No No No. With all due respect to Steve Barner, do not whack the
beejeesus out of that cotter. You risk hurting yourself or your
bicycle. I know it has "been done before" but there are more graceful
methods. If it really is that big of a problem, do as Steven Thomas
suggested and drill it out with progessivly larger drill bits. I have
successfully removed cotters using a c-clamp. I'm not sure this would
work in this case, but I have posted photos on Yahoo if interested.
Now donning flame suit.
Jay Sexton
Sebastopol, CA