Job we'd been dreading: DONE!!

Saturday morning started off badly. Brad and I arrived to tackle the power steering rack gaiters job which we had been putting off. Within minutes of arriving Brad had lost a filling when biting into his organic, wheat, gluten, fat and sugar free breakfast bar aka Cadbury's Boost. We also discovered that all 8 wheel nuts on the front had seized somehow despite being well greased. I had neglected to bring my heavy duty tyre iron so we decided to put the car up on axle stands and try and do the job anyway. This turned out to be a complete waste of effort so we lowered the car again and I went home to get the tool.

Tim joined us around the time we had finally got the wheels off and were ready to start. To our delight it transpired that we did not need the specific Renault ball joint separator tool and didn't even need to fashion something from a garden fork this time!

Changing the gaiter on the near side which actually didn't need doing was relatively pain free to do especially as we could see the area we were working on from under the bonnet.
Tim has to be credited with doing most of the difficult bit of sliding the new gaiters into place which he described as being strangely like veterinary work.

When it came to the offside replacement we found that the tracking rod end and all surrounding fixings were caked in muck and seized up. Tim finally managed to release the lock pin screw which we had decided was never going to move and were planning to buy a whole new track rod end. I had to leave soon after this miracle occurred, but am reliably informed that Brad and Tim finished the job.

This means once we replace the rear brake shoes next weekend, we are ready to try facing an MOT!!!