Thanks guys, I'm not gonna make the effort just for the wire. I see a lot of these ocean city reels and they look obviously like they'd be best as a wall decoration. The fact this was rigged with wire line had me thinking maybe there was a year/model that could stand up.
Also got a line on some cheap Penn reels that seems like a better detour anyway.
Cheers,
bob
PS - more replies on this board than the "other". Interesting