Fate Back in the Garage

First she read the Haynes manual:

"Using the flats provided to stop the tie-rod turning, carefully losen the tie-rod end locknut"

Translation: attach vice grips and hit repeatedly with hammer (not really, though it's a resonably accurate translation of Haynes instructions sometimes)

Then inspected the torn boot.

Unfortunately the whole exercise was terminated here as I'd been sent the wrong size parts. Which is odd, because it says on the box "116 series GTV" and when I talked to the spares bloke on the phone we were both pretty specific as to what was required. Got an inkling that something might have got changed when the rack got rebuilt a few years back.

But hey, what can you do?