My Sva Experience

[Guest Ant]

Well I've just had a somewhat action filled 36 hours! Now some would say that I shouldn't have booked an SVA test without having a "complete" car to take with me, where as others, including myself, are always setting themselves "tight" deadlines as a means of making sure that something actually happens. I have absolutely no regrets, apart from the fact that working continually on my car for 28 hours has somewhat zonked me out once I got home this afternoon.

 

7:30am arrived rather too quickly this morning, this being the absolute final deadline for setting off for my 8am appointment at Derby SVA centre. At this point myself and friend John had quite literally been working on the car all night. Trouble was, it wasn't finished. We hadn't connected up the washer lines, nor had we even thought about edge protecting the front suspension. I seemed to be velcro-ing vinyl all over the boot lid area, whilst John was frantically fitting wing mirrors. At 7:34 we threw all the tools into John's car and set off on our way, running late ... very late.

 

At first the drive was very much adrenelin filled. The car seemed OK, but this very purposeful feeling soon changed to total fear as I realised that the contraption I'd been working on for the last 12 months was now propelling me at 40mph towards morning rush hour on the A38 trunk road. I then became scared ... very scared. What if my cycle wings fly off? What about the windscreen? Has John got the box of nut covers with him? Damn, I forgot my mountney wheel cover. Was that a rattle I just heard? If the propshaft broke would I die? How about if those front lower ball joints unscrewed themselves? Was 50mph really necessary? Is it damned windy today, or am I the pratt in the open top car?

 

At 7:59 the realisation of lateness dawned upon me so I pulled over in a roadworks queue on the A6 and I rung the station on my mobile. "You're where? How long do you think you'll be? You reckon 8:30 at the latest. Right, if you're here by 8:30 we'll go ahead. If not then it's Mr Cips for you!" "Mr Chips" for me? Right ... ok. The first petrol station we came across was quiet enough to dash in, fill up, and dash out again. £13 of fuel, why is the guage only reading 1/4? I thought I'd fully tested that circuit before fitting it? Will he trust me or will he want to dip the tank? By 7:20 the whole ball game had changed. We'd shifted from petrol filling and near death experience worries to a more pressing issue ... where the hell is the testing station in amoungst all these roadworks on the dual carriageway that is the Derby ring road?

 

At 8:27 I pulled up in front of a large building with "SVA lane" written on the front of it. John on the other hand was touring the section of the business park labelled as "Private. BT property. No entry". I think I saw a sign which he didn't ;-)

 

I was greated by two gentleman who instantly put me at ease. "Here he is look" ... "Hurrah you got here then" ... "Were you confused by the lack of a signpost on the ring road?". I began to stammer multiple apologies about unforgivable lateness but was soon told to "make sure I enjoyed the day, and start it properly by visiting the coffee machine to calm my nerves". I reckon he could see me shaking from the cold, the "Is it Friday already" syndrome from being up all night, and the sheer panic of potentially missing my SVA appointment and becomming "Mr Chips".

 

As I was spilling boiling coffee all over my hands, Alf (the inspector) was finishing off his ciggy and John was pulling up in the car park having had a long chat with the security wardens at BT. Alf led us into the building and started explaining what the test was all about, and what the procedure was for the test. By now I was a lot happier. This bloke seems to be pretty damned friendly really. He knows I'm knackered. He seems to like the look of the car. Everything he is saying sounds totally fair and justified.

 

Test 1 - the speedo. Alf's mate (sorry, can't remember his name) drove the car onto the rollers and began the test. Alf, John and I joked about it flying down the hall at 70mph if it broke free. (Is this conversation compulsory on SVA tests?). "Right, well that's the fail out of the way then" said Alf. Although the speedo seems to be correctly calibrated for the setup I have, it is a bit erratic at about 50mph, and won't give an acceptable reading. All other speeds were about 2mph under the actual too. The gauge which cost me £7.50 on Ebay probably needs reconditioning - fair enough.

 

The rest of the test then unfolded pretty much as a prolonged MOT would do. Nigel the seat dummy was brought out, seatbelts were pulled, and edges were felt. I owned up to the unconnected washer pipe saying that it needed finishing. "Don't worry about that now" was the response. We chatted about various edge failures both inside and outside, including possible solutions. Seeing how the only bit of protection on the front suspension was a tube on the tracking arm, I was surprised by how little actually failed here.

 

After this I was sent away to get another cup of coffee, and Alf had another ciggy outside. By now all 4 of us seemed to be getting on quite well. I was resigned to the fact that my unfinished car wasn't going to pass today, but I was quite happy with everything which was being written down.

 

Next came the checks underneath the car, followed by the weighing and the brakes test. And finally, at about 10:45 came the steering self centering test, the mirrors test, and the noise test. I was a litle surprised to see a value as high as 100.6dB for the noise test, but that's a pass (RHE 4 into 1, no mods or baffles, EFi lump). I was also surprised to pass the self centering test, but he was quite happy with it. The mirror test was another matter, bringing two fail points. Offside mirror too low ... centre mirror absent ;-)

 

After that we waited in the waiting room for the paperwork to be written up, and then we had another quite long chat with Alf about the various fail points. "Basically", he said, "You've passed the difficult stuff. The car's constructed well, your brakes are brilliant, and you've got a good car. You just need to tidy up a few bits and bobs and then bring it back to us again"

 

The journey home was far less eventful and stressful than the one there, though we did stop on the way to remove the fine mesh I'd fitted to the front of the nose cone. The engine ran a lot colder without it than it did with on the way there (thought the car was probably on a nervous panic just like I was on the way there!).

 

Here's the full list of failures:

 

- No washers

- Handbrake lever not radiused

- Instrument bezels not radiused

- Contactable, non-radiused edges:

Exhaust clamp (needs blunting)

Numerous front suspension edges (track arm ok)

Bottom of rear body panel on corners

Rear fog lamp housing plastic (despite being RHE's "SVA correct" versions!)

Windscreen pillars

- No centre mirror fitted

- Offside mirror too low

- Lock tabs on steering shaft joint need bending over

- Speedo cable needs securing away from accelerator pedal in o/s footwell

- Rear wiring insecure in boot area

- One insecure cable in front of the battery area (only 1? yeah right!)

- Fuel pipe at rear needs re-routing (it's in a small gap between the de-dion tube and the chassis, and they didn't believe me when I said the de-dion tube is bolted rigid, so I need to move the pipe by 1/4 inch "to prevent it getting crushed!")

- Cables above gearbox tunnel insecure (behind dash)

- Fuel filter under fuel tank insecure (needs a bracket to fasten it to)

- Heater hose insecure on top of engine (needs another bracket making up)

- Speedo irratic

 

There is a couple of other things which were mentioned which don't seem to be written down. From memory these were:

 

- Cable ties holding handbrake cable away from rear springs need to be replaced with a support bracket and tight cable ties really.

- He wants a photo of my handbrake adjusting system which is under a fake tunnel cover.

- Lower edge of the dashboard not correctly radiused (He was quite adament about this so I'm surprised he didn't write it on the list really).

 

I'm pretty happy with that. I've got the bank holiday weekend to get going on it. I also need an MOT next week really. They said that retests are normally arranged within 3 days of requesting one, so I reckon that a couple of weeks is the maximum to get it all done and dusted. I'll get that speedo sent off for re-conditioning asap.

 

My overall impression was that of a very very fair test indeed. I can't fault them. The bottom line is that it was never going to pass because it wasn't finished. At least half of the fail points were things I simply ran out of time to get done. The others are fair cop really.

 

Moral of the day - "If your car ain't finished then you can only be surprised by how little it fails on". Either that or "Tight deadlines are often missed" ;-)

 

Sleep time.

 

Ant

[Guest daveg]

Ant

 

Well done

 

Good luck on the re-test, although you don't really need any luck

 

Dave

With my luck I will be finished right at the end of summer

[Guest Angel Boy]

Ant,

Congrats on staying awake for so long and writing a post SVA essay

 

Sounds like you had a good time (apart form the obvious blind panic in the morning).

 

Have fun fixing the the "little bits" and good luck on the retest.

 

Andy

[Guest Guy]

Ant,

 

Thanks for that report! it made good reading!

 

I's good to see all the fail points, as I read them I think - "hang on, mines like that" and I make a mentle note to sort it. I have visions of them just laughing at my car and sending me away and telling me to start again!

[Guest SteveL]

Hi Ant

 

Congrats on the fail! Seems like there's not much more to do now to get it on the road!

 

Steve

[Guest neil gale]

Ant

 

Congrats mate, hope it doesnt take too long to get her on the road.

Hope some of my fail points helped, though you sounded a bit rushed in the last 2 days!

 

Almost finished fixing my failure points, so its time for #2

 

Neil.

[Guest Ant]

Here's my list after a bank holiday of working on it:

 

- Fit brackets to support the handbrake cables away from the rear springs

- Radius the windscreen pillars

- Fit the re-calibrated speedo (took it to Richfield speedograph today)

- Move the heater further back so that the speedo cable has a smoother route into the gauge (Richfield reckon that this was causing the erratic behaviour as it's not erratic on their machines!)

- Fit a perspex cover to the gauges on the dash

- Fit vinyl covered plastic pipe to the bottom of the dash

- Get a replacement handbrake sleeve from a scrappy (I've lost the original one - or thrown it out)

- Fit 6 more nut caps to cycle wing bracket bolts (I ran out - order about to be placed)

- Fit an interior mirror

- Move the offside mirror (may be borrowing the Derby / Notts "Pass your sva" mirror for this)

- Bend up the locking tabs on the upper steering column joint

- move the speedo cable away from the accelerator pedal

- Tie up the wiring behind the dash to keep it off the gearbox cover

 

Hopefully re-test end of next week, or early the week after. Depends on how the evenings go this week. I'm hoping for an MOT early next week too.

 

Ant

 

PS - rushed wasn't the word, but I have no regrets. If I'd made everything SVA ready I would still have failed on the speedo at least, and I'd have done far more than the tester has actually asked me to do!

 

PPS - Compare lists? What have you got left Neil?

[Guest neil gale]

Ant

 

Ive secured all the wiring, raised the fog lamps and radiused the edges, centred the steering wrack so neither wheel arch hits the side, bent over the tabs on the steering column, made some better tie bar covers, and fitted some nice bits of rubber over my bonnet catches.

 

Remaining tasks are to radius a few edges at the front, and im still waiting for the documentary evidence fron RH, hope it arrives today!!!

(may have to relocate my inner seat belt mount tonight or tomorrow night)

 

Should be finished by friday, then i can book a test for early next week, and get an MOT the same day if theres time?

 

Neil.

[Guest bloke]

nice report

 

not started building yet and my 'list' is growing every day!!!

 

sounds like your havin fun

[Guest DaveB]

Hi Ant

 

Well done with test seeing the time you had to get ready I think you done very well, great report. Can you give a bit more info on the steering column locking tabs I havent seen any on mine where are they.

 

Dave B

[Guest Ant]

On mine there are four tabs, two next to each bolt head. These are on the RHE shaft, above the upper universal joint, where it clamps onto the bottom of the triangular column shaft. They're a git to get to, but I've now bent them over to lock the bolt heads in place. If ever I have to undo this it will be somewhat difficult!

 

Ant

[Guest DaveB]

Thanks Ant

 

I will have a look.

 

Dave