[ShaneHobson]

I plucked up some courage and started dismantling stuff to have a crack at solving this.

I have swapped the Shift Lock Unit (88083pa000) which lives under the hand brake with another of the same part number from my parts car.
This made no difference to the fault.

I found a micro switch on the side of the transmission lever (under the cover) which is actuated when the transmission lever is in Park position. Looking at my parts car I can see this switch is connected back to the Shift Lock Unit. I tried shorting across the switch and also using a multi meter to test the switch.
Switch is working ok (closed circuit when in Park).

Looking at my parts car, the key could be turned to Lock position and removed ok. Even when the Shift Lock Unit was removed.

Some reading told me that there is a solenoid in the ignition barrel which is preventing me turning the key to lock position.
The parts car has no battery and no Shift Lock and I could turn the key to Lock.
So I setup the same situation on my faulty car, disconnected the battery (it's been off for nearly an hour) and disconnected the Shift Lock.

Key still won't go to the Lock position.

I've tried pulling the steering column covers off, but the last one that wraps around the ignition barrel won't come off if there is a key in the ignition (perhaps I haven't pushed it hard enough).

I'd like to get that cover off so take a closer look at the ignition barrel to see if I can remove it.

In the parts car the ignition barrel is almost out, but as pointed out earlier in this thread, the barrel is held in place with two bolts that have no indents of any sort in the bolt head to either unscrew or screw it up. I can't find any mention in the service manual as to how to remove the ignition barrel.

I have a spare cover for the steering column, so if I get desperate I could break mine to get it off which will give me access to the ignition barrel. Once I know how to remove the bolts then I could take out the whole barrel and swap it with one from my parts car so to see what happens.

So, after all that rambling I guess I have two questions :
Has anyone successfully removed the lower steering column cover while there is a key in the ignition without breaking the cover ?
Any suggestions for removing the bolts securing the ignition barrel ?
Any other bright ideas ?