I tired pushing (read: beating) it down the shaft but it wouldn't go. Yes, my methods are somewhat scary sometimes. When those bolts broke, they shot out a good 20 feet. And yes I continued to operate the device with bent bolts. Anyway, my scary methods are better then gnawing it off with me teeth though so what can I say.
Another scary project was using one of those thin plastic square Crystal Geyser one gallon water bottles as a 100psi storage tank (oh, and it was beautifully duct taped on). It was for a little air cannon. Anyway, I was waiting for the pressure to build up and thought "just a little more" and then the tank shot off of the piping arrangement and flew about 40-50 feet away. Surprisingly, the tank never ruptured despite how thin the plastic is.
Anyway, back to the sprocket. This sprocket had those two set screws, one of which going into a little bit of a hole drilled in the shaft. I think a previous owner of the mower must have jammed a rock in the blade causing the shaft to spin in the sprocket which made a nasty groove in the shaft (from the set screws) which resulted in the sprocket being incredibly stuck.
I'm glad it's all taken care of now.
