Dead in the water  

Dead in the water

I received my i3 MK3 on the 7th of June and took about 7 and a half hours to assemble it. It passed the initial check and I ran several prints over the weekend with black and white PSA and all are much better than anything I’ve ever seen from any of my printers. I could not be more pleased and agree with whoever said it was hands down the best printer for the money. Today I decided to change to ASA for some production parts, the reason I bought the printer, and it went badly. I followed the procedures as laid out by Josef in his video and elsewhere. The PSA would not come out and now I have a major clog. I am unable to clear it no matter what I do. In desperation, I disassembled the entire extruder section and found the clog is in the hot section between the nozzle and the heat break. The ptfe tubing was stuck and was stretched when I removed the cold section. The nozzle will not come out of the heat block and the small screw holding the heating element striped when I tried to remove it. I had first heated the assembly with a heat gun before trying to remove both. I am very disappointed that the printer works so well and now only a few days into printing I am dead in the water. I see the hot section is available but shipping is from 19 to 39 days. Are there any parts available in the US? Otherwise, is there a replacement hotend that will fit without modification?
George