Those pesky pilot jets have caused me no end of problems. I machined (with my Dremel) a screwdriver to the exact .0359 thou size (thank you Ed Ness - see his CV Carburetor Rebuild Tutorial). It looked like 2 of them were already damaged like the main jets. And they would not come out. I used my concoction (50% thinners and 50% brake fluid) and after a lot of effort I got one out. The other one was impossible and now had a completely flat top. This one was difficult (click on image to enlarge):
This is what it looked like when I got it out.
But for the really difficult one I had to adopt a new strategy. Firstly I drilled the top out then I inserted and banged in a Torx driver of approximately the right size. I attached a socket set lever and bingo, it came out. The thread is still good in the carb body too:
This is the tool I made to do this little trick:
