In my admittedly painful experience, there is NO plastic in this piece. The entire unit is actually quite hefty, and I went through 2 'ball-shaped' drill bits (for metal) before I was able to drill a path from the stuck pin to the 'sleeve' in order to remove the unit. I wasn't able to push down in the pin and then pull the entire unit to the left to remove the unit, so I had to drill a new pathway since trying to drill the pin flat was almost impossible in such tight quarters. And for all this, a Dremel was absolutely useless. Had to use my lovely Christmas present, a super-charged drill!! And several drill bits.

Maybe it's in the way this unit is designed. When I removed the whole unit, I though that as soon as I could open the spring access cover in the 'back' of the unit, the dreaded retaining pin would pop right out...nope. It's not exactly behind the small panel, but almost set up like gears. So I removed the rear panel, making sure that both my face and DHs was away when the spring launched itself somewhere across our front lawn, removed the little doohickey that sat behind it, then went back to the almost-drilled down retaining pin when that lovely piece of metal slipped out. (I have plans to add the small pieces to our Wall Of Pain in our (actually DH's) garage where we showcase any and all mechanical/electrical nightmares we have survived). These little gems are going next to the shot rotors from my old BMW 323.

My car, an '04, has almost 109K on it, and it's my DD, so perhaps this part was due to wear out anyway.

Now, I have to deal with a dying alternator...it never ends...