anyone know of a way to remove the worm gear on the 3rd gen big haulers motor?

I got an old Bachmann Big Haulers Gold Rush starter kit for xmas and was repainting it. I wanted to take the wheels off for painting but when I was pulling the plastic pins holding the siderod to the wheels the pins broke Any ideas where to get new ones or what I can replace them with?

I also was wondering how to get the wheel caps off (I tried to pry them off but stopped because I did not want to break them).

I would also like to replace the plastic rods on the wheels with metal ones but only found them at Barry's big trains but could not find a price for them. Anyone know where to get metal ones other than at Barry's?