Evaporative Water Coolers - How to Remove A Rusted and Siezed Fan Axle

I've already had to cut off the axle on both ends of the squirrel cage, because the bearings and the pulley were fused onto the axle. This was after soaking everything in PB Blaster and using a torch (and pulley puller) failed to remove the pulley and bearings.

The axle is still siezed up in the two places that it is secured to the squirrel cage, and I can't get my grinder in there to cut off the two sleeves (bolt clamps). I've tried torching them and filling the set screw holes with PB Blaster, but no use.

Any more ideas?

Any way to get to them with a Dremel and a heavy duty cutoff wheel?

Any way to get to them with a Dremel and a heavy duty cutoff wheel?
Thanks! I actually thought of that after I posted. I have a flex extender for my Dremel that should fit into this tight spot. Not sure how heavy-duty my cutoff wheels are, but I'll soon find out.

Use the fibre reinforced type, not the thin emory type. The thin ones will explode on ya if you flex 'em.

Thanks again. I think I have both kinds of wheels. I also have a rotozip, but I think it'll be too big to work with in such close quarters. Plus, I don't want to waste the fan housing, just the collars.

Here's a status report:
I had to cut out the squirrel cage clamps using my rotozip, leaving a gaping 2 inch hole on both sides of the squirrel cage where the new axle is supposed to go through. And, of course, there is nothing to clamp the new axle down to the squirrel cage. I'm not sure if they make oversize clamps that will fill such large holes. The old clamps (collars) were 1.5 inches in diameter and were either crimped-on to the squirrel cage or welded on. They were so rusty, I couldn't tell.

Since the squirrel cage is probably ruined, I'd like to just pull it out and replace it, but its housing completely surrounds it, and I don't see how to remove it. It's a very large, wall-mounted unit that is mounted eight feet in the air. I guess I would have to remove the whole thing from the wall and see if the squirrel cage can be pulled out from the front. The bearing mounts are welded to the fan housing on either side of the squirrel cage, so there's no way to pull it out from the sides, even if it did fit through the opening, which it does not.

Another option is to use a thick piece of sheet metal to fill the holes (welding it on with JB weld) and then drilling a smaller hole for the clamps and then JB welding the clamps to the sheet metal. I might even be able to put a few screws in there, as well.

Any other ideas?