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As a last resort you can remove the reel seat by holding a lighter or better yet an alcohol burner under the reel seat turning it slowly so as not to burn the wood under the metal, then pull on the reel seat wrapped with a rag. Most metal reel seats can be removed this way unless pinned which Grangers are not. Then squirt some paint thinner down on the threads and let soak. After a few minutes gently turn the knob back and forth until all the grim is off the threads. I wash out the inside with a tooth brush and warm soapy water to remove any grim around the bottom of the reel seat, and then dry it well. Clean out the old glue inside of the reel seat with 0000 steel wool to prepare it for gluing and lightly sand the wood spacer with a 150 or 200 grit sand paper to clean it up. Before putting the reel seat on I always take a #2 pencil and reach down inside and scrape the lead on the threads but not too much as anything can help future grime adhere to the threads! I never use oil because if you think about how much we end up having the reels dip into a stream, the water does deposit minerals after time and oil holds the minerals better than graphite.

Then I use a thin coat gorilla glue applied around the spacer to reset the reel seat. Make sure to keep 3/4" unglued spacer away from the cork and turn the reel seat slowly as you push it on and off to thin coat the spacer. Stop pushing about 1/4" away from the cork and wipe off any excess glue so that you don't have a lot to remove after seating the reel seat, then push it the rest of the way on.

After getting the reel seat on, put on an old reel and let it hang and view down the rod to make sure the reel seat is in line with the stripper guide. The stripper guide should be hanging straight down! Remove the reel and set the rod reel seat down leaning against some thing. Keep an eye on the area around the cork and wipe off any extra glue that might expand out in the first half hour.

This has worked for me on five old Grangers that I had problems with. The reason the WD40 method might not work well is that the treads to a Granger reel seat are like a post in the center of the cap. You squirt on the WD40 and it goes down along the metal into the cap but only by chance will wick up the threads. Unless you squirt in a lot, it more than likely it will just lube up the ring around the reel seat and knurled cap.