ev 342 - shure sm58

i have this old electro voice 342 mic that i love the look of, but the capsule is completly shot, i decided that i am going to stick the innards of a 58 inside it. but i encountered a problem, the transformer inside the hand held part of the mic is stuck in there with silicone. does anybody know how to get this out safely, or should i replace it. if i replace it is there anybetter trans i should put in it that would be a step up?
thanks for any help.

This doesn't exactly answer your question, but I once dug the transformer out of an SM58 just by scraping away the silicone around the edge of the body and it came out in tact. The trick was leave most of the silicone on it, just remove enough to get the trafo loose without damaging anything.

so basicly i just gotta sit there and dig it out eh? i tried sticking it in the freezer to see if it would pull away from the walls to no avail. atleast i will have something to do at work tom. i never realized how much damn silicone they put in those things till today, good god they really dont want that stuff coming out.

Take an old hacksaw blade and heat it up red hot. While it's hot put it on top of a round pipe fastened in a vise about the same diameter as the radius of the inside of the mic body. With a hammer shape the blade end while it's hot to make kind of a small radius scoop. After it's cool, sharpen the end so it's sort of like a wood chisel gouge. With this you can work around the edge of the mic body to cut through the silicon.