Zip ties then!

What time is your test?:)

8.00am :eek:

You must be done by now!:)

Must be taking the long route home from the test station :cool:

Only because I got lost :D

Luckly I made it to the test centre in one piece, and with plenty of time to spare (I had my doubts!).



Sadly a first time pass wasn't to be though :(

The car was tested by the main tester (Doug), his trainee, and a sort of supervisor that goes from centre to centre checking tests are done to the same standard. So it got quite a thorough looking over!

They are all good blokes, very friendly, and generally very positive about the car. The supervisor was a bit of an MX5 enthusiast so we had a good old natter on all things MX5.

First test was emissions, which passed without trouble (they were quite happy with the letter from Mazda for proof of angine age).

Next was interior/exterior projections, and a good look around the car.
They liked the fact I'd stuck lots of bits of rubber on there and couldn't find any nasty edges (unusual for Leighton Buzzard apparently!).

Next they stuck it on the ramps to check underneath. This is where it started going wrong...
They spotted one of the rear brake lines and both handbrake cables were rubbing on the chassis. They weren't last time I checked, so they must have settled/bedded-in during the drive there.
They also spotted there was a bit of play between the UJ and steering rack which they didn't like. I tried tightening it up, but there's still too much play.

The ramps came down and they checked all the lights. Head light aim was way off (and still is), but everything else was fine.
Interestingly they didn't seem to measure any heights or distances of the lights.

After that they weighed it then did the brake and speedo test.
The speedo over-read by quite a bit, but was still within IVA spec.
I'll come on to the brakes later...

Next test was exhaust noise, passed with a comfortable 95dB, followed by rear vision, which passed easily.
They liked my Furore e-marked IVA wing mirrors and the position of them saying a lot of people fail by putting them too low and getting too much rear wing in the way.

Next the trainee tester had a blat round the car park to do some more brake testing and to check self centering. Both were fine.

Finally they took a few measurements with a tape measure before dissapering into the office to enter all the figures into their spreadsheet.

Sometime later they emerged with my fail sheet...
This had the fails I knew about above, along with a fail for brake efficiency, and a fail for a big mismatch between each side on the handbrake.





Not too bad a fail really.
Not quite sure what to do about the brakes yet, but the rest should be easy enough to fix.

thats not too bad John. I am now worrying about my handbrake cables!! The handrake balance can be adjusted easily with a allen key so that shouldn't be a problem.

Let me know if you think of a way to make the cable not hit the back of the car!!

How much does the universal joint wobble by? Is it from Rally design?

Was the balance between the from and rear braking well within limits as I haven't installed the reducer valve yet.
Was it a fun drive there and back?

David

Al relatively easy to sort out John, so yes it is a "good" fail:( ...were you able to chase up a retest from them there and then?

I'll let you know what I do David; I'm currently thinking I might attack the cables supports at the caliper end with an angle grinder and re-weld them at a slightly different angle. I tried bending them at the test centre, but they're pretty tough and wouldn't budge!

The drive there was terrifying. I pootled along at 40mph with lorries overtaking me scared it was going to fall apart or blow up :eek:

I was rather more confident on the way home though, and took a slightly more scenic route. Still terrifying, but in a good way!
It feels a bit dull and flat below 4000 rpm, but I found if I kept the revs above that I couldn't stop grinning! Flooring it in second then third had me squealing like a girl :D
The most striking thing is the way it corners though, the steering's nice and direct, and the lack of body roll feels awsome. It's almost like driving a go kart :D

The only things really I want to change at the moment are the accelerator pedal which has far too much travel, and the clutch pedal which doesn't have nearly enough.