IVA fixes part three

Nothing huge to update as I was ill this weekend, I only managed an hour or so in the garage before I went back to bed. 

The new brake discs and pads have arrived, and I've fitted them to three out of four corners. They look a lot better and I suspect braking efforts will now be much higher. It has uncovered one issue though, the caliper carrier bolts are way past their lifetime. I was trying to torque them up and I could tell they weren't happy. Fortunately MX5parts sells replacements so I have four of them arriving this week. A quick swap and I'll feel a lot better with them. I was tempted to just find some M10 fine 10.9 bolts and be done with it, but given they were roughly the same price I might as well go for genuine. 

And now the first fail of the retest, the number plate. Despite it being the correct size, it is hilariously oversized on the car!

This is not the 'small' plate that many cars wear, this is a lorry plate! I couldn't even put the car on the floor with this one as it would probably drag on the floor! So that's going in the bin, it's completely unfit for purpose even if it is the right size.

The final option is a 'normal' plate. I discounted this early on because it's quite wide and won't fit between the lights;

But actually it's only 20mm too wide. So what I've done is move the reverse and fog light out a bit so a plate can fit in between;

The only thing I had to be careful of was the distance from the fog light to the stop light, that has to be 100mm. I'm guessing that's why I put the lights where they were originally as it was 113mm between them. Recovering 20mm for the number plate (10mm either side) means it's now 103mm between the two. In theory I could have the indicators inboard and the stop lights outside, but I don't think that's necessary.

One Onshape session later and I have a backboard for the plate and light;

Which is currently gluing and will be fitted into the correct orifice. That'll be this particular job concluded hopefully. I really didn't expect to have so much trouble with this one. It just goes to show how things can catch you out. The average sevenesque car doesn't have to deal with any of this, they have a nice flat rear end to house it. It just needs an appropriate light and that's it. 

With any luck I'll feel a bit more human by next weekend, and I'll get the fuel pipe clips sorted. Then I'll get the retest booked (after one more final checkover and test drive!).