Sva Test

[Guest Simon M]

After 13 months of isolation in my garage I've done it! Got to wait till Friday afternoon though to register & license it at Maidstone DVLA.

 

Left home at 7:05 on a bright sunny day. When I stopped for fuel before leaving Maidstone I noticed steam rising from the bonnet grills- oh dear!! Opened up the bonnet & found it wasn't steam but smoke! Fortunately it was only remnants of masking tape stuck to the heat wrap on the 4 into 1 manifold burning off. Should be gone after the drive to the station.

 

Arrived at Gillingham at 7:40 & -BIG- Dave Clark showed up at 8:05.

After a visual all round Dave tried to get in. Putting his full 20+ stone weight on the wheel managed to slip in, commenting that the Ford wheel doesn't leave much room- I agreed trying to avoid getting into a conversation about changing it for a non approved one. Then he tried to get out, well I hoped my column fixings weren't going to be subjected to a destructive test...

 

My HT leads were not marked "supressed" as req'd, but I had a copy of a brochure showing that they were, another tester commented that this was a very common failure point. Another worry was the design weights incorrectly specified by RHE, but I managed to get a note from Gina

 

He had no balls.. to check for sharp edges inside or out, but did comment that everything seamed well protected with covers & edge trim so no problems there. Then it was up on the lift after which he commented that everything underneath looks good, nothing fouling or rubbing. Although the lights got thru an MOT they were now miss-aligned but with a couple of nudges from his big hands they were OK.

 

Emissions, speedo, brakes, test drive, mirrors & noise all passed. Dave praised my efforts in that I'd obviously taken care & checked everything thoroughly, before submitting it for test.

 

He went away to do the paper work, 15mins later presented me with the MAC & a photocopy!

 

My advice to anyone else approaching the big day is to read the manual carefully & try to cover all aspects. I'm very grateful during my build to have been able to ask 100's of other Hoodies for solutions to problems that inevitably crop up.

 

See you soon at some future events

Simon

[Guest TerryBarry]

Hi Simon,

 

Good on Yer

 

Just shows it can be done

 

Cheers

 

Terry

[Les Welsher]

well done Simon,

roll on friday and plenty of nice weather

 

Les

[Guest Guy]

Thanks for the report, very interesting.

 

After having only just got my copy of the SVA manual (and read it!) I wish I'd got it ages ago.

 

Congrats and all that

[Mitch]

Well done Simon.

Lets hope it's a long and dry summer.

Told you Gina would get you the weights letter

Mitch