[ITSv40]

Well, fitting the bake hoses has turned out a bit of a bitch job today. Nothing wrong with the hoses they are superb.

Car up on the lift and wheels off. Try to undo the union between the rigid pipe and the flexi on the front drivers side and not budging at all. Go round to the passenger side and everything comes undone without hassle and new hose fitted within ten minutes. Back to the drivers side and all that is happening is the bracket twisting, but the pipe nut is solid. Needs some heat with a blow torch, but the abs cable is too close so undo the cable in the engine bay and feed out of the way, apply some gentle heat and the nut is undone without difficulty. Fit new flexi and fiddle the abs cable back through the engine bay and connect.

I then cut the end union off the old flexi hoses and soldered to make blanking plugs to temporarily fit to the rear pipes to avoid the system draining.

Undid the two flexi unions on the rear pipes and fitted blanking plugs. All going well and relatively straightforward. I now have the system sealed at the end of the pipes and could set about removing the flexi hoses from the delta arms. This is where the fun starts.

There was no room to undo the unions and if I could get the spanner on the nut it fouled on the body or the arms or both. Need to drop the rear suspension to get enough working room. Removed the shocks from the lower mount and removed the front suspension mounts to drop the front of the delta arms to get the clearance. Tried to undo the unions and again not budging. I then noticed that the flexi hoses are fitted to brackets on the delta arms attached with small screws. Undid the bracket screws, carefully un-clipped the rigid pipes and undid at the calipers and removed the whole lot from under the car.

Even with holding in the vice and having all the space to work in the union nuts were so tight they all 'cracked' when undoing them. There was no way they were going to come undone in the confines under the car.

All rigid pipes are good and no rounded union nuts so all cleaned up and ready to go back on. For some reason Volvo chose to fit one bracket made of plastic - where all others are substantial steel. The plastic bracket surrounds the hexagon on the flexi pipe and inevitably the hexagon had rusted and cracked the bracket, apart from that damage everything is fit to reuse.

Whilst all the pipework was out, I removed the rear calipers and drums, cleaned the handbrake mechanism, checked the shoes, refitted the drums and adjusted handbrake. I have also cleaned the calipers and pads.

Now waiting for a new bracket and various bolts, before continuing with the re-assembly.