vauxhallviva.com

Finally I have got around to working on this car. I've been meaning to for ages but I've not had time.

This was it when I got it.


A couple of weeks ago Paul B came over to help me start the job.

We did a lot.... sorting out the brakes which although they looked fantastic were all stuck together. We managed to free the clutch and it moved under it's own steam for the first time since the 80s. The guy who owned the car from new was in the Royal Engineers - and it shows. He looked after it meticulously and did some really clever modifications. I'll stick photos of these on here later.

The brakes looked perfect. They had obviously been done before the car was laid up, but the rubbers had stuck in all the psitons, so we went to replace the slave cylinders only to find he had replaced the back plates with those from a newer HC - so the parts wouldn't fit! So we renovated the old ones and refitted. All works perfectly!

Anyway here's a bad photo of us cleaning it from nearly 25 years worth of dust and crud.


The car is solid in all the important places. Some scabby bits at the bottom of the NS front wing and rear wing behind the wheel. Everything else is amazing. He coated everything in either wayoyl or some other preservative which I've never come across before but it forms like a brown hard coating. He's done everything, even under the carpet.

Today I had a very unannounced day off - a meeting was cancelled and I was at a loose end. So out with the car!

Did the inside. Not much to do to be fair other than clean but it's like a little time capsule. All carpets intact, seats perfect, so is the dash etc.

Front


This is the mods etc he's done to the dash. The clock is really neat. You can see fog light switches on the dash (one for each side?) and the gooseneck map light. What you can't see is how he has made metal fixtures and other things which have improved the original design. he was really clever at this stuff.


What I have to do next is get some tyres, get an MOT and drive it to Billing!

Paint is rough but it will do for now.

He also kept a logbook of everything he did - meticulously again. Even down to what day he did something, what he did, how much he paid for it etc. I have labels off old tyres saying what side they were on, when bought, how many miles etc... amazing detail.

Been a good day. Just hope I can do some more over the weekend.

Bugger you got a pic of me washing the car, thought i said no publicity else i want royalties

Oh yeah!!! Forgot. I'll send you the 50p later. Cheque OK?

Washing it was the easy bit - apart from me accidentally soaking you! Thanks again for all your help.

mazzo wrote:Oh yeah!!! Forgot. I'll send you the 50p later. Cheque OK?

Washing it was the easy bit - apart from me accidentally soaking you! Thanks again for all your help.

Don't worry I have not forgotten the bucket of water over me!! The canal looks nice doesn't it Mazzo!!!

Theres a nice big river at Billing Paul

That clock looks amazing.

Peter

Nice one Maz....will be looking out for you on the local roads !!.
Cheers Tony.

PASSED MOT!!



First time it has been driven on the road since 1991. Drove really well and sailed through the MOT. Again, comment was that the brakes were better than many modern cars. I am quite chuffed to say the least. One advisory which is about rust on the sill - except it isn't the sill it's the bottom of the front wing. Anyway, it is solid but will be sorted before it is resprayed - whenever that will be........

So thanks again to Paul for helping me get there and I look forward to bringing it to Billing.

Next stage is to sort out the road tax on Wednesday and get it changed to Historic and not PLG. Thankfully we still have a DVLA office locally.

Excellent, looks like you got a good car there.

Peter

well done. its always a good feeling when the car passes the mot.
main prob is the garages-they are supposed to be a bit lenient on the tests, but half of them dont know what the car is when you take it in...

Yes, you're right. In the past I've gone to MOT places where the guy has put the probe up the exhaust and I've said "Why are you doing that?" and he said "Testing emissions mate...." No idea.

Oddly enough, the guy who did the car at the weekend was a young and new-ish tester, so he was really checking everything carefully, almost by the book, but he said "There was a guy on my MOT course who had one of these.... " and apparently because they'd got into conversation with the class, they'd discussed the differences in testing modern and classic vehicles. He certainly was thorough but at the same time, as I said in the earlier post, really quite complimentary about the brakes.

So the net result is I trust this garage and if they say something needs looking at before the next MOT, I do look at it and sort it. If they fail something (which they've never done on any of the Vivas but have on my normal car) then it is spot on. They are fair but never let anything go through that shouldn't. I think the reason why the Vivas have never failed is the amount of work I do on them pre MOT whereas I do nothing for my normal car!

We also had a chat about the pre-60s cars being exempt from statutory MOTs. I'm not sure it's a good idea and neither did they. Maybe make them every other year, like they do in Ireland, but not never. The concern was that some people will just drive 1950's heaps that shouldn't be on the road and it won't be until a major accident happens that they revoke it. In theory, you could drag it out of a barn and have it on the road that day more or less!

Probably a longer answer than I meant to do but this MOT thing is interesting. Particularly the new standard that fails on any of the rubber caps on balljoints being split etc. Much harsher, yet pre 60s cars could be held together with duck tape and still be on the road! Still, you can always have an MOT if you want one - so if they did that for our cars (made it non compulsory) I think for peace of mind, I'd have mine done every couple of years just to feel happier.

I've just hijacked my own thread!