Petrol to Diesel swapover

[Linegeist]

This 'Technically competent' thing ................... would waving my 1960's vintage City & Guilds Certs at them be any use - or my Army Vehicle Artificer's Course book?

This annoys me no end - the Army kindly put me through a course way back in '76 that meant I was a proppah qualified electrician an' stuff - which was fine until the government introduced the Part P certification hoop to jump through (and pay them for of course). Now I'm not officially allowed to even wire a new spur into my own house ............. yeah - right! I rewired the lot myself 3 years ago and then got it certified by a 'competent person'(my mate in the next village who jumps through hoops)

I don't think they've rescinded my qualifications as a mechanic ............... yet.

[philhod]

I stuck my last 19 n/a lump into a 16 meteor in 2006. sent all the paperwork off to Cardiff and received a new V5 with all the corrected details,
no problem. So if they have made any changes it must have been since then.
Oh I'm a retired maintenance fitter by the way, but no one asked wether I was competent or not.

[Linegeist]

Excellent Phil. Thanks for the encouragement!

[KevR]

I converted a 1988 TRS estate to TD using a crashed TZD saloon.
I ended up changing everything forward of the front seats – dash, wiring loom, the lot – as the TZD loom was very different. As far as I remember this was more because the TRS had an earlier type of loom, with different connectors etc. I think even dash switches had different connections to the later ones and weren't interchangeable. Never did get the rear wiper working again. Maybe with your Athena it'll have later wiring. Having done all that I then changed the rest of the interior as well. It certainly took me a LOT longer than a day!
There was no trouble at that point with the DVLA - I just notified them and got a revised V5. Then I tried to register it in France... Came up on their computer as a petrol, so a petrol it had to be, unless I could get a letter from Citroën stating that they authorised the conversion. Naturally, Citroën declined.
Eventually I bought a wreck of a TZD estate in UK, removed the inner wing and welded it into my estate. USing that identity, no problems registering it here!
20,000 miles later a stupid woman in a Clio side-swiped me on a roundabout and wrote it off...

[Linegeist]

Ah yes, the joys of French officialdom.

I think we were lucky because the folks at the Marie in Rambouillet (département 78, out near Versailles) were far more accommodating when we registered our RHD UK Spec Smart with them, and then promptly proceeded to modify it heavily. Similarly, when I bought a Mk1 GT locally, they helped me every step of the way. Nice folks. MInd you, the Maire himself had a rather nice DS, so was obviously a car nut.

The biggest problems we had were when we returned to the UK after 3 glorious years living in La Belle France. No UK car insurers wanted to know us, so we had no NCB's and, predictably, the lovely DVLA joyfully made us jump through innumerable hoops to get our cars UK registered (even trying to get my wife to pay import duty on her UK bought Smart).

It took 4 personal visits to the Worcester Registration offices to get that one sorted out and get its old registration number back (which they'd lost). Meanwhile, I scrapped my immaculate LHD French Registered Mk1 in the end because of the hassle and the potential cost ........

I'd go back and live in France like a shot given une chance.

[Defender110]

http://yourfreedom.hmg.gov.uk/repealing ... dings-regs

Bob this link may be of Interst.

[Linegeist]

Thanks Kev!

[philhod]

Well I rewired this house 30 years ago (I suppose it's nearing needing re doing!!) I'm not a qualified electrician but a mechanical maintenance/ production fitter.
I have sufficient knowledge to complete most domestic jobs, competently and safely and funnily enough one of my last jobs was to deliver part P regs in college.
I cannot see what it tries to achieve bar the exclusion of rogue companies which it patently fails to do as the public always go for the cheapest quote.
All it does is put further financial burdens on all companies who want to be legal and even put competent lekies out of work as it's not worth both the hassle and fiscally.

[Linegeist]

Hopefully Phil, with the new political climate, things will start to change - for the sensible.

[scarecrow]

I seem to remember a slightly 'wide' relative who got all the paperwork necessary to certify his rewiring/plumbing work from the internet. Not that I'm condoning this mind - one of my major paranoias is that the electric shower is one day going to live up to its name.

My local garage gave a very estimated estimate of around a thousand pounds to fit a TD in to my 14. I'm not sure how keen they were to do the job though as they only really look at cars from an economic standpoint.

Edit: I've decided that keeping the rightish engine is best to maintain the authenticity of the car. I think eventually I'd like to rebuild a 14 lump but using AX GT bits - when I find the space to do it in.

Steve

[Linegeist]

.............. one of my major paranoias is that the electric shower is one day going to live up to its name.

Isn't it funny how techie people think?

I fitted one of those half-billion buggawatt MIRA things when I ripped out the old bathroom in our 19th century hovel (I'm a dirty bugger so I need a personal pressure washer see?) .

The installation kit came with a power supply cable the diameter of a broom handle with a serious hard-on. God alone knows how many amps the bloody thing'd pass given half a chance but, every so often, during a nice luxurious hosedown, the shower makes a sudden kettling noise (a kind've metallic 'pop!' sound). MIRA assure me this is quite normal but, regardless of the water temperature (and the RCD I fitted in the circuit cos' I'm paranoid), I always get a cold shiver run up my spine as I eye the blasted thing balefully as it sits up there on the wall, quietly(ish) biding its time until I'm nicely earthed on a tap or something.

[citronut]

Bob did you get your shower certified, or did they certify the wrong thing, TEA HE

regards malcolm

[philhod]

That brings on a tale.
I recently completely re built the bathroom including new floor and ceiling.
(My house is also over 100 years old)
I fitted a new Mira shower too. I already had a shower there but it was a Redring (metrovicks) and over 30 years old.
I too wrestled with a cable that looked like it came off one of the turbogenerators I used to build. However,I only had to put it from my pull switch........... When I switched it on, it was great for about 30 seconds, then it cut out. It did this every time I tried it. It was my fancy consumer unit detecting that the rest of the cable from it to the pull switch was incapable of carrying eleventymillion Watts. No shit!
So, buy's new cable, disconnects old fastens new to old and pulls. Nothing Nada, zilch. it was stuck solid. Then I remembered that the Electric Board wired it in, all those years ago. What had they done??
They had dropped the cable from the attic down the front bedroom wall, behind fitted wardrobes. They hadn't bothered to chase out the wall and move the wardrobe. They just cut bits out of the wardrobe back and clipped it to the wall with 1"+ nails, then stuck the c/outs back with glue.
No wonder it wouldn't move.
I removed all the clips and completed the job. All OK.
Well it will be when I chase out the wall and conduit it in. I'm about to start re doing the front bedroom this autumn, so it can wait till then.
Electric board cowboys Eh!