15th October 2002
SVA Day!
The day started pretty early as it's a good hour or so drive up to Norwich, and my SVA test appointment was 0815. So as I peer through the curtains, I am relived to see that it is dry, as the forecast is not promising, however that soon took a turn for the worse as soon as I set foot out the door it start's spitting with rain. So I fit the bonnet to the car, and gather some tools together.
Tim is riding shotgun, so I load all my stuff into his car, since it looks like I'm in for some rain. Off we set, and the first part of the journey is ok, a little damp but nothing too bad. Unfortunately, the heavens soon open and it really chucks it down. Visibility becomes a bit negligible, and soon I am _very_ wet - this is mostly because the water is pushed up and over the sides of the car by the airflow, which then runs into the seat. At this point I realise that I really should have drilled some drain holes in both the base of the seat, and the floor of the car. The seats have filled up and I am sitting in a puddle - nice...
Once suitably saturated, the next problem to encounter was a technical one with the car. As we got to the Norwich ring road, we hit traffic, and as the under-bonnet temperatures started to rise, I started to experience the high idle which I was getting on my trip to the MOT, except worse. I finally gave in and had to stop when it was idling at 4000 revs and refusing to go any lower! We stopped and I poked the throttle linkage which was stuck slightly open - I'm not sure yet, but this does point first of all towards a sticky throttle cable when it gets really hot.
A short trundle further in the rush hour traffic (Tim phoned ahead to warn that we were running late by now) - until the sticky throttle problem showed up, the car was amazingly driveable in the traffic, I'm getting the hang of the clutch now - and it's time to stop again to fill up before the test.
We eventually arrived at the test station almost an hour late, oops, fortunately when the tester appeared he was very understanding. Firstly, I ran the car into the test lane, then had to get out of my soaking wet clothes. By the time I was changed, the test had started with Tim watching on, and the tester had apparently had his radius spheres out looking at a couple of areas.
Next up, I was back in the (wiped dry) drivers seat, and we were going through checking the lights. Then I drove it onto the 4-post lift, and the tester had a rummage around underneath, looked at the steering on both locks, the brake unions, etc. Whilst under there he told me there was "some red stuff coming out of your box", which was obviously the reverse box continuing to breathe on the journey, unfortunately I was in the car in the air so couldn't get a handle on how much there was.
Next was the emissions test where I had to run the car at revs to warm the catalytic converter up, before the tester bunged the probe in and pressed some buttons on his computer. I couldn't read it all, but was pleased to see 0.00% on the CO2 reading. After that I moved the car further down the lane, and onto the brake rollers. Here it was weighed on both front and rear axles (didn't get the weights unfortunately), then the tester took over and did the brake tests.
He then moved it on to the speedo test rollers, where he didn't offer the chance to re-calibrate the speedo, so I can only assume that it was ok. After that he drove the car out around the yard, and did the mirror visibility test using the pre-set cones they have out there. During both of these tests, I must say that the car was sounding pretty damn good. He revved it fairly hard on the speedo test (well, harder than I've ever revved it), and we were outside to see it drive it around the yard which he did... confidently, and both commented it sounded good.
Next up was the noise test. I was back in the driving seat, and told to rev the engine just over 5000rpm, whilst the tester setup his noise meter the set distance from end of the exhaust. Again no comment from him, but that's the way they work.

Then the tester disappeared for a while, before coming back and telling me that it would have passed save for a few radius issues. He pointed them out to me - the front corner of the manifold hole in the bodywork, the top edge of the aeroscreen (!), and the edges of the mirrors (not much of a surprise) - and said that we could correct them now and he would pass it, or go away and come back another time. Initially I was resigned to going home to sort it, since the mirrors was a bit of a tricky one to sort non-destructively, but Tim pointed out that we might as well have a go (the other bits were simple enough to work around) and I realised that it is cheaper to write-off a pair of mirrors than to pay and drive back and forth for a retest.
So out came the box full of rubber trim, and we identified a way of glueing some trim to the mirrors. But my superglue was not up to the job, so Tim was dispatched to B&Q to get something more serious, while I fitted trim to the other problem areas and started cutting the trim for the mirrors. Because the mirrors are convex, the trim had to be trimmed and glued since it could not grip under it's own shape.
After a short while of fiddling and swearing (and being choked by an evil diesel van getting emissions tested), the job was done. It wasn't the prettiest job in the world, but it worked, and the tester was happy with what we had done. He disappeared again for a while, while we packed up the stuff and got ready to leave, before re-appearing and handing me my certificate! : )

The rain had virtually stopped, but as soon as we were done, it started up again. Oh well looks like another wet drive back. Shortly after setting off I remember that we had adjusted the idle down for the hot engine sticking problem. The engine wouldn't idle and just kept stalling, which was making driving Norwich ring road... erm interesting: I had to keep my foot on the throttle to stop it stalling, whilst braking and changing down and it's a dog engagement on the gearbox so no synchromesh to smooth everything out and it likes a blip on downchanges (and no I haven't even contemplated heel and toeing in it yet!). I decided not to adjust the idle back up again, because if we hit traffic on ring road, I'd only have to go back the other way.
At about the half way mark, I had to stop. I adjusted the idle back up a bit (but not really enough), and bailed out quite alot of water from the seat, and the footwell. When we restarted the rain seemed to have stopped, and indeed it didn't rain again for entire journey home. It even started to dry out a bit (in that there was no standing water) so I was much happier, though still sitting in saturated clothes.
I was tempted to press on a little more coming out of some roundabouts, still sticking to my 4krpm (ish) limit, and the car felt nice. It's just starting to get up and go at 4000 revs, and just getting a nice induction bark in the exhaust. It's going to be suitably crazy once it's all run in, and I get some good weather... unfortunately that's probably going to be next year, but I'll take advantage of the clear dry days before then to get the running in mileage done.

So that's that then. I arrived home, wet and a little weary. Put the car away in the garage, and looked forward to getting dried out! The SVA test was certainly not as scary or stressful as I had imagined, but the tester obviously had a keen eye and knew what he was looking for. I think the fact that the car was obviously well presented with attention to SVA details helps quite alot, and meant that he didn't blatantly test everything (though I'm sure he really should have checked for a working horn, and aligned the headlamps?!?). Now I've got to get the thing registered, and I can start using it properly... oh and start tweaking it into it's proper (rather than SVA friendly) spec! : )

16th October 2002
I've booked an MOT re-test for tomorrow afternoon, so tonight I need to have a quick look at the idle problem. The symptoms suggest that the throttle cable may be the cause, that when it gets very hot, it gets sticky and stops the throttle butterflys from closing fully.
So I adjust the throttle cable to give a little more slack when the throttle is closed, as I had adjusted it fairly taut before. I run the car up to temperature, and try to get it as hot as possible without any problems, so maybe this is the solution - time will tell once I have driven the car.
Whilst nosing around the car, I notice that there is an odd looking drip of water on the rubber bobbin supporting the airbox... it's odd because the rest of the engine bay seems to have dried out. The cogs whirr and I realise that there may be some water collected in the bottom of the airbox. So off with the bolts holding the top and bottom parts, and a poke in with the torch, confirms my suspicions, a good few mm of water sloshing around in bottom!
So I need to drill some holes in the bottom of the airbox since it is clearly able to scoop water in through the grille in the bonnet bulge, which the mouth of the airbox sits just behind. Unfortunately, in order to do this, I have to dismantle the whole airbox including removing the trumpets from the throttle bodies (as the box is clamped underneath them).
Soon I have the box on the bench, and drill a few holes in the bottom which will allow any water which may gather, to drain out again. I then re-assemble the box, and the job is done.

17th October 2002
Late afternoon and it's time to get the car to the MOT. Fortunately the weather today is a world away from Tuesday, the sun is shining and it is cool but bright and dry - so I'm looking forward to getting the car out today.
The drive to the MOT is pretty un eventful, though my clutch control has gone again and my ability to pull away seems pretty non-existent! At the MOT, the tester is a little cheerier today, and we go through the whole test again (rather than just the failure points). I tell him that the headlamps weren't tested on SVA and so will need to be adjusted to pass, but I am armed with spanners and he lets me set them up. After a short while the test is passed, and I have a certificate.
The drive home, although in some traffic, is quite fun. My clutch control is much improved, and the car is going and handling pretty well - which is surprising given that the suspension is not really setup correctly (and is on full soft damping), and I only have 4000 revs to play with. This all bodes well for the future... now to get it registered!

22nd October 2002
A quick update: I took great pleasure in not touching the car at all over the weekend, and not spending every spare hour in the garage! So I've been lazy, not even cleaned all the muck off it yet from the soaking on SVA day.
I finally managed to collect together all the forms I need to send to the VRO for registration, and have dispatched them. Hopefully it won't be too long before I hear back from them with some news, or an appointment to have them inspect the car.

26th October 2002
Still no word of registration, and I have now sent all the forms off with monies, certificates, and the like. Oh well, I'm sure it won't take too long, and the weather hasn't been particularly any good when I've not been at work anyway.

Anyway, it's playtime, and I've borrowed a set of corner scales from Steve. So I spend most of the day weighing cars. In total I think we get 8 cars on the scales, obviously mine included (both of them - the Punto too!). Well it certainly makes interesting reading on the scales, as mine weighs in at 490kg. Not quite as light as I had hoped, or as light as the maths would suggest in comparison to Ed's car - which I think must mean that Ed's reading might be a bit off, since we seem to be in general conclusion that these scales are fairly accurate (sorry if that's harsh Ed!).
So there you go, it's a bit heavier than Westfield might suggest it would be, but there isn't really alot of scope to reduce the weight, it's already pretty functional without any extras. The only real area I can lose some is by getting some lighter wheels and tyres, I could lose up to 5kg per corner doing this, which would be a great plan. Time to start saving...

29th October 2002
Heard back from Terry Hill at the local (Peterborough) VRO today. He is happy with all the forms and certificates, and just wants to do the usual inspection of the car to ensure it is what I said it is, and confirm the chassis and engine numbers. The earliest he can do it is next Tuesday (5th Nov), so I'm booked in for then - weather permitting, if it's chucking it down, I'll postpone.

So inspired by promise of getting it legal, I spend some time on the car this evening. I need to check out the amount of oil which is "breathing" out of the reverse box. So I remove the cover panel (oops the SVA trim fell off while I was doing this), which I intend to leave off for a while to allow me to monitor the oil coming out.
I clean up the oil spillage on the box and mounting brackets, and remove the bolt in the top of the box. The idea here is that I am going to setup some sort of breather catch tank arrangement, which will allow the oil to breathe out whilst moving and then drain back into the box once stopped. This will maintain the oil level in the box, and prevent all the mess the expulging oil is making. I am going to investigate getting an aeroquip hose to fit into this bolt hole - the alternative being trying to bond a pipe over the pinhole breather on the box.

©2002-2009 David Hackett UDM4