Don’t just beat on the pin with a hammer it will mushroom, and then you will be in a mess. It is generally a very tight press fit, but using a vice and a small socket you can press it out to the shaft, and then use a hammer & punch close to same diameter to tap it out the rest of the way while supporting steering shaft on vice. You will need to exert considerable force with vice to start this pin moving, but once it brakes free it will move rather easily. Reinstalling; just gently tap it back into hole being careful to center it.
When you reassemble the connector be sure to install the shoes properly or you will have a lot of slop in steering wheel. Shoes slide into the housing with a very close fit, in fact I replaced my coupler with new unit, and had to perform a bit of filing on the housing to get them to slide in to position. The slot in the housing that the shoes slide into had been distorted during staking outer lip of case to enable cover to clamp onto it.
