One day, I'd love to be a photographer.
In the meantime, here are some shots from my mangled phone camera...
First stop after leaving the house. Nothing had fallen off, but the speedo, which had been bouncing around violently, had ceased to work.
I wasn't bothered because that's not an MOT failure, and my fixation was on getting an MOT.
I filled the washer bottle up with fluid, as per Chris's advice. Some guys at the petrol station asked me questions about it, and rather than feeling irritated (my usual emotion in this situation), I felt pretty good because what was sitting in there, in the sun, was something that I had largely assembled myself. At least the bits you could see. And it looked really good.
My MOT test was booked for 3pm at Sandhurst MOT Centre. A mechanic friend recommended it to me as they are good with old cars.
I arrived, dropped the car off, went and bought a sandwich and a newspaper. And two packs of cookies. I ate the sandwich whilst walking down the road looking for a bench to sit in the sun and read the paper.
Eventually I found a bench in the shade, where I read the paper, trying to work out whether to vote in or out on Brexit, and freezing my bollocks off. I ate one of the packs of cookies which made me feel sick. After 40 minutes I still couldn't decide whether I wanted to stay in the EU or not, so I went to check up on the car.
It turns out they hadn't started the test as they didn't know what to enter into the computer for the date of first registration. The California title for the car shows date of 1st reg as 00/00/1968, which doesn't work on the MOT system, so we opted for 01/01/1968. After my 72T, the total lack of history on this car feels kind of weird.
(Later in the day, an insurance card fell out of the owners handbook showing the previous owner's details - a man's name and a lady's name. A quick internet search showed the guy had died in 2010, and that the lady was his wife, who he had married in 1991 in Nevada. Anyway...)
With the registration date thing solved, the test started, and I was nervous.
Minutes later, the tester found the first problem...
Arsehats. I painted these myself, three years ago at Gray's house in San Ramon, just after buying the car. Now the paint was all over the place. The inside of the wheel looked like a Jackson Pollock. Seems I hadn't tightened the union properly.
Amazingly, the garage grabbed some brake hose spanners and let me fix it. Whilst it was up on the ramp, it was nice to see the underside of the car from a distance - 'mint' according to a guy that was working there, who took pictures on his phone. Pictures that were probably better than mine (I tried to take a picture but pressed the video button by mistake).
https://youtu.be/lDOkgJKEnIY
With the leaky brake union sorted and re-checked, the test went on.
And on.
And eventually, £35 later, I had a certificate. Best value for money spend on the car so far!
And I drove it home the long route. People waved, and gave me thumbs up etc, and I felt like the boss.
