Here's where I tell you about the problems I had MOT'ing, SVA'ing and
registering the car.
26th Nov 2002
The MOT. Oh what fun this was. The MOT tester, really
didn't want to test the car, and threw up all sorts of excuses to
avoid doing it. First of all he couldn't do it because it
didn't have any plates (wrong !)
Then he couldn't do it because it didn't have an MAC from an SVA
(also wrong)
Then he couldn't do it because the tracking was too far out (you're a
bloody garage - fix it !)
Then he couldn't track it because the front track was narrower than
the rear (I was getting more confident of a fail by now)
Finally he decided to give the tracking a go and do the MOT. He
sort of tracked it by setting the front wheels more or less pointing
forward (good enough to drive and it self centred so I was happy)
Then he decided to do the emisions. He stuck his magnetic rpm
sensor to the head (ally so it didn't stick very well), then his mate
said that he didn't need to test the emmisions. I said he
did. While this debate was going on his sensor finally dropped
off and landed on the exhaust down pipe. Exhasut pipe 1 -
sensor retired hurt ! The tester burnt his hand rescuing the
molten blob of plastic that used to be a sensor, so I was getting
really confident of a fail by now.
I decided it probably wasn't in my best interests to start taking
photos of molten sensors, burnt hands, and also decided against
asking him to remove the remnants of the sensor that was left on the pipe.
He then proceeded to give the car a very severe looking at. It
took far longer than my '73 Lotus ever takes. He eventually
manages to find a loose trackrod end and a slightly twisted flexi
brake pipe. Fair do's on the trackrod end - I'd forgotten to
torque it up, but the brake pipe had been twisted to keep it away
from the suspension. Anyway, he happily told me I'd failed, so
I took the car away and spent about 30 mins fixing the 'faults'
Got to take it back next week sometime.
29th Nov 2002
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Here are the pictures of the car after it's SVA test. A
failure, but only a few points and nothing too serious.
The SVA test itself wasn't too bad, and the car fared quite well. The
examiner was very friendly, very helpful and very professional.
The failure points were -
Only a couple of radii caused a problem. The ride height adjusters on
the front shocks need to be covered (bottom half of a plastic pop
bottle) Nuts on the exhaust clamps should be dome headed, Wing
mirrors ( I knew about these, but was hoping that they might get a
blind eye - never mind), edges of the indicator side repeaters and on
the rear reflectors were less than 2mm radius (this was picky)
The lower edge of the dash should have a radius of 19mm - mine is
less. This is a Tiger moulding - Tiger should be shot for
getting this wrong. The fix is to pad it with self adhesive rubber sheet.
One of the wings hits the headlight on full lock - will be fixed when
the car is tracked properly.
Front flexi brake hoses touch the front wing mounts and should be
protected with a bit of pipe. It only touched coz I'd taken out
the twist which I'd put in for this very reason !!
The emmisions failed as the O2 was too high. The CO2 & HC
levels were virtually zero !
The holes for the steering rack aren't in the right place and need to
be enlarged a bit.
Everything else was fine. The seatbelt mount height was only just OK,
and this is with the seat as low as it can go without fouling the
adjuster mech.
Also found a water leak and an oil leak.
All in all, not too bad. The examiner said that it was a good job - a
lot less failure points than a lot of kit cars he sees.
The other problems I found were that the engine won't start while
it's hot. I discovered this after filling it up on the way to
the SVA. Not happy sitting in a petrol station with a car that
won't start. It's also not idling reliably. Either 600
rpm or 2000 - nothing in between.
The engine is also running very hot and tending to overheat while sat
in traffic. Not sure whether this is caused by too much heat
from the downpipes, or the general engine problems above.
Ah well, I'll get it all sorted out soon. At least the rain
stayed off while I was on the road. |
Early January 03
Only a year late making this update !!
Fixed all the faults and went back for a re-test. Passed on
everything, except the bloody engine. I'd found that the Lambda
sensor had worked slightly lose, and I thought that this was the problem.
It wasn't. I had a talk with Webcon who sent me down a new chip
for the ECu. I put this in but it was still the same. I
eventually resorted to taking it to the nearest Webcon agent,
Northampton Motor Sports. They put the car on their rolling
road, remapped the chip, found a couple of faults, some installation
faults (or so they said) and some Webcon faults. Webcon agreed
to split the bill 50/50 with me, which seemed sort of reasonable
since I couldn't check on the things I'd done wrong which they said
they'd fixed, and they did fix and oil leak on the oil temp sensor
which I couldn't get to seal.
Anyway, with that all fixed it was back to the SVA centre, and I passed.
Then it was the tedious job of getting it registered, with only about
3 days left on my cherished number certificate. Finally, I got
the registration documents through and it was down to Halfords to
have T6 TGR put on a couple of plates. The final hurdle was the
effin change of law which said you had to have 2 forms of ID, reg
document, proof of address, letter for your mother and a photo of
what you had for breakfast before they would make the plates for you. Grrrrrrr.
Got the plates on the 2nd trip to Halfrauds.
The first legal drive was a real joy - big grin from ear to ear -
bugs splattered all over my teeth.
It made all the trials and tribulations worth while.
