Well, here we are. We have number plates now painted on and the tax disc stuck in place, so this afternoon, myself and Andy were out buzzing around Blean and Boughton-Under-Blean.

Andy now agrees with me that there is a bit of an un-nerving vibration from the engine as you hit the top of 3rd and bottom of 4th, which we will need to diagnose and sort, plus there is a bit of a list of stuiff to "de-snag" over the next few weeks.

The dynamo, for one, plus the "frotteurs" (friction dampers in the ends of each axle tube) are rather stiff, so will need to be taken out, slackened off a tad, and re-fitted. Some new rubber rings will also be needed in the driver seat upholstery, and there's a few spots of paintwork to touvch up.

But we're basically there.We can drive her about and admire her.

 

Yeee hah! We finally have our resgistartion, and we are officially "historic" with our pre-1965 format registration of 134 XUR

Those numbers will be painted on on Sunday afternoon, and as soon as possible after that I will slap some up on Flickr and you will be able to see them on the relevant page of this site

Just the electrics to sort now, and the project will be (sadly)

Ahh... we finally made it. Today was the day of our DVLA inspection in Maidstone. Andy and JJ took the day off work and loaded the old girl, in the rain, onto the car trailer on the back of JJ's DS Safari. They drove to Maidstone, the combined rig so long that they had to steal a coach parking slot at the inspection garage to get parked

In the event, our "inspection" took 5 minutes, and seemd to comprise the bloke checking we had the correct chassis number on our paperwork (although he might have cast an expert eye over us too, to make sure we were as old as we said we were (November 1961)

JJ was rather sore to find, having used half a tank of juice trailering the rig from Walmer to Preston (nr. Canterbury) and over to Maidstone and back, that the inpector guys are actually willing to come out on site and check your car where it stands.

So now, we are Registered, with docs and a registration number coming in the post in a few days. The plan then is for Andy to hand paint some period number plates, we all get our insurances changed to the number plate (rather than the chassis number) and then to get a few English miles on her with a support vehicle, as a "shake down".

There is also the small matter of finding out why (and solving) the dynamo will not put any amps into the battery

The future has always held our dream that one day we drive her to the two towns involved in her original twinning gift-ery, La Chapelle d'Armentieres (in Northern France), and Birchington (North Kent Coast)

Wish us luck

Matt

We should have known. With our smoothe run through the MOT (well, 2nd attempt anyway - brakes had seized on the way there first time!), we should have expected something would smack us on the nose. First the DVLA reg'n boys weren't happy with our forms around the "who paid the VAT when it was first imported" question

We have no idea, and suspect nobody did. She came over as a non-street legal mock up for a photo shoot, pretty much. No brakes, engine not connected up etc, and on made-up (1991!!!) number plates - it was 1984.

So we returned the forms to DVLA with a VAT sheet filled out but with lots of blanks and annotations. That seemed to be OK, but the car has now been called in to one of the DVLA's random inspections, which can only happen on a Tuesday (I know....). The first Tuesday we can do, because we need JJ and his trailer, is the 23rd, so watch this space