I'm back

[Phil W]

Well, its been a good few years since I've been on this forum. mainly because my 2 + 2 130/5 has been stuck I nthe garage! Although MOT'd every year I've not been able to get out in it much and last year I lost interest due to a starting problem and didn't have the time to sort it.

After spending a week going through last years advisories I'm glad to say the warm weather has meant RNV 939M is back on the road and being used more regularly.

I've had the car since 1988 and stripped it down to the chassis. Its looking a bit tatty but still has the original chassis, interior, dash, engine, diff and running gear. The engine was rebuilt in 1990 and the original Dellorto's replaced with Webers. The 5 speed gearbox has been, rebuilt by Alan Voigt but I'm losing snychro on 2nd again.

Once the summers over and its SORN'd for the winter the intention is to strip the suspension and replace all the bushes as the rear ones were an advisory on this years MOT.

[billwill]

With the recent extension of the Historic Car date by one year. Yours might now be zero tax and hence no point in SORNing it, keep it on full DVLA licence.

Do your MOT people really know this historic car? Just mentioning it because I once had mine MOTed by an 'ordinary' garage an they failed the rear bushes, but after I went to all the bother of changing them I found there was absolutely nothing wrong with the ones I took out. A dumb garage might assume that the bushes are supposed to rotate on the mounting and not be clamped tight.

[mbell]

Looking very nice, wish my M reg +2 130/5 in red looked like that and could pass a MOT.

[Phil W]

I've just had confirmation letter from Lotus Archives to say my car was built in December 1973. I've been in contact with DVLA but they can't change tax status until next year as they're system won't allow it until new changes come into force.

My mate has been doing my MOT's for years and he used to build Elans up from kits for customers so he knows the pitfalls. I remember taking it to another garage once and they failed it on oil leaking from rear shocks> i'd overfilled the tubes holding the inserts and it was dribbling down the outside of the strut. It took me ages to explain to the tester what the issue was.