The car is a 1989 C4. Is there a secret or special tool for removing the rear caliper? It appears to be held on by two allen head bolts. Here is the top one which is accessible, but without mega leverage it is not coming off.


Here is the bottom one (photo taken from below). There is no way an allen wrench can fit in there.


Also are these stock shocks/springs?


I am off to fight with it some more.

 

You need a long allen socket. 10cm or so. There is a hole in the control arm, you route the allen socket through there.

The suspension question: You appear to have Bilstein shocks with H&R green springs.

 

there is a secret tool, i cut the short end off a allen key, fit the remaining longer end through the access hole and put a 10mm socket on the end. apply pressure untill it pops.

 

I just did it, there are threads to the info, but you need to cut the allen key to the right size to fit a 10mm socket with no other bits attached, it the will come undone (with a hammer whack) I bent 2 10mm spanners by putting them over the allen key by the nut and hitting them.

I am warm and drinking a beer so cant be bothered to measure the bit in the garage....sorry....
Its cr*p weather here you warm US boys........

 

No need to cut any tools! You barbarians! Get a long 10mm allen wrench and a pipe...

 

here are a couple of pictures from when I did it. Use the hole , a 10mm hex head and a BIG breaker bar!

 

Barbarians lol

 

Cheers jimq, thats the pic I used, long size is fine.....but they are a bugger to torque after.

Any reason not to fit normal new bolt heads instead, I was gonna, but didnt.

 

Thank you gentlemen, I got it.

I should finish the brakes tomorrow. I love working on this car.

In the last pic I posted, are those the stock springs and shocks? They do not look like the Boge from Adrian's book for a 89 C4.

 

I just ran into that same problem yesterday. I used a 10mm allen key and put a wrench on it close to the bolt head. One tap with a mini sledge hammer was enough to loosen it.

 

Ilko already gave you the answer above

 

Dude, we just had our first 70 degree day in Michigan yesterday.
It was so cold in the garage this past winter I couldn't hold on to my tools.

 

Duh Reading is fundamental. And when I pulled of the front wheel, it was in fact H&R and Bilstein. Thanks Ilko.

 

Those look like the H&R cooil-over kit - but with Green - not the usual Black Springs.

The H&R kit actually uses a Bilstien damper - I just had to replace one on mine.

However - looks like you only have one spring collar and there are typically two that lock against each other. You might want to address that.

As for caliper removal - I have a little Iroda butane torch I used to heat up the bolt - then used a long allen key, extended with a length of pipe. Still - no movement - so I put a jack stand under the end of the pipe and lowered the car onto the pipe - generating enough torque to pop the bolt loose.

RK

 

I tried to remove that caliper bolt that requires the long allen key a while back. I did actually buy the proper Snap-on extended hex tool for the job. But I couldn't get that bolt to break loose for anything and finally decided to give up for the day. I was afraid of snapping the head off the bolt and then being royally screwed. Sounds like everyone has found this bolt to be a bitch to get off. Maybe I'll take another stab at it.