MARKING TIME

All of the paperwork has been collated, test and insurance certificates, registration douument for the donor bike, Certificate of Newness from Arthur, a Build Up Report, proof of identy, photograph, just to mention some of the paperwork required and it has now all been sent off to DVLA in Swansea. The waiting period to be issued with Registration documents, is four to six weeks and not quite 2 weeks into this period and I am getting impatient.

I removed that ugly grill the moment Marjorie was unloaded from Arthur's trailer and I handed it back to him. Since then Marjorie has been restored  to her pretest prettiness, with honky horn, spotlight and windscreens etc. being replaced. Before I refitted the luggage rack, I gave the hard wood supports fours coats of varnish and now they gleam, I also had some leather straps made up to give the illusion that the spare wheel and my wicker hamper were belted onto the car, rest assured, the hamper, like the spare wheel is securely fastened down, both belts just being for show.

From one of the Brookland silencers I pulled out about half of the fibre glass wadding.  I could see shards of glass glittering and dancing in the sunlight and was very glad I was wearing my face mask and gloves. I fitted that silencer onto the car and when I started her up I was surprised that the remaining Moto Guzzi silencer was still considerable louder than the Brookland can. I removed the can and pulled out more wadding, it looked  like, how you would expect witches hair to look like.There was now just about 1/4 of the original wadding left in the can. I refitted the silencer and again it was still quieter, but had a pleasant tone to it. I removed the same amount from the other silencer and when that was fitted a quick spin around the block proved that I still had full power for accelerating up the hill with only the slightest popping on the overrun and a small application of exhaust gloop around the connections with the side pipes, cured that completely.

I noticed during this run around the block that all of the instruments except the speedo were no longer correctly aligned. Off with the hatch at the back of the dashboard and I wiggled my fingers in to straighten and tighten then, the little gauges now all look right, but the tacho, although now firmly fixed, is still a degree or so out of alignment, I'm sure I'll be back behind the dash for something else before long and I will straighten it then. In the meantime the above photo is my driving view, hopefully it won't be much longer before I can really start to enjoy it.