Discussion
So I leapt out of bed, knowing that I had only about five hours to extract the TVR from the depths of Wedg1e's Workshop and get it along to Big John the MOT man. There's a bit of rigmarole involved:
Open garage door (easy bit).
Move wheelie bin.
Drag engine stand bearing Esprit engine to place where bin was.
Similarly extract Esprit transmission.
Move spare 150L compressor and Workmate to side of drive.
Move trolley-jacks.
Fire up TVR.
Push engineless Exprit (uphill) out of drive and leave it hovering above public road as it has no tax
. Mind you, neither is it strictly a 'motor vehicle' at the moment, so phuck 'em.
Reverse TVR through slalom of equipment stacked in drive.
Put sundry equipment in garage.
Push Esprit back down drive, ensuring (a) it runs over your foot at least once (b) you park it so close to the fence that you can't get the door open.
Put TVR back on drive.
Now, I knew there were one or two things I'd been meaning to do to the TVR for months... but I couldn't remember what they were. What did concern me was the potential for the emissions to be a bit... er.... hmmm... due to my mods to the injection system.
So I got the CO meter out and warmed the TVR up. Then I realised the exhaust was blowing. Of course, that was one of the jobs
So out came the MIG set, which was parked at the back of the workshop and necessitated moving most of the things I'd already put back in.
I fired up the air grinder and dressed the pipe back to... a nice filigree lace pattern. Ah.
A patch was duly fashioned from me Julie's old chastity belt (they don't make 'em like they used to) and I set to with the MIG. Somewhere in the process I became aware of oil running down my neck, and that reminded me of another little job. Still haven't got to the bottom of that leak; I think it's around the oil pressure takeoff...
A quick rattle of the suspension confirmed that the usual suspects were as tired as ever, with the entertaining addition of a midgie's dick of play in the n/s rear wheel bearing.
The handbrake was its usual comedic self, so I adjusted it up again in the sure and certain knowledge that by tomorrow night it'll be the same as it's always been: slacker than an ex-wife.
A quick flash/wash/honk confirmed the presence of an electrical system and with minutes to spare I slammed the garage door (OK, so I pressed the remote button, but I did it hard, for effect
) and shot off. Well actually no, I didn't 'shoot off' as such; in fact no bodily functions were performed whatsoever outside the remit of mirror/signal/manoeuvre...
So anyway, I 'made progress' in a Big John-ward direction, taking every opportunity to stand hard on the brakes to clean some of the crud off the discs and make it look like the damn car actually does something other than impede my progress between house and lathe.
Arriving more-or-less at the appointed hour, BJ took the vehicle details and tapped them into his computer. To be fair, BJ isn't noted for his 'tapping' and it was more like 'punching', but I digress.
The DVLA (or is it VOSA?) struggles with the Wedge: if you didn't know it was descended from the Tasmin you'd never find it on their system.
Once identified, the printer produced a prescription and Dr. John reached for his stethoscope and black bag.
The next 45 minutes was a blur of activity. Apparently.
I sat in the sun and ate pies
At the end of it BJ mumbled something about "notseenbrakesthatwoodensincechariotswereabolished" or some such, but handed me the fabled document.
Meanwhile, I was entertained by two gentlemen (not of Verona), merrily undertaking a diff. swap on an XJ6. One guy was clearly a mechanic of the old school, the other was clearly the village idiot. Sorry, apprentice. The funny thing was that, having dropped the entire rear suspension on its carrier beam and rolled it over backwards to work on the diff, they'd somehow convinced themselves that the axle had been reversed right-to-left and were carefully arranging the dismantled parts to the (wrong) sides of the car for reassembly...
Open garage door (easy bit).
Move wheelie bin.
Drag engine stand bearing Esprit engine to place where bin was.
Similarly extract Esprit transmission.
Move spare 150L compressor and Workmate to side of drive.
Move trolley-jacks.
Fire up TVR.
Push engineless Exprit (uphill) out of drive and leave it hovering above public road as it has no tax
. Mind you, neither is it strictly a 'motor vehicle' at the moment, so phuck 'em. Reverse TVR through slalom of equipment stacked in drive.
Put sundry equipment in garage.
Push Esprit back down drive, ensuring (a) it runs over your foot at least once (b) you park it so close to the fence that you can't get the door open.
Put TVR back on drive.
Now, I knew there were one or two things I'd been meaning to do to the TVR for months... but I couldn't remember what they were. What did concern me was the potential for the emissions to be a bit... er.... hmmm... due to my mods to the injection system.
So I got the CO meter out and warmed the TVR up. Then I realised the exhaust was blowing. Of course, that was one of the jobs
So out came the MIG set, which was parked at the back of the workshop and necessitated moving most of the things I'd already put back in.
I fired up the air grinder and dressed the pipe back to... a nice filigree lace pattern. Ah.
A patch was duly fashioned from me Julie's old chastity belt (they don't make 'em like they used to) and I set to with the MIG. Somewhere in the process I became aware of oil running down my neck, and that reminded me of another little job. Still haven't got to the bottom of that leak; I think it's around the oil pressure takeoff...
A quick rattle of the suspension confirmed that the usual suspects were as tired as ever, with the entertaining addition of a midgie's dick of play in the n/s rear wheel bearing.
The handbrake was its usual comedic self, so I adjusted it up again in the sure and certain knowledge that by tomorrow night it'll be the same as it's always been: slacker than an ex-wife.
A quick flash/wash/honk confirmed the presence of an electrical system and with minutes to spare I slammed the garage door (OK, so I pressed the remote button, but I did it hard, for effect
) and shot off. Well actually no, I didn't 'shoot off' as such; in fact no bodily functions were performed whatsoever outside the remit of mirror/signal/manoeuvre... So anyway, I 'made progress' in a Big John-ward direction, taking every opportunity to stand hard on the brakes to clean some of the crud off the discs and make it look like the damn car actually does something other than impede my progress between house and lathe.
Arriving more-or-less at the appointed hour, BJ took the vehicle details and tapped them into his computer. To be fair, BJ isn't noted for his 'tapping' and it was more like 'punching', but I digress.
The DVLA (or is it VOSA?) struggles with the Wedge: if you didn't know it was descended from the Tasmin you'd never find it on their system.
Once identified, the printer produced a prescription and Dr. John reached for his stethoscope and black bag.
The next 45 minutes was a blur of activity. Apparently.
I sat in the sun and ate pies
At the end of it BJ mumbled something about "notseenbrakesthatwoodensincechariotswereabolished" or some such, but handed me the fabled document.
Meanwhile, I was entertained by two gentlemen (not of Verona), merrily undertaking a diff. swap on an XJ6. One guy was clearly a mechanic of the old school, the other was clearly the village idiot. Sorry, apprentice. The funny thing was that, having dropped the entire rear suspension on its carrier beam and rolled it over backwards to work on the diff, they'd somehow convinced themselves that the axle had been reversed right-to-left and were carefully arranging the dismantled parts to the (wrong) sides of the car for reassembly...
wedg1e said:
The DVLA (or is it VOSA?) struggles with the Wedge: if you didn't know it was descended from the Tasmin you'd never find it on their system.
Took mine in yesterday and uncle Frank, 65 years old and 50 years in the trade had much the same problem, in fact I ended up doing the keyboard work, funny thing was once we found my Tasmin, 400se 1992 J reg and printed out the details the system says it was first reg 30-12- 92. ?? (j reg??) Swansea reg docs say 8-1-92, TVR says same thing. So the DVLA and the VOSA system dont talk to each other ???
Its worth knowing you find Wedges under Tasmin saves alot of p1ssing around, glad you got it through wedg1e, now all you have to do is get it back in the garage
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