[Ron Ramirez]

Sadly replacing the wires means drilling out the rivets on both the plug end as well as the output transformer on the speaker.

Next time, remove the speaker cone. That way you won't have to drill out the audio transformer rivets - unless the transformer is bad.

I searched around and saw a suggestion to try braided fishing line. That led me to this search Amazon where I found this 400lb rated kevlar line...

Now that's a great idea! Much better than my crochet nylon idea of several years back, before Amazon. At the time I wished that I could find something better but could not find anythnig locally like the heavy fishing line you found. That is great!