MARJORIE STRIPPED FOR BATTLE

It was time to strip Marjorie of all her bling, off came the eagle mascot, horn, spotlight and headlight eyebrows, plus spare wheel, luggage rack, little Brooklands windscreens and the badges.

I then added the big safety grill that covers the whole front of the engine, and numerous bits of rubber trim and plastic nut and bolt covers, to ensure that there were no exposed sharp edges.

Arthur turned up bright and early on Thursday morning and we got Marjorie loaded on to the trailer and set off for the VOSA test center in Gillingham in Kent.

We arrived in plenty of time to unload and park Marjorie in a designated bay, before our scheduled 10 o'clock appointment. Arthur did a final check to ensure that we hadn't forgotten anything and his eagle eye spyed a bolt head that was missing a plastic cover, his large tool box provided the right size of plastic cover.

Adam the tester sauntered over and introduced himself and invited me to drive Marjorie over to one of the bays, One big problem, despite repeated jabs of the starter button, she wouldn't start and then we checked the fuel tap, it was turned off. This was not doing my nerves any good, but eventually we arrived in the designated bay.

All was going well until Adam asked me to operate the steering lock and it would not engage, a 'Show Stopper' apparently. Whilst Adam moved on to other areas, I removed the little panel behind the dashboard and realised that I hadn't tightened up the bolts that hold the ignition switch/lock onto the steering column. The heads of the bolts sheer off when fully tightened and I deliberately hadn't done so in case I had to remove the switch for one reason or another. With Arthur wriggling the steering wheel and me jiggling the switch/lock I was able to get the locking pin to engage with the slot in the column. I tightened the bolts and demonstrated to Adam that now the wheel locked when the key was removed and unlocked with the key in the ignition and Adam declared himself happy.

The only other problem was the upper straps to the seat belts, I had originally had them crossing over to the upper anchorage points, but Arthur said that on a previous test, the examiner had said that they could slip off the shoulder, so I had changed them around. Our tester said that such matters were at the discretion of each tester and after some deliberation he said he wanted them crossed over and when we done so, again he was happy.

At this point he said it was lunch time, but he was impressed with Arthur's build quality of the kit, welding etc. and I had done a proper job in putting it together and addressing all the safety issues. So far so good, just emission, brakes and noise to be tested.

After lunch it was a different bay and Adam waited whilst Marjorie warmed up before sticking a probe up her exhausts. Emission levels were fine. On the rolling road I had no idea what was going on, I just kept my eye on the computer screen and did as bidden. I had been worried about the handbrake test, but when I applied it as instructed, Marjorie shot back off the roller and Adam called out to let go, obviously handbrake was well up to it, as was the front brakes.

Just the noise test to go, I was asked to bring the revs up to three and half thousand revs, whilst Adam just stood and listened, no decibel meter required. A final nod from Adam and Marjorie had passed.

We loaded Marjorie back onto the trailer and I took a final photo of the huge and underused testing area, whilst Adam filled out the paperwork and came over and presented me with what looked just like the old MOT certificates, a shake of hands and we started our return journey back home. A celebratory glass beer before Arthur headed back to Sussex, where he would start to prepare the paperwork that I would need to get Marjorie registered and licenced, the final step to getting number plates made up and legally enjoying driving Marjorie down to a pub or two,