear pressed into the rotating head and the reel housing on the housing axle. See schematic for hints as to what goes where.
If you will be fishing in fresh water you can follow regular lubrication methods, but if you are going to fish in salt water, then I recommend extra protection. Let us know where you plan to fish.
Kind Regards,
Bill
Nice reel
