Originally Posted by
3alarmer
Just don't hammer them.
+1 over and over again.
You can make a pretty good cotter press out of a Harbor Freight heavy duty chain breaker
You have to drill out that bottom part so a cotter pin can fit through there, and you may have to grind off part of the jaws depending on your crank.
More recently someone posted another tool you can get at Harbor Freight that you can use as a cotter press, and I don't remember what it was called. Looked like a really good idea, though. It was not a drill press vise, though that too will work (as described above).;