Front suspension

I want the brake caliper out of the way, so I flatten the tabs on the washer and start on the two bolts. PlusGas, wrench, PlusGas, wrench + hammer … nothing. Time for some ear defenders and an impact wrench. After about twenty seconds of lots of noise but not much action the first bolt frees. Likewise for the second and I hang the caliper up with a cable tie.

offside caliper removed

The next step in the Haynes workshop manual doesn’t seem to tally with reality so it’s off to YouTube for a second opinion that looks more like it. I don’t have a suitable nut & bolt to hand so that’ll have to wait for now.

Handbrake

It helps to have a handbrake to exchange for the modified Hawk version, so I decided to start removing that as something to do while I’m waiting for the PlusGas to work its magic on the brake caliper bolts.

All seemed well with removing the adjustment nut from the handbrake cable until the thread sheared. Oh well, at least the cable is now free! The nut and washer for the operating lever are next. Thankfully, years of oily leakage from the transmission mean they slip off with no trouble at all, and underneath the greasy, black mess they look as shiny as the day they were made. How cunning of BMC to design such a clever rust protection system. After a quick wiggle, the operating lever slips off pretty easily too.

The fixings for the seat rails are pretty rusty. I’m definitely spotting a theme here. A couple eventually come undone, another shears, and the last one looks like such a lost cause on the underside that I abandon hope and fire up the angle grinder to cut it off.