MOT

The truck needed MOTing, but finding somebody who would do it was challenging. It was too tall, wide, heavy or in one case narrow for any of the testing stations I called to be able to cope with it. So I had to take it to a VOSA testing station, and because they messed up my cheque payment, the only place who would take it in time was Mitcham, about a 3 hour round trip away!

The testing was thorough to say the least; it took about 1 hour 45 minutes and threw the tester into confusion, because of the unusual transmission setup and the way the transmission brake operates. In the end the brakes were tested by me driving along at 10mph with the tester sitting next to me and jamming on the brakes; the handbrake was tested by parking on a calibrated slope and seeing if it ran away again.

Unfortunately it failed on emissions, so I had to take it all the way back the next day to get a retest. I must have been quite enthusiastic with my overnight carburettor adjustments, because it passed with absolute flying colours the second time round.

Departure day is now 6 days away, which means this could be a busy week.