SVA 21st December 2007

Well, we did it; I have the MAC (Minister’s Approval Certificate) in my hand. I’d like to say all went smoothly and to plan but of course, it did not. The test on 12th December did not happen because I discovered (should have read the manual sooner) that it had to pass an emissions test and, on checking, it was found to be way, way over the top in both HCs and CO. Furthermore, the noise level was too high at over 102 decibels where the pass is 101. To cut a very long story short, we covered over 500 miles trailering backwards and forward to the rolling road at Plymouth not to mention several trips to Paignton to have modifications made to the silencer. The exhaust people put in a Lambda sensor port, which everybody said was a good thing to do. I bought a 3-wire lambda sensor from Ebay for £14 and had to pull out the dashboard (Oh not again!!!) to wire the thing in. I was told that whilst the engine is being set up the lambda sensor should be disconnected and only when it is running correctly should it be enabled. I wired it through a scuttle mounted fuse box so that it would be easy to power it

He was not sure about the number of indicator lamps. If you remember, I have the ones on the front, the side repeaters and the ones on the mirrors. In the end, he let them go. If there had been a problem, I could have disconnected the mirror flashers and all would have been acceptable. In the end he passed them as they were. Then there were the mirrors. I was always concerned about the cut off caused by the offside rear wheel arches when using the driver’s mirror and in the event, this was well founded. More agonising waiting while Byron considered, looked and deliberated. In the end, he gave it the benefit of the doubt saying that the restriction of view was within acceptable limits. Phew!!!

When it came to the brakes, he homed in on the double cylinder; bias bar arrangement and he asked how I had locked the balance bar. I showed him how it was roll pinned. He said, “Ah, you have roll pinned the locknut, the bar can still rotate”. What I should have done was to roll pin the trunnion to stop the bar from moving at all. He then had to test the brakes with the bar rotated as far as it would go in each direction. At the end he shook his head and said that he doubted if it would pass because of the way the rears came up compared with the fronts. He had to put the numbers into his computer that took into account the weight of the car its size and centre of gravity. It came out as a pass because, he said, the c of g is very low on the car. On a conventional vehicle that has a higher c of g, it would have failed. So, another let off by the skin of our teeth.

Lights
The lights were tested and to my relief everything worked. The headlights needed adjusting but he allowed me to do this using a beam setter so no problems there.

Noise
The engine was fully warmed and the test carried out in the car park away from anything that might cause an echo and increase the noise level. He asked for 4000rpm and thankfully we scraped in at 99.6 decibels the pass being 101.

Emissions
This was probably the most nail biting of all. As he conducted the test, the engine started to run badly. It started pulsing and even some knocking as it struggled to keep going. The emissions machine coughed out a fail so all is lost thought I. Fortunately, Byron was made of stronger stuff and he said, “You take out the plugs and I’ll clean them”. He produced a wire brush and, in short order, the plugs were cleaned and back in the engine. This time, I maintained a slight pressure on the accelerator pedal to achieve a higher idle and was rewarded with success. What a star Byron is. Without his sheer enthusiasm and will to pass my car it would have failed.

This is only a snapshot of the Test but I have included the bits that were problem areas and those which gave me a lot of stress.

We left VOSA with the Minister’s Approval Certificate so, all in all, a very good result so, just the formalities to go through now before we are mobile.

Now that the car is back home in the workshop, I have reinstated the windscreen and removed the padding from around the gauges and refitted the tonneau fixings.

16th January 2008 DVLA Inspection

This was amazingly painless compared with the rigours of SVA. All the Inspector wanted was to check the chassis and engine numbers and thumb through a few invoices. He said that it would almost certainly be given a Q plate and that it would not need an MOT for 3 years being treated as a new car. I now have to wait until he processes his report and following that, the DVLA issue a registration form that I must complete.

22nd January 2008
Great excitement, letter arrived from the DVLA. On reading through the Form V55/5, Panic!!! However Total Kitcar have an excellent website and on there is a completed form and help when using the form for a kit car as opposed to an import for example.

http://www.totalkitcar.com/tkc_article_828.php
http://www.totalkitcar.com/tkc_article_833.php

I have now insured the car under its chassis number with MSM who have been recommended by other Sylva owners. I must say that it is nice to talk to a real and interested person rather than an individual at a call centre favoured by a couple of well-known insurers.

While waiting for the registration, I have put the time to good use by making a storage locker in the nearside side-pod. This was quite simply accomplished by making two stop-ends and cutting an aperture in the top of the side-pod. I fitted a frame in the aperture and made a lid to suit. The lock was purchased from Europa Car spares and does the job nicely. I took the bits over to the painters for powder coating and they were turned round in lass than a week. They look really good and just give that professional look to the job.

I collected the car from Mark in Launceston, engine freshly set up and running so smoothly. Mark was very pleased with it and told me that he was unable to go for maximum power as the wheels lost grip on the rollers at 190hp at the wheels, so all in all a good result and well worth doing. I was really looking forward to the drive home, a distance of some 30 miles and a nice driving road. Evidently the Lambda sensor did no favours and so was removed.

This was the first time actually on the road for the car and made a very pleasant change from trailering it round. It was a nice sunny day and I would like to say, a pleasure to drive. Unfortunately.............

I located two of the problems. A Lucar connector had pulled off the water temperature gauge and the speedometer inner cable was broken. Both were caused by the way I had replaced the dashboard the last time. I should have checked all the connections and as I pushed the dash into place, made sure that the speedometer cable slid back through the grommet in the scuttle without introducing an S bend. One would have thought that judging by the number of times the dash has been in and out I’d be quite good at it now. I’ve ordered a new cable from Caterham, which is the easy bit. Fitting it is another matter. Fortunately, I had the foresight to include a removable inspection cover in the side of the transmission panel just for this job.

I’ve just had a call from Bailey Morris to say that they have had a look at the propshaft and have found a run-out of 1.5mm and that they are unable to balance it. Andrew there said that he is 99.9% certain that that was the cause of the vibration. I was very relieved to hear this and ordered a new one from him and castigated myself at the same time for bad workmanship on my part.