MOT Bodges

[Nath]

Took my cb550 ratbike for its MOT yesterday. Now anyone who's seen the pictures of it will know what I mean when I say plenty of MOT testers would point blank refuse to test it. Well I picked the right place to go to, and he did a serious test and failed it on 7 items. I didn't agree with two of the failure points, but I think he was technically right according to MOT rules/guidance, so I sorted everything out and went back this morning for my retest, and got my MOT!

Most of the fail points were small boring things, but one interesting point was the bent handlebars. The tester failed it as being 'deformed', and indeed the handbook does say that this is one of the specific things to check for on steering controls. Well he reckoned I needed new handlebars, and I reckoned I was going to cut and weld straight the existing bars (and he didn't like this idea), but when it came to it I realised I couldn't weld the bars due to the switchgear cables running through them. So I stuck the bike up against a wall, turned the bars to full lock then stuck a small length of scaffolding over the bar and bent it back straight! Problem solved.

The other fun thing was the exhaust. I run the bike with a homemade supershort 4-into-1 pipe made out of scaffold, with no silencing of any kind. I have a roadlegal exhaust system in the garage, but I didn't want to fit it incase the exhaust gaskets blew as a set of four would cost me over a tenner. So I dug out an empty beer can, sawed it in half, stuffed some green scouring pad up the pipe, stuck the half-beercan over the end and used a jubilee clip to hold it in place. It really did the trick and it felt like riding with earplugs in! The MOT tester didn't say a thing, even though I rode away from the failed test with the 'silencer' removed making alot of noise.


https://homepage.ntlworld.com/steven.coy/images/exhaust-bodge.JPG
Half of an (empty) can of Thwaites' Mild, some green scouring pad, and a jubilee clip. Instant exhaust legality.
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Hard livin', hard luck.

[SoND]

You could probably flog a few of them on ebay. Any performance gain?
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[beatnck]

mate, you are a legend!!
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no silly comment here!!

[EuropeanNC30R...]

Nice one. Bit harsh on the bent handlebar, I've passed at least 3 mot's with a bent clip-on.

[Wafer_Thin_Ham]

Could have used a Stella can, they are worth 3 bhp!!
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[WavyGravy]

I see you went for the posh one with the gold anodised end-cap, i'm surprised he passed it as the fitting instructions clearly state you must remove the ringpull.
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"Don't wake him up - He's got insomnia - He's trying to sleep it off"

[Blackwolf]

Haha sounds somehting like what i would do
Not that i have ever boged things before
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Current: Ducati Multistrada 1200s

[Nath]

[chris___]

Absolutely legendary
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[Itchy]

I think we should rent a Dyno , and do what RiDE did with riding armour (Knox/HG/cheese sandwich)
ie Aprovic/Micro/Blueflame/Devil/ vs Nath's beer can,

I'd laugh my ass off his Nath's came out near the top, in freeing up horses , much like the cheese sandwich
did in impact tests.
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[Ted]

Outta interest... what does the bike look like as a whole?
Can you post up a pic? I've been thinking about attempting to make a ratbike myself...

[finpos]

9 out of 10. One point lost for not re-using an old jubilee clip

finpos.

[map]

[Grav]

[Itchy]

[gilera172]

my friend has recently taken his bike which is a gielra runner scooter to a garage to be totally fixed to the state it will pass a mot, which included fork minor electircs and engine bushes, in order to pass his bike the engine bushes needed to be changed as they were liek a swing but infact they "DID" them and passed his mot until 3 days later his engien was all over the shop. on close inspection his bushes were not changed but a washer was inserted to the mounts and welded. what action can he take ive been told he should take them to unfair traders
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[stinkwheel]

In the first instance you should go back to them, tell them you're not happy and ask them what they're going to do about it.

If you have no sucess, then put your complaint in writing. Then another, more strongly worded one if that doesn't work. Finally contact your local trading standards office who will advise you how to proceed from here. They are also good at helping you to word letters of complaint.
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I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[colin1]

or just use a more lenient place

i had a bike fail on a few nit picking things, including the brake pads when there was nothing wrong with them (which he later admitted when i showed him the pads)

since then i have used another place
they also did the 'your brake pads need replacing thing', but offered to do it for not much more than the cost of pads, i suspect this was just money raising, but didnt mind as they didnt charge a retest fee, and hadnt quibbled about something else, which i know the other place would have failed me on.

if u can be bothered with the whole letters thing, let us know the result
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[mr.z]

I try to use places that don't do any work on bikes, since they don't have the incentive to try and rip you off.. that or making it absolutely clear that your no way going to let them do the work or buy ANYTHING off them... I'm yet to find an mot place that's not a bit twatty in some way..
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[stinkwheel]

[colin1]

this is a thread about mot bodges, i was saying that rather than bodging to get through an mot, it can be easier to find a more lenient place

i wasnt commenting about the one before your remark.

but as it turns out, my reply would have applied to that one too.

If on being told of the supposed fault, the guy had just taken it to another place he would probably just have been passed rather than having the dubious work done.

i was reading about a beer can for a silencer, and bending back handlebars with a scaffolding pole, i didnt read the other guys thing.

I had a bike fail on a few bodges that were unsafe in the mot blokes eyes. Indicators were tied securely in place but he said some bollocks about them being insecure.

He also thought the seat was held on by a cargo net just because there was a cargo net over it. It was held in place by the normal seat clip (normally activated by a cable to the seat lock)wedged in place with a beer can ring pull.

Perfectly reasonable bodges in my book, although not as stylish as Naths, but my strict MOT bloke didnt think they were reasonable at all.
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[Jack_Cheese]

I failed on a gear lever fabricated from a bolt after the kerb had the original for lunch.

Jack
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[Nath]

Funny timing to ressurect this thread, as I just MOTed my xs750 today. It failed last week on a few things but took it today for a retest and it passed.

Not too much bodging specifically for the MOT... After the same guy failing the CB550 on bent bars, I didn't want to chance it with the dodgey homemade bars on the xs750 which had a few dents in them and aren't welded very nicely. So I filled in the dents/funny angles with epoxy, then painted over with bitchamin paint to hide it. One of the fail points first time around was a leaking front brake resevoir cap. I sealed it up with silicon sealant, but after getting home after the bike passed I noticed it was still leaking a little bit, I reckon I was lucky there!

I also had only a pushbike speedo on the bike which doesn't work. But then again the pushbike speedo on the 550 doesn't work either...


The fun part this time around was stopping round the corner from the MOT test station to check my new fork seals weren't leaking (they do a little bit as I don't think they're right for these forks), and not being able to start the bike again. I think it's running pretty lean (the carbs have no pilot jets in them, so I think this is the first thing I'll address), as it was overheating badly. I couldn't turn the engine over very easily with the kickstarter, let alone actually fire it up. After about 5 or 6 goes I managed to bump start it, though the engine seemed to have cooled down by then to move more freely.
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Hard livin', hard luck.

[mr.z]

About fecking time

How about running it off a single carb? would simplify thins a fair bit, i'm sure you can make on decent carb, and keep a spare for mergencys..

Will we be seeing it on Wednesday?
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[Jack_Cheese]

IIRC bikes don't need a speedo to pass. My old speedshite wenth through with an absolutely mangled speedo drive.

jack
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