This had nothing to do with the fact that the fan belt slipped off on the way there, nor the overheating that resulted, nor the exceedingly soggy feet due to engine coolant entering the footwell. Nope - coz a random passerby produced a 10mm spanner from his pocket (I had one with me of course - a 10mm spanner that is, not a random passerby) and helped me get it back on before the test itself. The fan belt came off, embarrasingly, by the pully having become a bit loose - which was odd seeing as I would swear blind that I had torque-tightened it correctly.
It was certainly an interesting and stressful test - I spent a lot of it up on a hydraulic ramp whilst the inspectors poked around underneath. No no - poked around underneath the car.
My impressions of an IVA test are that it is long, tiring and very exhaustive. There wasn't any part of the car that wasn't poked, pulled, measured or at least scrutinised. The testers were very thorough but quite friendly (in an official sort of way) and happy to explain what they were doing at every stage.
It was a near miss I think, and most of the items would have been able to be addressed there and then:
1) The backside of the steering wheel boss scraped slightly on my MX5 improvised steering shroud. This was easily fixed by first knackering the old boss trying to get it off - perhaps someone had crept into the workshop at night and overtightened it, yes that must be it - and then grinding the back down slightly on a replacement.
2) Fuel pipes in the engine bay were too close to the steering column (even though they were protected by sheathes themselves, they may have interfered with steering). That too was easily sorted cable-tying them clear out of the way.
3) The fuel return pipe by the passenger footwell was too close to the corner of the aluminium tub so needed protecting. Another easy fix - I've drilled out a rivet and popped a new one back in with a p-clip holding a short length of rubber hose through which the pipe now passes.
4) There were a couple of cables in the transmission tunnel that connect to the gearbox which were not secured down. They're right buggers to get to, so all I could do here was use some plastic metal to anchor a couple of cable-tie anchors to the aluminium tub and strap them down.
5) The tester was not impressed at my ingenious use of gaffa tape holding the new cycle-wing indicator wiring to the underside of the wheel arches (even though it took me quite a long time to coax the tape off). This again has been fixed with some cemented cable-ties and anchor points.
6) There was a brake and fuel pipe touching at the back end of the car which could have led to terrible chafing. A bit of pipe bending sorted that.
Then there were a couple of things that really caused the fail as they wouldn't have been able to be addressed there and then:
7) An ISO-standard marking was missing from the brake fluid reservoir. After contacting Westfield about this they were very apologetic about not having sent one and shortly afterwards a sticker turned up in the post. The tester had been very particular about the durability of the marking, so I'm going to keep the sticker in reserve and instead cut one out of a brake fluid cap that was marked and made it into a pendant-type thing which is now held onto the neck of the reservoir with heavy-duty plastic coated wire.
8) There wasn't enough sign of auto-return on the steering. This has turned into my biggest bugbear - I've tried Westfield's advice of inflating the tyres a lot and toeing the front wheels in a lot - an awful lot in fact. And nothing worth noting. I then went on to replace the track-rod ends from the MX5 in case they were too stiff, re-greasing the steering rack itself, trying extra helpings of camber on the wheels - all to no avail. One of the problems with the SEi is that in cases like this (which Westfield assures me is just due to the new rack being stiff) is that altering the caster of the front wheels isn't possible - and it is the caster that primarily affects auto-centering. But a possible breakthrough occurred when I noticed that the steering auto-centered a bit when pulling the car backwards - so I tried toeing out the wheels as much as I could without them fouling the bodywork - and this seems to make it show some sign of auto-centering when going forwards.
Although it was a failure, I felt kind of proud - oddly enough. Well, the car had physically passed the tests - all the areas I had addressed for the IVA (with the exception of my gaffa taped cycle wing wiring) had sailed through. The speedo which I was concerned about - due to me modifying it and having larger wheels on the car passed OK. The engine emissions - bearing in mind I had almost completely stripped and rebuilt the engine passed OK, better than OK in fact. Exhaust volume, OK. Brake efficacy, OK. Visibility and mirrors, OK. Headlamp alignment, OK (after they helped me align them properly).
And out of all the things tested (which overall took about 5 hours) only a couple of them were things that required a paid re-test. The inspectors were very complimentary about the build, and found it hard to believe that I worked with computers and stuff rather than being an engineer or mechanic.
I did actually find the test interesting, particularly as I got to see the proper equipment that I had been improvising around not having in the garage during the build. The inspectors answered my polite questions about what they were testing and why and overall were very informative. They also gave some friendly advice on some improvements, such as silicone sealing some of the low-slung wire connections, and covering the underside of the main fusebox (which I have done with some latex rubber which I just happened to have lying around).
Oh - and it rained on the way back from the test station. A lot. But the car was great fun to drive, and handled surprisingly well. I can't wait until it's finally passed and road-legal!
Anyway, I've gotta finish this post coz I'm off for the re-test in a minute. I just hope that there is enough auto-centering on that damn steering for them...
Posts
