winch dog clutch won't hold

[bobc]

I've been using my new yard truck for a couple of months, a 41 SWB, I mounted the A frame without any modification to the truck, large plates under the tow hooks, last week I had the bed for the GTB I bought up in the air above the tow truck that brought it home for me, all of a sudden it dropped back to the deck, the truck driver wasn't too happy, the handle was still locked in the in position but the dog clutch slid over, I finally had to stuff a bolt down in it to keep it engaged , every thing looks to be intact but the teeth on the dog clutch look like they may be beaten out. Is there some way to save these parts, or some adjustment I can't see, other then this it's been a really good truck so far.

[bobc]

After about wrecking a friends trailer with the winch letting go I decided I better figure out what the problem is, someone at some point fixed the handle on the dog clutch, the original pin has been replaced with some thing else which doesn't fill the hole in the bumper quite all the way which allows the dog clutch to slip out under load, I tried to remove the handle today but couldn't get the pieces out. Do you have to tear the whole thing apart just to take the handle off or is there some special order in which things have to be done? I really don't want to have to pull the whole winch apart, right now I have a big bolt jammed down between the handle and the frame, it works but it scares the crap out of me because I know it can let go at any time, so any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.