The Vitesse had its longest drive in a long time today, to see if it would pass a WOF.
Well unfortunately it didn’t pass the Warrant of Fitness test, but for a car that has been off the road for about 4 years, and done bugger all mileage in that time, I think failing the WOF on one item isn’t too bad.
What did it fail on? The steering rack. Unfortunately its filling up the LH rack boot with oil, so it’s leaking passed the seals. This means an instant failure, and not just a quick degrease, clean and pass.
I’m looking into my options now. It’s a toss-up between taking the car in and getting a pro to rebuild it; removing the rack and having it rebuilt; rebuilding the rack myself, or just replacing the whole rack with a reconditioned one from Rimmers. Either way its a pain to get the rack out, and I’ll need to make sure I order the right parts if im going to rebuild it (as there are a couple of different brands of rack).
Of course it wouldn’t be my SD1 if it didn’t mark its territory…. Thankfully just a dribble from the overflow. I suspect it needs a new cap.
The trip in for the check was OK, although the shaking from the steering got a bit tiring. It was a 50km round trip, and since getting the Vitesse I have clocked over 100km total and its running like clockwork.
After failing the WOF check I shot over to get some new tyres fitted. I went for a set of Falken Ziex ZE912 in the standard 205/60R15 size.
Other than looking better and having a decent compound, they completely eliminated the shaking from the old flat spotted tyres. Driving back home afterwards was complete bliss.
I got one of the old tyres put onto the spare wheel, as it turns out the spare was even older than the 15+ year old tyres on the car! The tech changing the tyres said I should give the old spare to a museum 🤣
It turns out that the spare and one of the tyres on the car also had a tube fitted. Yes, a tube. I honestly didn’t think they still did tubes in passenger car tyres, and apparently they shouldnt…. but hey, it’s all sorted now, and im back to completely tubeless. Getting with the times eh.
So that’s where I’m at. I need to replace the shifter remote bushes are they are literally completely gone and then fix/replace the steering rack. I have 28 days to get it rechecked, or it has to have a complete new WOF check, so I best make a call shortly.
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