Awoke at 05:00 this morning, not really my time of day, half an hour before the alarm and felt terrible, however I never could get going until about 11:00 and several coffees so that was not a surprise. A quick cuppa and a bite to eat, loaded up the L200 and at about 06:30 Thomas and I set off, me in the Cobra, Thomas in the L200. After about ooh! 200 yds I decided I needed to put my jacket on, so I surprised Thomas and stopped.

From there on in I was constantly listening for creaks, knocks and hisses but none transpired. It did however seem to be getting colder!! Several times going past lay-by’s I thought about stopping and getting in the nice warm L200, but I persevered and we eventually got to Gillingham VOSA at about 07:20 – for an 08:00 appointment.

As nothing really had gone wrong we had nothing to do but wait – my nerves were at this point on edge to say the least and Thomas and I sat in silence.......

At about 08:00 we were asked to come outside and the 4 hour test started, within a minute we had failed as the doors did not latch in two stages, I thought that was it but the test continued and we had a very good morning with a very friendly and supportive examiner. The guy had been transferred from Derby (I think) as Gillingham had a backlog and he knew the (in)famous Dave Brooks who had given me so much great advice on the car.

We then went through every stage of the test and ended up with a list of what the examiner said were minor fails. Although some may cause me some aggravation over the coming days and weeks.
OK here's the full list -

Washer pipe came off bottle under pressure.
Space between chassis and floor needs filling (under seats)
Seat belt mountings require evidence of strength
Gear knob not radiused to 3.2mm
Indicators and hazards inoperative - (he saw them all working early in the test)
Door latches only single stage closing
Contactable edges less than 2.5 mm (rear reflectors, air ducts on side)
Wiring into boot lid needs a grommet
Wiring to rear fog lamp needs protecting
Wiring under dash uninsulated passing over sharp edge
Wiring behind centre console needs securing and tidying
Steering column mounts no locks on nuts
Excessive movement on steering column
Fuel line to carb needs re-routing
Exhaust holes in body too small
Front indicator wiring not restrained
Speedo sensor wiring insecure
Rear fuel hose needs evidence of suitability
Battery cable requires protection
Park brake inoperative on off side
Speedo erratic above 40 mph

Nothing drastic I think, we knew about the cabling issues and the steering column.

Noise test was 95Db with standard Dax exhausts, steering self centering was OK, brakes were fine apart from parking brake on one side, emissions were ok (off side was close to limit though)

The problems are -

The parking brake because it's a pain to get too.
The erratic speedo because it wasn't on the way there and we now have it calibrated.
The door catches as they are standard Dax ones.
Seat belt mountings unless I can get a statement from Dax they are ok on this range of chassis.