Pedal box cover final fit

Fitting the pedal box cover for the final time, 

The brake reservoir line is secured & trim added to make sure nothing chafes:

Pedal box & scuttle area is now complete, with the removable central panel installed & my home made VIN plate sitting on the offside (The VIN can be mounted anywhere obvious - chassis number must be front offside though):

VIN Plate

When I picked up the kit, due to the distance involved, I decided to get the chassis number welded on & the VIN plate prepared - all well & good, except since May 2012 the IVA rules changed on VIN plates and got very specific about the information presented and the order it appears.

GBS have been working on a new design for some months, but its not quite going to be ready for my IVA. I had a chat with the testing centre at Gillingham and confirmed my original plate would not meet the current regulation & although possible to change it/mask out some information it wasn't going to ever look very good.

New IVA rules state Manufacturer, Chassis Number and weights to appear in a separate box and in the order: Manufacturer, Chassis Number, Gross Weights, Axle weights. If any further information is included it it must be outside a box containing the mandatory stuff - so even blanking out the boxes would leave me with a fail on the GBS logo & tag line.

This is my original plate - love the styling but its not compliant anymore: (also anyway its 2013 now)

VOSA advised making a new plate simply with the manufacturer name and chassis number. The weights are optional anyway so touch wood this design should be ok; Spent an hour or so this evening making a plate from an off-cut of aluminium. After this picture was taken I also added 'dots' either side of the GBS manufacturer name to meet the regulation that letters could not be added/removed:

Funny thing - it took me one practice run to get a good impression from the stamps; using the vice underneath worked much better than the wooden bench, then another 2 goes containing mistakes - kept missing letters out, doh!

Cut out with the dremel then file off the edges, dremel wire brush and polished the front face.

Its obviously not laser cut & silk screen printed etc, but I think it has its own home made charm !

(VIN Numbers blacked out for privacy)

Chassis plate

My original chassis plate had to come off.

I thought I would save time and get one fitted before delivery of the kit, i.e. get the only piece of welding on the build out of the way - unfortunately a mistake meant it had the wrong VIN embossed.

I tried a number of options, including re-stamping the existing plate & stamping the chassis direct - ultimately though I needed my replacement VIN plate welded on.

RHOCaR helped out - specifically Jon (a.k.a. owlman) kindly offered to drive over and weld the new plate on for me. Many thanks Jon!

Jon drove over in his Robin Hood 2B, which not only woke the neighbours up :)  but also reminded me the sort of machine I'm building & added to my enthusiasm to get my Zero on the road. Jon's 2B:

My chassis plate - sorted:

I put the plate in the same place GBS put the original - it turns out (hindsight again) there is an oval opening on the offside panel lip to fit the plate under, it may even be possible to glue it in place under the side panel and appear as a permanent fixing avoiding the need for any welding on the build.