CAT 54 winch and things that go bump in the night. . .

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Thank you to one and all. I even had a bolt give me an education. In regards to this winch, I found the tension plug[attachment=58727]IMG_0954.JPG[/attachment]
Is made from a mixture of a rosin and fiber fragments. When I got the new plug from Cat, I attempted to simply drill, tap and slide hammer the old plug out. I held off pulling the entire side plate cover until I had the new part. I found all i could do was pull the center out of the plug. It wasn't moving.
Not willing to give up, I went into my tool box of tricks and found a hole saw. I drilled out the center and used a chisel to collapse the remainder ad needle nose to remove the remnants. I am thinking about sanding down the circumference of the new plug to attempt to insure it will not swell and freeze in place as the last one did.
As for the cable retainer, the short bolt made me aware that the retainer was not suppose to go over the hole to retain the cable, but recessed into the hole and away from the cable in the drum. That finally is making sense. The oil drained from the unit was about 4.5 gallons of milky mess. Uh, oops?
I have the 100' of new cable to install tomorrow after the rain passes. There was another minor detail or two and the old brain has spaced them as of now.
Thank you all once again.

Hi Bruce,
maybe try some anti seize in the bore after you get it cleaned out--will likely stop/reduce rust formation but not swelling of the puck.
Cheers,
Eddie B.

Thank you for the idea. I believe I will sand it down with coarse paper and then anti-seize it. Theory in my head being the rough edges will hold the anti-seize in place for the long term.