IVA Remedial Work Part 2...

So the previous post was about all the easy fixes. This one... not so much.

So the few days leading up to the third MoT, the left cycle wing fell off. Not ideal, and lucky it happened whilst only in the workshop because you can't remove it completely until you split the top wishbone, which you can't really do at the side of the road very easily!

Once I'd got it off the car you could see what happened -all the jiggling around had caused a fatigue right on the join, at the end of my finger here:

With it cleaned up by the grinder you could see where the cracks were, not much material left holding it together:
 

Still, no problem for me and my trusty welder:

Good as new, if not better

 I welded the other side as well as that was showing the same signs of failure; then gave them a coat of hammerite and put them back.
 
So they're back on the car, but I'm still not happy with how they are sat or how strong they are. Plus they both have twisted slightly during the process (even though I was careful to keep the heat down so they wouldn't distort) and generally don't look too clever. So I think a re-design is in order once all this IVA business is out of the way.

Another job on the to-do list is to do away with the ignition key - it's started the whole E36 ignition-barrel-key-death-problem and sometimes won't turn and gets jammed in the lock. I have a cunning plan involving the push-button start, but more on that later. 

So off to my friendly MoT station again for the third time. I booked an hour slot at 8am solely to sort out the handbrake - I thought it would be just adjustment and a quick check on the rolling road, so an hour should be fine... how wrong was I !!!?

Enjoyable trip getting there though:

Arrived. Car looking good and I was of course still beaming. Yes I know the headlights are cross-eyed they keep vibrating loose! Need some spring washers on them.

Didn't get too many pics after this point, when you're using someone else's garage and their time, can't waste it by pratting around with a camera.

Before I continue though, let's talk braking efforts and efficiencies. I've learned a lot about them in the past week!!

The brake rollers measure/display kg (I'm assuming they actually measure or convert to kgfm e.g. kilogram force-metre which is a measure of torque), and they tell the operator how much torque or resistance the brakes are generating when applied.

The kg of braking effort can then be related to the weight (in kg) of the vehicle, which determines how much momentum the brakes have to stop. So with everything in the same units, the calculation is relatively straightforward to get braking efficiency

brake eff. [%] = TOTAL braking effort recorded [kg] / Gross Vehicle Design Weight [kg] x 100

My Legend GVDW is 1,000 kg so the calcs are nice and easy.

On the first IVA the handbrake efforts were 80kg and 85kg, so

brake eff = ((80+85) / 1000) * 100 = 16.5%.

Remember, 18% is the pass criteria for IVA (16% for an MoT annoyingly, and the handbrake seems to work fine in "normal" driving conditions)

So, we need to achieve at least 90kg on each side to get a pass. Not too difficult, or so I thought...

The night before this attempt I took the pads out and roughed them up with some 180grit  glass paper, and did the same on the discs with the car spinning them idling in 2nd gear - it was clear they were nowhere near bedded in as the discs still had their factory machining marks on and the pads were glazed - that's hardly surprising because everything is brand new and I've done the grand total of about 20miles in the thing.

So, on the rollers, first try, for a baseline reading, it was 74kg and 79kg for each side. So, actually worse than IVA result, not great.

First off we tried just adjusting up the cable, as the lever was getting close to max travel. It came up a bit, low 80's, but still not great.

Then the MoT chap pointed out that the handbrake lever, although perfectly centred in the chassis, was pulling one of the cables unevenly and it was flexing and "splaying" outwards - so I would be losing a bit of effort via that. So we re-positioned the handbrake in the chassis to pull the cables better, instead of pointing at the gearstick at 12 o'clock it's now about 20past 1; but that's OK beacuse it should work better.

With this mod, still no real improvement. And that point his next appointment turned up so it was time to draw stumps. He was fully booked that day, but he said that if I hung around we could get it sorted, albeit using the gaps between tests. Better than trying it on your own, plus I needed the brake rollers to test for efficiency anyway; so I agreed. 

The next thing we did, pulling the car on and off the ramp in the 15min gaps between MoTs, was to take the actuator arms off the callipers and move them round a few splines - adjusting the cables to be tight was only taking the slack out of the calliper mechanism and pulling on the handbrake meant it was hitting its stops, so not getting the full effect of the travel. I did take these off when I painted the callipers originally, but I was careful to mark everything with punch holes, but perhaps they could have gone back wrong.

Once more, no real improvement in efficiency; but now a lot more feel to the handbrake - we might be getting somewhere.

When they finally closed at 1pm the tester (who is a lovely guy) pledged to stay on and give me his full attention. He really wanted me to drive out of there with it all sorted, and has been following my progress since the start, after this I owe him a beer or two for all his help.

After closing time - the only car in the garage

So we set to it - the last obvious improvement was the lever itself - in fairness, it didn't look that strong; it's only made of 2mm pressed steel and was flexing quite a lot. So we took it right out of the car and drilled out the big rivet in the pivot point and put an M12 bolt and some huge penny washers in there. It did stop it flexing which was great. We then put it back together de-greased the discs just in case there was any contaminant on there and put it back on the rollers.

Adjusted up the cables and:

Nearside:
 

95kg...

135kg

 90+135 = 22.5%. Great! Or was it...?

We re-tested it straight away to be sure, and it was back down again to mid 80s. Plus,  I wasn't convinced that the pads weren't binding - so we jacked it up and they did feel quite stiff.

So after all that effort, pretty much back at square one...

This was about 3pm now, and I felt really bad about taking up his time; so for one last ditch attempt we put it back on the rollers and spun them both up with the handbrake half on - trying to bed in the pads.

I then slackened everyting off, adjusted up the cables until the rollers were just able read a dragging force; and by pulling quite hard, I was just about able to get 90 for both sides on the dial, and two 90's means 18%, or a pass. That would just have to do then.

Somewhat dejected, I left; and despite all his effort he only charged me an hour's labour. What a thoroughly nice chap and if anyone wants the name of a diamond-geezer MoT inspector in Plymouth, let me know. 

So I to cheer me up a little I thought about taking the long way home. That was until I started to smell brake pads!!!! Disaster; the pads were binding and got quite hot - scorched the discs and even the wheels themselves were warm to the touch. Luckily I had the requisite tools with me, and so pulled into a petrol station and slackened them off a few turns. This is not going well!!

To try and salvage some sort of fun out of what was quite a miserable day, I stopped off at home on the way to the workshop and picked up Emma, and we went out for what was quite a cheeky semi-legit 20min drive around the lanes. 

It was worth it because I did feel a bit more love for the car after it caused me a day's worth of grief!! Not really done any fast B-road driving in it up until that point, but WOW it was awesome. I don't believe I've driven anything that handles as well as that, it is literally perfect. Really can't wait to get it finished!!

Legend 6 vs my Evo X - both very fast but vastly different experiences!

Well then, the re-test is on Wednesday, so we'll see what that brings. I've left the gaiter off the handbrake, and my plan is to just put it on the rollers, see what happens, and if it's low on efficiency screw it up a few turns...


For reference, I found out the weight earlier this week, had to do battle with VOSA once more, who were only prepared to fax (yes that's right, fax... what's that now?) me the data sheet with the weights on. But on its own its kerb weight is 740kg (370+370, perfect 50/50 weight distribution) and with me in 840kg (395+445) and I know that's correct because I do weigh 100kg exactly!

Let's see what happens later this week then... The only place left from here is a complete re-think on the handbrake, perhaps using a different lever and cables? Maybe the setup from the car that the callipers are from? (Golf mk3)

IVA Remedial Work Part 1

Hello all

Thought it was time for an update. I've just about fixed everything now (see part 2 for the one thing that's caused me a lot of grief!)

So to recall the things it failed IVA on were:

1) Mirrors x 3 didn't give correct field of vision
2) Lock nuts on brake and clutch rods loose
3) Handbrake efficiency 16.5% achieved, needs to be 18%
4) N/S/F cycle wing bracket sharp edge
5) Rear upper seat belts sharp edge
6) Headlamps out of alignment (already passed at station)
7) O/S/R suspension wishbone lock nut insecure
8) accelerator lock nut loose
9) Bolts too short on steering column bush
10) Wiring chaffing with fuel pipe


1) Mirrors x 3 didn't give correct field of vision

 The interior mirror needed some sort of wedge shape to make it sit level on the sloping scuttle. So I made one out of epoxy GRP and bolted it on with slightly longer bolts



 

Wedge shape (left) longer bolts and mirror right

That, of course then meant the lovely chromed mirror sat ever so slightly above the 10mm sharp-edge projection limit, so to finish off I covered the whole thing with self-adhesive foam and insulation tape. Looks dreadful, but it should pass. And might fall off after the test

Exterior mirrors just needed moving upwards a bit. Many thanks to Dave Rodgman who sent me the equivalent photo from his car to give me a hint as to where they need to be.

Works like a treat now - all 3 mirrors have great visibility, although they do stick out a bit like rabbits ears - I remember now why I had them down low. Ah well, maybe I'll get used to it, or perhaps get some different mirrors in the future.  

I did the full test from the manual, that's cones at the height of themirror 10m offsite, 20m nearside, and 60m from the rear of the centre; and you can see everything you need to which is great.


2) Lock nuts on brake and clutch rods loose

Easy enough - 5mins with the spanners and the paint pen and they were all sorted.





3) Handbrake efficiency 16.5% achieved, needs to be 18%  

See blog part 2!!

 4) N/S/F cycle wing bracket sharp edge

Again, another easy one, just some edging trim glued and zip tied on. only the nearside was picked up, but I've done both sides the same in case the next examiner decides to be funny about it!

 5) Rear upper seat belts sharp edge

Dubious one this, but as it's a relatively easy one, not worth the argument. Nut covers were already there, but glued on some edging trim. Quite tricky to fold it into that shape, but with some fettling it was achievable.

 6) Headlamps out of alignment (already passed at station)

Sorted

 
7) O/S/R suspension wishbone lock nut insecure

Another easy one with my 19mm spanner. This one I blame the 4 wheel alignment place for!!! Although my fault for not checking the "professional's" workmanship.

8) accelerator lock nut loose

See pic 2).  came under a different failure category on the sheet hence the bullet point.




9) Bolts too short on steering column bush

Mustn't have taken a pic of this, but instead of using M8 x 35mm I've just M8 x 60mm. A bit overkill but that's all I had in stock, and they can't fail it for being too long.

 
10) Wiring chaffing with fuel pipe

Again, a bit picky I think, but wasn't too difficult to sort out. 

Before:

After:

 Note that before the pipes and wires were clipped together, they're now seperated, inside
  conduits, and secured seperately.

Now see part 2 for the less easy bits!!!!

IVA Failure Points (Pics)

As promised, pics of all the failure points.


1 - Mirrors - obligatory mirror must provide the required field of view.

Just need  to alter the position of the mirrors slightly

2 - Service brake control

lock nuts insecure, tighten them up




3 - Parking Brake performance must be 18% (16.5% achieved)

With a bit of luck, just adjustment

 4 - Exterior projections

a) N/S/F cycle wing sharp edge

Ouch! Careful Steve! Mind those lethal sharp edges, you might hurt yourself. Withdraw your finger!

 b) rear seatbelt mounts (dubious this one)

Both just in need of some edging trim. 

5 - headlamps (PRS - Passed and/or rectified at station).

6 -  General construction

a) loose lock nut on top wishbone

b) loose locknut on accel pedal

7 - Steering shaft bearing housing locking devices not fulfilling their function

bolts too short - replace with longer ones

8 - Fuel and electrical components secure and not subject to things* that will cause premature failure

*shortened to "things" as it was a massive list.

Need to have a look at this

And that's it. Already sorted the short bolts and started buying shares in the edging trim industry. Not too bad all told.

In other (great) news, the re-test is booked for the 4th June, so plenty of time to get things sorted and not too long to wait. Hurrah.

First IVA Test - narrow Fail

IVA test – Blow by blow. 

 It was a bit of a mission which started in Plymouth at 04:30 – I obviously wanted to avoid being late for my 08:00 test, and with the elements of Land Rover, trailer, car, not 100% sure on directions etc: there was a lot of moving parts in the equation which could be de-risked with an excess of time. The time was about right, as in the end I only had about 40mins of heel kicking time waiting for the station to open!

Having loaded the trailer up the night before, and the disco with all the tools and spares I thought I might need to actually re-build the car from scratch, the morning although early; went quite smoothly. I even had time to break the diet and go for a McBreakfast.

  

I arrived to a bit of a ghost town, and being the only one around didn’t want to just start unloading in case I upset them, so just sat waiting for a bit. I remarked at the inappropriate signage as I sat underneath the “SVA Test Station” sign; although that smirk was later partially revoked when a chap with some bizarre Harley-type bike rocked up next to me and I remembered that for motorcycles, SVA is still the current test. D’oh, maybe I’m in the wrong place then and started wandering around the site looking for the IVA door...

 

"SVA"? What about "IVA"?

I started to unload (funnily enough I work for the same company as motorbike guy and we had a brief chat about that, spurned by us both wearing similar boots that had obviously originated in the same place) and then some of the VOSA staff started to arrive. At this point they confirmed that I would be in the same building, they hadn't yet got the new sign -  so that was a bit of a relief; and perhaps a full revoke of smirk wasn’t necessary after all.

Biker dude has his turn first

The tester then arrived about 1min before 0800 and introduced himself – nice chap from the Manchester VOSA depot as the Exeter guy had been sick for some time – which was part of the problem of me actually getting the test in the first place. Straight away he seemed friendly and approachable so I capitalised on this with some small talk and light humour – definitely worthwhile as it seemed to pay dividends later in the day.

 

Shoes and socks.

 

Bit of a pain but I can’t drive the car in my size 12 gore-tex safety boots. And with the standard steering wheel, even my teeny racing booty slippers make it a bit awkward… so I had to do everything in stocking feet. Which didn’t go down that well with the testers to be fair. But as it’s my car, designed and built for me; not much they can say or do about it other than mercilessly mock me at every opportunity. Which I didn’t mind so much, as it made for a lighter hearted affair.

First up was the obligatory checks – engine, chassis number etc. I was asked to prove all of these things. I used the V5 of the donor to prove the age of the engine (which was accepted as the engine numbers matched, although I photographed the engine number and showed him a print out as it’s a pig to get to – he was very appreciative of that). I then used my GKD invoice to prove the chassis number which was also fine.

 He asked me if I’d seen a copy of the IVA test manual – I showed him my dog-eared, grubby, dirty and thoroughly thumbed through copy; and told him I read it page by page on day 1 and referred to it throughout the build – he was suitably impressed. I think if you take the test (and therefore his job) seriously; you’re on good footing straight away.

 The number plate holder on the rear was too small for his regulation number plate holder, although in fairness it’s designed such that you bend the number plate inwards a bit, and when it “snaps out” straight again it holds it in the corner… but “technically” it was too small. So he just said “got a screwdriver? Just take it off” What a nice chap.

 

Struggling in and out with the lousy bus steering wheel

Going up in the World

Then it was up in the air on the ramp when two of them prodded and poked around underneath. He asked about the speedo drive (presumably because he couldn’t find one) so I told him it was electronically determined from a pulsed output on the diff. He was fine with that. He had a chuckle at my use of expanding foam to seal a panel gap, and asked about my cable tie bases whether they were just stuck on or riveted on (the latter, obviously). I offered to remove one to show him, but he seemed quite happy. It was at this point he spotted the first failure point – one of the locknuts on the wishbone wasn’t done up. Gutted. I blame the 4-wheel alignment place when they altered the camber, but more fool me for not checking. On the way down they broke out the bizarre plastic templates, bits of string tied to spirit levels and plumb bobs etc. I’m familiar with the manual, but they did each test relatively quickly so it wasn’t always obvious what they were testing for; but it all seemed to pass fine and I remembered that I’d mocked up most of the tests myself using the manual as a guide; and they were all fine. The cycle wing coverage was a bit of an issue, they “only just” met the 30°/50° regulation. They used to be fine but then I corrected the castor by flipping the wishbones around and now they rotated back about 5°. But, in his own words “only just is still good enough”, so all good then J

 Then I was let down to ground and he did the speedo calibration check, which it was evidently fine I think (despite my occasional requests for feedback throughout the test you just get a “raised eyebrow” or an “intake of breath through the teeth” so you have to kind of judge as you go really) Taking it up to 70mph, checking every 10mph for accuracy.

 Next up he made me spin it around to the other bay and drive in and do the emissions (which it failed, gutted) and the headlights (which were all over the place, but he let me tweak them until they were right). He did check I’d done them up tight afterwards in a fairly brutal waggling fashion! He told me not worry about the emissions as we’d have another go later on (phew). To be fair, holding the revs precisely at 2500rpm was easier said than done as the engine was wandering quite a lot – I imagine without the extra load of the PAS, Aircon, alternator powering a million amps of heated seats, radio etc. The idle speed controller isn’t quite agile enough to achieve it; so there was a fair bit of minute adjustments to be done, and after 10mins my leg was nearly numb with pain!!

 

Correcting the car's vision... all without glasses or laser eye surgery

 He then did the braking tests. First up the footbrake, which was doing the business pretty well, then the handbrake; which it was clear wasn’t performing anywhere near as good as it should, despite having passed an MoT previously. They then repeat the test with the engine off, presumably to see what happens when the servo fails, but as the legend doesn’t have one; I knew this wouldn’t be a part of the test it could fail on. They then do a check with a kind of “electronic slipper” which is basically a strain gauge he straps to his foot and records the braking effort for various amounts of pedal press. No idea whether the numbers spewing forth from the computer were relatively good or bad, but it seems to pass OK. Handbrake was a fail though, 16.5% recorded against a minimum of 18%. He also commented on the fact that I “haven’t really got a bias bar” which is sort of true in that it doesn’t look like the traditional one, but you could technically alter the brake bias by lengthening or shortening the stroke on the respective master cylinder actuators. I wasn’t going to correct him though as he seemed quite happy :-)

 

Don't BRAKE it, please

A Weighty Issue

 

After that he made me drive it over to the other side of the station where there was a weighbridge – the most antiquated you’ve seen in your life, balancing little weights on levers and sliding scales. To say the VOSA station at Exeter is somewhat in need of investment is something of an understatement for sure! I couldn’t hear what the weight was for axle 1, but for axle 2 I heard it was 347kg without me in it. I’ll find another weighbridge on my own some time and finish the job off.

It was then back to the original test station and whilst they went for a cup of tea he asked for the panel above the fuel tank to be removed as he wanted to see how the fuel tank was held in and earthed. I half expected this and thus I used self-tappers to hold the floor in, which paid dividends as it was only a 5mins job. As it was bolted through the top he was happy about both; but he then did point out where I’d routed the wiring loom and fuel pipe close together that was a fail. Fair cop I spose, fuel pipes chafing through a wire that then leaks and shorts out would be bad news in years to come.

He then did the noise test (99dBA, so a pass... just!) and he took it for a spin round the centre, I presume to check self-centring and such. When he came back he revealed that the mirrors were all fairly ineffective, the “interior” mirror showing mostly sky and the exterior having insufficient adjustment and only seeing about 1/3 view as a big orange cycle wing. Again, fair shout really. I’m much taller than he was they were just about OK, but on the lowest adjustment. I’ll have to think about re-mounting those. He then asked me to “give it some beans” around the centre to get the temperature up and re-try for the emissions. As I suspected it passed 2^nd time around, much the same as it was on the MoT. I think the cat really needs to be red-hot before it becomes effective, more so on this car for some reason. In future it shouldn’t be too much of an issue as I’ll be driving it to and fro MoTs, just at the moment it’s trailered everywhere or only does short journeys, which as we all know isn’t the best for a cat.

 After his final look around the car he spotted a few sharp edges, nuts worked loose, and a nut too short for its nyloc on the steering column.

Result - Deferred Success

I feel that he was very fair overall – he wasn’t overly picky; nor was he going through the test manual page by page like I thought he might. In fact, his prompt of “stuff to test” on VOSA headed paper, was one side of A4, with similar(ish) categories to the MoT test from what I could see of it. He gave me a decent chance to put things right during the test, and it was only when it came to the mirrors and handbrake. E.g. things that might take longer then ½ hr to rectify; that he basically drew stumps. Had I not had those, everything else was either tightening nuts or putting edging trim on; which I could have done. Slightly gutted though, as I could have been the first straight-through GKD pass!!

I’ll post up a separate update with the failure points and photos on shortly.