I believe I know what you are saying Perry, that gear is still of the cast metal type. These where the early versions of Bill's gear boxes. I believe that with the current boxes all the gears are steel. The set I have is his actuall prototype. so it has the cast drop down gear. He did this because the drop down was not into production yet. If you remember he had the all steel gear boxes available before the 3:1, so he offered them this way to get the ball rolling. I'm sure if you contact Bill he could get you the steel drop down gear to replace the cast gear. That would get you back in buisness. But Like i said I have alot of hours on these boxes with no problems.