Anet A8 Heater Cartridge Died

Kind of a regular thing for 3 year old printers. This will the be the second time I have to replace the heater cartridge to get back to building the x-carriage assembly for the Power ARM 3D printer. Unfortunate but inevitable. The real challenge is how to remove the old cartridge while the hotend is cold so I have to do a risky thing of using the new heater cartridge to heat the block right before dissasembly.

Cheers!