| Author | Message | ||
     Miguel A. Garcia Prolific User Username: magarcia Post Number: 108 Registered: 3-2005 |
Hello from Spain. I will tell you about what story happened myself last week. SRH3430 needed to pass MOT (In Spain calles ITV) so i drove it till there. Of course it was inmaculate. After an over view of the ingeneer (a very young guy) he tells me "Whats about the front view mirror, sir?" What?, i replyed. "yes, you know a fron view mirror for driving in Spain these English cars, you know? if not, how do you see fron left side when you drive in 2 ways roads?" Well, i wnet back frustrated home thinking about it and with MOT failed. After, looking in interbnet for these kind of mirrors i dis not found anything like this!!! Is like if thet do not exist!! Does anybody knows about them? Or whas this mot ingenees just a stupid boy? I never heard about it before!! regards | ||
| Bill Coburn Moderator Username: bill_coburn Post Number: 634 Registered: 4-2003 |
Wow Miguel a bit of language problem here! I think he means wing mirrors which on the Shadow are mounted on the left and right hand side on the top edge of the front doors. You have a right hand drive car and you are driving it on the right hand side of the door so you need a mirror on the left hand side so you can see what is about to overtake you. They are readily available and not too difficult to fit! | ||
| Peter Colwell Experienced User Username: peter_colwell Post Number: 14 Registered: 3-2005 |
My 'new' Silver Cloud has the wing mirrors way our front on the guards, and I just love them. I had forgotten how good they are, having last driven a car with them over twenty years ago. The car can be reversed and positioned just like when driving a heavy truck..er... I drove a car a few days ago with the latest TV camera and screen for reversing, I suppose it is a step forward, but somehow I felt unimpressed. Peter | ||
| Bill Coburn Moderator Username: bill_coburn Post Number: 635 Registered: 4-2003 |
Ah Peter you becomming a Luddite in your old age!! Actually I agree with you, the Phantom has mirrors on the guards and the vision is very good. The only draw back is one becomes entangled with them when working on the car. I cant think that I have seen them on a Shadow but they should work. The other minus is that 'people knock them. So you jump in the car to take off and find yourself looking at the front hub cap! Great news about getting a workshop manual for the Cloud. I always find it interesting to compare it with the 5 volume successor for the Shadow - signs of the times! One of the very generous members of the Club has scanned the manual for the HYdramatic gearbox which I have ambitions to install on this site in Chapter bundles but have yet to learn how to do this. The old mind is not up to all this new fangled stuff!! FOR MIGUEL I think there is a pair of wind miorrors - brand new on eBay at the moment. | ||
| Jonas TRACHSEL New User Username: jonas_trachsel Post Number: 6 Registered: 2-2005 |
Peter and Bill I am not quite shure that the young MOT-tester meant wing mirrors. He might just have tested a modern truck before Miguel's Shadow. Have you ever seen the christmas tree decoration modern heavy trucks sport? They have about a dozen mirrors at any weird angle to get a look at every blind corner to avoid running over poor cyclists waiting along the truck at the red lights unnoticed by the truck driver. The young tecnician might have confounded Miguels' Shadow with a truck....  Jonas | ||
| Bill Coburn Moderator Username: bill_coburn Post Number: 636 Registered: 4-2003 |
Well I had a punt. Only Miguel can tell us I suppose. I haven't seen the truck setup although about 40 years ago an accessory was marketted which put an array of mirrors right across the inside top of the winscreen on your car. I drove with one once and was nearly a nervous wreck since in traffic you appeared to have cars coming at you from all sides! I imagine they are now illegal along with most of the 'petrol savers' that used to be pushed. Of the latter one guy reportedly fitted every one available so that at the end of the week he actually had to drain fuel from his tank to stop it overflowing!! | ||
| Patrick Lockyer. Grand Master Username: pat_lockyer Post Number: 560 Registered: 9-2004 |
To put all the UK readers minds at rest for the fitment of obligatory mirrors. It is a requirment for RHD cars to have an exterior mirror fitted to the O/S when seated in the drivers seat. An exterior mirror must be fitted to the N/S when seated in the drivers seat[LHD cars tested] All must have the obilgatory interior mirror. However if registerd before 1/8/78 must have one of the above options,ie just interior mirror! The UK testing criterior is one that i believe maybe the EU will take as the one for all member states at sometime in the future. I see our testing device can do translations to other members language hum. This will make the German testing standards lower and bring some other countrys standards higher. But the UK test has still many bugs and standards that need to be addressed. | ||
| John Kilkenny Experienced User Username: john_kilkenny Post Number: 17 Registered: 6-2005 |
Here is a photo of my 1966 Shadow with its wing mirrors. While they give a good view from both sides, because of their position they require accurate adjustment and are affected by any variation of the rear levellers. It is also necessary to get out of the car to adjust them and back in to check, maybe several times.  | ||
| Bill Coburn Moderator Username: bill_coburn Post Number: 646 Registered: 4-2003 |
well while we are on the subject of mirrors and I wonder what Miguel is doing,I now have two shadow II's both of which have very restricted movement of their left (non driver's) side mirror. Is there any adjustment??? | ||
| Miguel A. Garcia Prolific User Username: magarcia Post Number: 110 Registered: 3-2005 |
Hello and sorry for the daly in posting this reply. I was out home for a trip. Thank you all for the replys. I had to say that SRH3430 has from the time it was gone out Crewe 2 outside mirrors, the ones of the in door mounted, and of course the interior upper one, so with the law in the hand, it meets with the spanish law about it (codigo de la circulacion). That is about i wonder about what the hell meant this boy in the MOT. I did as follow: I took SRH3430 to other MOT Station, where the engeenier was rounding in the floor laughing about the previous inspection done by the youg boy in the other MOT station. Mot was satisfactory passed. This a sample of what ignorance can do. Just i keep the doubht if such kind of mirrors are available or even ivented!! or were just in the mind of this MOTīs stupid young boy. basically what he was telling me was that the car, as it is RH drived MUST have a mirror that lets the drivet to see the cars that came from the opossite way (left) from the right side for being sure when to overtake the preceding car... Thank you all for the support. regards, Miguel | ||
| Bill Coburn Moderator Username: bill_coburn Post Number: 666 Registered: 4-2003 |
Another recollection. Years ago Canberra had the most stringent testing of cars in Australia. Every year you had to go through the hoops. In practice you got to know the testing guys and they were quite reasonable. In the eighties there were quite a few Shadows brought into the Country from England. It seems that the ADR's and the MOT standards were/are not in accord. So we have this miserable owner - the type always ready to take you down or be one up and he bounces out with his UK delivered Shadow for its first rego in the ACT. He had in fairness gone to a lot of trouble in getting the various bits altered to suit requirements. The test was nearly over when the testing officer suddenly opened the passenger's door, swung down the sun visor and pointed to the mirror. Absolutely unacceptable because it was glass! Seems our minders envisaged passengers diving through the thing with consequent decapitation! The owner by this time, fit to be tied, announced in a very loud voice that he would fix the problem right there and grabbed a huge shifter spanner with which he proceeded to smash the mirror into tiny bits. 'There' he said, 'all fixed'. The car passed! | ||
| Richard Treacy Grand Master Username: richard_treacy Post Number: 1019 Registered: 4-2003 |
Further to John Kilkenney's and Bill's notes, I suffered the Canberra (ACT) test for decades too. As John points out, wing mirrors are tricky to adjust, and I must add that they are fairly useless and unsafe at that distance from the driver anyhow: the field of view is just far too narrow. That is, unless they are convex. In the early 1970's, convex mirrors were already illegal in the ACT except for motorcycles. So, off I went to the motor cycle shop and bought a pair for the R-Type wings to replace and preserve the flat ones. Brilliant. You soon get used to the appearance that things are further away than they really are, and the wide angle view in my opinion is a real safety boon. So what about the test ? I put the plain wing mirrors in the boot each time. When Mr Tester started looking at the mirrors, I simply produced the flat ones and appealed that I could swap them on the spot only to change them back straight after the test. They always gave in. As to the brake test, the older passenger vehicle test rig, with four flat plates and a hydraulic sight-glass effort readout for each wheel, could not handle those powerful brakes and the vehicle's weight. Hydraulic measuring oil would spit out of the test rig's sight glass air vent, so I was obliged to use the truck lane. When the rolling road brake tester, with it's digital readouts, was introduced years later, they were always perplexed by the complete absence of front brakes with the rear wheels stationary. A full stop outside with a nice chirp and four equal slight black marks on their polished exit lane did the job for that. Oh, and they often tried to knock me back for rear brake fluid leaks, mistaking the one-shot for brake fluid. It was surprising that the testers indeed always remembered you with these cars, but not that the rear brakes are purely mechanical. |
