I had the same problem on my saff. I tried pulling & beating them out but they were abit crusty and f**ked with 24years of being jacked wrong & abused.lol.
I ended up using a piece of 50x50x2 box section, hours of cutting, welding, shaping & drilling holes to match the original.
First one took around 6 hours to get it looking right - but they are mega strong & look spot on.