The Lada was unceremoniously dragged out of hibernation this morning and thrown at my local garage for an MOT without so much as a lighting check. Was expecting a list of minor stuff just due to having sat around for a month or two plus a year's use (albeit covering only a couple of thousand miles, mostly in fair weather).
Unexpected, but not going to complain!
The advisory for some underbody corrosion has been there as long as I've had the car, there's quite a bit of surface rust that could do with a scrub down and attacking with some Vactan and Dinitrol. She's never done any winter service in my ownership and I've generally tried to avoid wet weather driving where possible, so it's never got any worse. Has always been on the to do list, sadly has just never got to the top.
The steering idler mentioned has a (nylon?) bush in it, and they're prone to wear - replacement inserts are less than a tenner...and I've got one in stock already. Though it's nowhere near bad enough to worry us just now.
Having this car roadworthy again is going to make the logistics of this weekend where we need to get to a charity event with the dogs this weekend immeasurably easier.
Last year when she was in for the test I was still trying to get to the bottom of a small vacuum leak which meant the fuelling wasn't quite spot on so the emissions test was a rather mediocre pass. Having finally sorted that leak, I was curious to see what she would show today.
Much better!
Ignore the fail on the first test. The cat on this car is miles from the front of the car and takes an age to get up to temperature when you're standing still.
Lambda is still showing slightly high, though both me and the tester agree that that's probably entirely down to there being a couple of small leaks in the exhaust.
Last test we did with the carb in place we eventually managed to squeak through at 0.297% CO (limit is 0.300%)...so fair to say she's running quite a bit cleaner now I think. I reckon 0.093% is a decent figure for any engine...much less one from behind the Iron Curtain fro. The early 70s essentially with what many consider to be a very crude injection system grafted onto it. The cat is the original one from 1993 too.
Seeing those numbers makes it seem a lot more worthwhile having done the work (plus the car being way nicer to drive!).
One definite symptom of an old car that's not been used for a while was found though...I don't need to actually be able to *read* the instruments do I?
Think the first few runs out will be done with the heater on full blast and the rear windows open to try to encourage the moisture out of the car a bit.