Someone had broken it down in the past, which made getting in a lot easier, but several screws were in the wrong place, leaving ends protruding and making for a poor action on the spool...important later. The drag mechanism with drags and gear was released by removing a pin in the drive shaft, rather than a screw in the tip of the shaft, as occurs with many Vom Hofes:
Got everything cleaned up. Needed to fix the spring tongue on the handle that controls the drag setting.there was also a nasty divot in the faceplate from someone removing some initials using a machete....not perfect, but much improved with a bit of work:
So I got it all back together after taking it back apart about three times, trying to get the right screws in the right holes...you'd swear it shouldn't matter, but these hand-made reels just don't want to behave if not put back as originally tuned. The foot was on backwards and the two posts with the harness lugs were switched, which made it run really lousy. Finally got things back in the proper order and it runs smoothly.... ready for action:
Nice job, John, another amazing Elder transformation. 
