Penn Senator 3/0

[newport]

My dad has a penn senator 3/0 that I never really cared about, but seeing all the reel refurbishings and repair, I thought I might try and do one myself. He uses it for black drum fishing and it has a really low gear ratio, which is like 2:1 or something close to that.

So before I took everything apart, you will notice both sideplates are sticking out a little. I didn't think too much about it at first until after cleaning everything and greasing the gears, and tried fitting the sideplates back on. Now it looks even worse. I read about plastic sideplates expanding or distorting a little bit. Would this be the case here?

I'm probably going to replace the spool and add in new drag, but I want to tackle this first.

[Shark Hunter]

The plates have swollen. You can either use a file to go around the edge of them until the rings fit, or what I do, is put a sanding wheel on my dremel and run around it until it fits again.
Alan did a tutorial on it.
http://alantani.com/index.php?topic=13251.msg133063#msg133063

[newport]

Thanks. That's what i was thinking as well, but with my inexperience, i had to make sure. Hopefully i don't mess this one up. I will post back with my results when i am finished.