Follow-up,
Finally got around to this since my grandson's birthday is next week.
I ended up using beading scissors which are used to cut the thread for beading. I have a scalpel, but it seemed too awkward with the coupler there and kind of dumb to disassemble all of it.
So I tried one or two with no disassembly and the others with only removing the end caps that have the bellows on them. That turned out to be the best method.
These now run perfectly. Thanks for the help.
John
