I am seeing my friend Ron the Welder on Saturday -whom I must say is
the best welder I have ever seen. One of the ideas we had is similar
to the above- take a length of flat stock with a pin sized hole in it
and weld to the pin through the hole, then try to work it out while
heating the base around the pin.
Louis Itturra (of Itturra Design echoed other comments about foregoing
the pin and aligning the wheels by hand so all is not lost.
Thanks for your suggestions and I'l let you know how it goes.
Marc