Another MOT Update

Top Tip: Never say to your mechanic: "no rush mate as I am going on holiday for 2 weeks during August". 

This is now week 5, although some progress is being made. The stopping starting was a combinatkion of no fuel and me forgetting to tell him that the fuel pump works off a dashboard switch! I found out today that it was much worse than feared. I walked in to find the drivers seat out of the car, to the side, still smoking where he'd had to weld the back back together (yes it was broken but I quite liked it as it tilted back nicely thus helping ease in my lardy torso) as it was around the seat belt anchor and thus MOTable. 

The lack of brakes was down to virtually seized rear drums and front calipers. Some of the brake pipes and brake hoses have been changed as they were either leaking or rusty. Phil now says that when the pedal is pressed, you can feel some bite AND the pedal comes ack up properly, ie, the brakes come on and go off again! That has to be an improvement!

And there are now 8 cylinders and the carbs are balanced. I wait to see how it goes with my foot to the floor.

I will pay another visit on Monday as we appear to be nearly there. I fear the bill now mind.

M O T

Sod it, I thought, I'll take it in and see what else is wrong. We have done all of the things that we knew about. The original TO DO LIST all that time ago is now complete or defunct and thus it is time to work on another. To do that, I needed to take it to MOT man. To do that, I had to part with £120 for insurance. I limped it up the road to the closest one a few hundred yards away called TyreSales. 

Oh dear! I knew it wasn't running well and needed a tune, but decided that rather than spending £s getting tuning done, I ought find out what else was wrong as potential big bills would mean another year in the garage. I was rather light headed at the end - the whole of the unit was clogged with rich v8 petrol fumes. I think the tester let me off a few things as he was slowly being poisoned!

The failure list then:

1. o/s/f brake application uneven
2. o/s/f brake binding
3. n/s headlamp not in good working order affecting beam image
4. n/s/r coil spring not correctly located
5. n/s/f coil spring not correctly located
6. o/s/r wheel nut missing
7. exhaust emissions carbon monoxide content excessive (5665 against a limit of 1200!)
8. exhaust emissions hydrocarbon content excessive
9. front brakes inbalanced

Next time I have a mid life crisis in another life in an other world, please encourage me to buy a Mazda MX5?