Traffic in norwich at 8:30 is a nightmare so I really should have left even earlier. They however were fine with me being a tad late and actually apologised to me for the traffic!
The inspector first came out and checked the chassis number, had a through look around the car at the radii and general constuction no sign of 30 deg cones or magic balls. Brief query on the radii of my tacho, a piece of sandpaper and a wave of my 27/12/97 invoice sorted that out.
Then came a check of lights, wipers etc. Brake lights didn't appear to work and O/S headlight on full beam didn't work and also turned the indicators on! The inspector was quite happy for me to fix them later on if I could do it on the spot.
Next came the mirror tests, a complicated layout of cones and poles in the car park. I adjusted the mirrors and could *just* see all the comes, Dennis (The inspector) had a go and adjusted for some time. It was marginal but he let it go. Tip for other people, fit both wing mirrors, the standard sierra item doesn't have quite enough field of view to cover it properly.
Onto the noise test, steady at 3000rpm and done.
The pit. Very thorough inspection from underneath, dennis also checked out the cabling for the brake lights and I fixed the headlight - an earth lead had come adrift. Then I had to hop in the car and wobble the wheels from side to side, pull the handbrake, main brakes etc while he shouted instructions through a speaker system. Very disconcerting trying to follow one set of instructions on a British rail style speaker while an HGV is thrashing in the next lane having a completely different set of instuctions shouted at them. Next came headlights, no problems there, the car was then weighed - 700kg but that included a full tank and a huge amount of tools. Dry weight is probably more like 650kg.
Emissions test, was asked if the car was warm, decided that despite the long run was probably worth playing safe, gave it a few mins at 3.5k rpm, then another min at 5.5k to clear it out and then he measured it. Hydrocarbons were on the limit but otherwise ok, not bad for a very old engine.
Brake test was errr interesting, the tapley meter kept falling off the pedal so I was getting very dodgy readings. The readings were varying quite substantially and the readout had a number of failure points on it. Dennis then went away to check the results on the computer and suggested that I park in the car park and look at the brake lights.
After staring at the lights hard and then trying to find something to reflect the bulb in so I could see that and depress the pedal I realised the problem was the switch bracket. It had bent slightly out of shape so I bodged it back into shape. When Dennis returned I manually operated the switch as I still was't 100% on its operation. He seemed happy and said that the brake was just about ok and had I not had the brake compensator in it would have failed. I think he took the difficult readings into account though.
After that I had a good long chat to him and he loosened up a lot, appears that lotus sent 80 elises through there a month or two ago for a special edition and that most of the SVAs are imports.
Decided to have a go at visting the VRO and see If I could get registration done on the day. Had to be worth a try. After stumbling around Norwich for a while I worked out where to go but the car seemed to be struggling and there was a smell of hot brakes. Stopped at least once on the way let the smoke clear, worked out there wasn't much I could do there and then (jack having been left at home D'Oh) and carried on. By the time I got to the vro it was struggling to pull the car in 3rd and more smoke came pouring out of the discs. Filled in the forms at the VRO explained that I had just come from SVA and had the car there and after some pursuading they agreed to examine it there. Examination was quick and simple, hindered only by the hot engine and the illegibilty of the engine number. However the bloke was happy enough that the engine was original and pretty much took my word for it. Despite the MAC It turns out that I still needed an MOT but since my insurance paperwork hadn't come through either that wasn't really a problem.
Popped into the garage I was parked next to (toyota) to see if they could look at the brakes. Unfortunately they didn't have a slot free for some time and would have to order any parts in so they directed me to quick fit, just around the corner.
Struggle to qwik fit, by this time I'm in 2nd gear and slowing down... The quickly have a look at it after initial problems getting it up on the ramp due to the clearance. Discs are very odd shape and the pads are very badly scored and have large chunks out of them after only 80 miles! New discs get delivered and fitted, they run it round the block, no problems. Parted with 110 quid and set off again praying for nothing else to go wrong. Just as I hit the a11 it starts to bog down again 3rd.. 2nd.. [$&"$&(] pull over, phone qwik fit and try and limp it back to them. Within a mile I was struggling in 1st, the engine temperature is well over 100 and the air is thick with smoke. Call it a day and pull over in a country lane. Kwik fit send someone out to find me, left the bonnet off and after 20 mins it was still around 100 phew.
After trying a few things we decided that the only course of action was to clamp off the front brake lines and limp it back on the rears, very scary. Back at kwik fit the only option left was the master cylinder which wasn't in stock once we eventually got a part number for it.
End result is I caught the train home, they're replacing the cylinder and I'll get them to check the pads/discs are still ok. Will pick it up tomorrow evening, get it MOTd friday with any luck and then hopefully the VRO will give me a registration by the end of next week.
Given a lift over to Norwich by Catherine, arrived and discovered the car back mostly back together but still not tested. When I arrived it was still in parts with the pedal box cover off and the brake plunger off. Aparently the problem was the plunger went at an angle thereby damaging the cylinder. Eventually when I found the right size of drill bit we moved the hole up the cylinder thereby solving the problem. We then realised the plunger was too short as well and after running out of any other options had to resort to a straigtened out exhaust bracket for my brake plunger. This is really only a temporary measure, by this time it was 8:30pm and 3 of the kwik fit guys were still there trying to sort it. The plan is to get a new plunger with a proper ball on the end at some point soon.
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