hi guys, ive took the handbrake bit off the back of the caliper and now cant seem to get it back on, whats the procedure to get the little shaft with the groove in it to go through the two holes and come out the other end two be fixed with a circlip, and with the pawl bit in the groove, the groove bit in the back of the piston i cant get the shaft past it does it compress in any way on looking at the manual it shows a spacer, does this need to come out to allow the shaft to line up, it seems quite a fragile spacer and can you buy them cause its gonna break when i try to drift it out i think, dont ask what made me take it to bits ive called myself a few naughty words like effin stoopit ba anyway that was six months ago and ive returned to the scene of the crime and would appreciate any help, thanks in advance billy.

Billy - A friggin' fiddly operation for sure.

Firstly don't remove the spacer you mentioned.

Secondly - forgive me if I am being too basic in my explanation below!

The cup washers underneath the pushrod will need to compress for you to slide the shaft through.

If you haven't already realized, these 5 cup washers are placed together so that you get 2 pairs of washers "lip to lip" - think of two dinner plates placed together so the food surfaces face each other - and the 5th washer (which should be closest to the piston) is "base to base" with the washer pair above it. This will give you a VERY tight spring.

The way I compressed it is to slide the shaft through at the same time - I placed the pawl (from hazy memory) with the smaller radius end in the pushrod groove but on an angle down towards the cup washers - that way, when you push the shaft through, as it goes further, the shaft will align the pawl with the pushrod at the same time. You will have to push bloody hard though, I used a small hammer to tap it along whilst trying to hold the pawl in place - as I said - friggin' fiddly!

Now the fun part - when you get the shaft to the hole on the other side, you have to compress the cup washers even further because the shaft will be just slightly out of alignment with the hole. Trial and error here mate.

Then once it's through, using a small pin punch, tap the pawl so it's centred on the pushrod, put the circlip on and open a beer - you deserve it!

I hope this helps out - let me know how you get on or if you need me to explain differently.

Have you tried loosening the hand brake cable first? You can get a few extra millimeters out of it which helps a fair bit.

Hi, I used a welding clamp to compress the washers, ie a pair of vice grips with very wide jaws, I fabricated a small bit of pipe which fitted on the washers, (large cut to accomadate the shaft etc) that I could compress with the clamp, this allowed me to shove in the cross shaft with the pawl. something like a valve compressor! hope this helps,
Tony