My appointment was for 8:00am which was pretty early! I got up about 6:00am after
a pretty bad night's sleep. The car started fine and I allowed it to warm up a bit
before setting off. Dad drove my tin-top with all the tools, trim etc. for on the
spot repairs. My brother also wanted to come along in the Cat so did.
The drive down was pretty un-eventful (thankfully) and we stopped just outside
the centre in a convenient garage to fill the Cat up with petrol and change the
steering wheel for the standard Sierra item.
Once at the centre we waited around for the guy to come out to look at the car.
Ian (the test guy) came out and wanted to start the test with the emissions as
the engine was still warm. This was to be the start of the first of a few things
to go badly. The emissions were really high, about 8.5 CO and 5000 PPM. Ian let
us tweak the carbs to get it down which took ages (about 20 mins) and I could tell
he wanted us to hurry up. Eventually we got them down.
Ian then put the car up on the ramp and checked underneath, I guess looking at all
the wiring/pipes etc. I was in the car at this time and followed his instructions
to turn the wheel fully left/right. It was a little hard to hear him with the lorries
in the next lane revving their engines!
He then lowered the car and checked the lights. He spent a while on the main headlamps
and eventually said they were ok but weren't very good as there was little difference
between full and dipped beam (the guy who did the MOT said the same last week).
Then came the noise test. I was dreading this as the engine was backfiring a fair
bit due to tweaking on the emissions. It came out at 96.7db which really surprised
me.
Ian then drove the car about a bit and parked on some marks outside to check the
mirrors and light visibility angles. He came back saying they were all fine (angle
wise that is, more later).
Next I drove the car over to the brake testing area and put the front wheels onto
the rollers. THUMP!! b*llocks the sump's just hit!!! I got out to have a look and saw
the sump wasn't touching. It only touched when I was in the car. Ian went off to
check the book to see if there was anything to exempt low cars from the brake test.
There wasn't! So we had to move on. I had forgotten to set the suspension up at
the front as I didn't have a C-spanner.
Finally came the speedo test. This I was also dreading as I'd not calibrated it
at all as it was the standard Tiger mechanical one. I'd checked it last week with
dad's GPS on the way to the MOT. It was kind of strange seeing the car do 70mph
without moving!! The car passed fine and was reading bang on the limit for 30 and 60
and a bit under for the other results.
That was the end of the test and, as suspected, the car had failed. Here's the list:
Brakes (not tested)
Design weight (not tested)
Tiger side-repeaters not radiused
Tiger rear lights had a sharp edge on the inside
Tiger chrome wing mirrors not radiused and no kick-back facility (more later)
Headlamp bases not radiused
My Momo alloy gearknob had sharp edges
If I just had a c-spanner Ian said I could have sorted all the above there and then!
Oh well!
The Re-test
I had to question the kick-back facility once I'd got home as I wasn't sure what
to do about it as not even my tin-tops mirrors sprang back after an impact. I spoke
to Ian about it and he said he'd made a mistake as the kick-back was only required
if you couldn't reach the mirror from the driver's seat. So I fitted one Tiger black
mirror for the re-test.
My re-test was to be at 12:00pm (much better). We got there in plenty of time again
and did the wheel swap and fill-up as last time.
Ian wasn't going to be doing the re-test, instead I got Adrian who was a very friendly
chap. He was genuinely interested in my car and kit-cars in general so instantly I
felt this would all go well. He started by checking the things Ian had put on the
list. He just used his fingers to check the edges but then said "Oh, I'd better
do this properly as the moderators are in today". Just my luck I thought. He went
off to get the radius ball and accessories. He then said "I won't actually use it,
just pretend in case he's looking". I smiled and thought what a nice, sensible chap!
Then onto the brake/weight test. Adrian was very good at explaining what he was testing
as we went thought the test. The car passed fine. He said the brakes were very
good, even without needing servo assist.
At this point Adrian wanted to check the mirrors for visibility as I had changed
them. He instructed me to drive out to the marks outside and wait for him. I could
tell he wanted to drive the car so asked and of course Adrian said YES!
He came back inside and announced the car had passed!!! He told us to wait in the
reception and he'd be out once he'd done all the paper work. Ten minutes later I
had the MAC and big smiles all round.
