Skip to main content

Failed Warrant of Fitness (WOF)

IMG_7313

Here in New Zealand, cars that were new before 1st January 2000, need to obtain a Warrant of Fitness (similar of an MOT in the UK), every 6 months, and Digby’s time was coming around. If you own a 23-year-old vehicle you learn to dread the WOF inspections because there is always something that the car can fail on. As you may have read in previous blog posts, I have been diligently repairing and fixing items on the Delica since we got it in early 2018, so I had my fingers crossed that between myself & my mechanic, Harry’ we had done enough to get Digby through the WOF.

Guess what…? Digby failed on the brake pad wear…. Bugger…!! I knew the brakes were on their way out but I figured that I wouldn’t replace the pads until I had to, and now I had to… My immediate thought was to get the garage to just put new pads on for me there and then, and then get a re-test, but with a little more thought I thought that it was probably time that I learnt how to replace the pads myself, after all, I was expecting to drive this vehicle around the world, it would a good idea if I knew how to do it… So where do you go these days if you want to learn something new…? Do you go to a Library, a night school, or a university..?


No, you go to YouTube where there are helpful how-to videos for every possible subject under the sun. There was even a brake pad replacement video specifically for a Mitsubishi Delica L400’s, in English (here), that had all the information I needed to attempt the job myself. In for a penny, in for a pound..!

I was up bright and early the next morning and straight down my local auto repair shop and spent a couple of hundred bucks on new pads all round, some jack stands, and a few clamps and what have you. I jacked up the back of Digby and place the jack stand under the rear axle for safety and started removing the first wheel.

[NOTE: While I had the rear up off the ground, I checked to see if I had one of the very rare LWB Delica with a Limited Slip Differential, (here), I did not..!!]



Apart from a few tight wheel nuts here and there and a stiff calliper bolts on one or two of the wheels, it was smooth sailing. I think it took far longer than it should have done, but I was being very careful and diligent and I am sure that the next time I do I try, it will be a much quicker exercise. With all the pads in place and wheels back on, I built up the pressure in the brake system and took it out for a test run. Perfect…!

There is a very strange sense of achievement that comes over me when I have done something that I would not have thought I could do…. On this journey, Digby is pushing me on to new heights, and this goes to prove the old adage wrong, and that you can teach an old dog a new trick.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Side Project 3: Repair the Binnacle and Replace the Inclinometer

The next project on the list was to spruce up the dash-mounted binnacle that houses an inclinometer, a temperature gauge and a battery voltage meter, which had been damaged by a previous owner and no longer bolted into place on top of the dash. I also wanted to take a closer look at the inclinometer, which if believed, indicated that Digby was upside down on its roof..! As the white plastic lugs through which the bolts were was mounted had been snapped off, leaving the whole unit ‘free-floating’, the binnacle was easy to remove by just unplugging the electrics. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that some of the missing parts of the broken white plastic were still held in place under the bolts that screwed into the metal brace at the top of the dashboard, which I carefully removed as there was just enough plastic that I might be able to superglue the parts back to the main body of the binnacle. I carefully disassembled the binnacle housing, firstly removing the clip-off rear surround an...
Post a Comment
Read more

Side Project 4: Nudge Bar Refresh

When we purchased Digby, we accepted that the front nudge bars would need some work. Not only did they show signs of discolouration and rust, but inexplicably, Mitsubishi decided that the nudge bars of this model of Delica should be white, and odd choice as the rest of the vehicle was predominately black over grey. I had previously seen a few similar models to Digby with the nudge bars painted black, which matched to the bodywork and which I thought looked bad arsed… I could have decided to spray paint the nudge bars in place, but I thought that I would do it properly and remove them from the front of Digby, sand down the rust spots and flaky white paint, add a coat of rust-inhibiting primer, then respray the nudge bars matt black to key into the majority of the paintwork, and put them back on the van. As it turns out, the nudge bar assembly is quite heavy and as I was removing it from the front of Digby, I lifted it incorrectly and managed to pull something in my back… Dam…!! At first...
Post a Comment
Read more

Captain’s Chair Mod

I have spent about 9 months looking through various Delica forums and websites to find some information and guidance on how to move one of my middle-row Captain’s Chairs forward to the front passenger side location in Digby. This is a pretty popular mod for your Delica if you can have a Captain’s Chair or can buy one cheap, and I have found a good resource for this mod, ( here ), that show how the mod can be done with a degree of involvement and complexity.   Sometimes it doesn’t matter how much research you do in advance, something you didn’t expect comes along to throw you off…… When I removed the front passenger seat and lifted the carpet it became apparent pretty quickly that my simple idea of just lining up the rails and drilling some holes was not going to be as simple as I had hoped. Firstly, the bolt holes for the rear mounting on the front passenger seat were significantly wider than either the seat holes at the front of the passenger’s seat or the width of the Captain’s C...
1 comment
Read more