[jhswolf]

Today's update: A little progress, but not too much.

I was able to take a chisel and pry off the grease cap pretty easily.

As folks have mentioned, there's not much room to put a vice grip on the adjuster to turn it out. I managed to cut a slot in the adjuster, but unfortunately, I can only get the adjuster to turn a quarter of a turn back and forth. I just can't get a good enough grip with a screwdriver (I'm not too good at cutting slots either).

My next step would be to weld a bolt onto the end of the adjuster as suggested. In parallel, a friend of a friend might just have a set of backplates, so we'll see if that pans out.

I've never welded a bolt onto something in order to get it out, so I'm learning a lot and having fun.

More to follow.
John