I bought and imported a Graber La Bala from the USA and am trying to prepare it for the MOT and registration in the UK.

The manufacturer, Steve Graber, sold the company a couple of years back. I understood that RTEC Motorsports in Maidenhead had taken over, but their web site has disappeared now too.

I phoned the DVLA, they simply told me to ask at an MOT testing station, but our local one doesn't know where to start with this car :-(, so I wondered if anyone else had faced any of the following problems ....

1) The car doesn't have a handbrake (not a legal requirement in Texas, Tennessee and Ohio, where the car was previously registered). The car has Toyota MR2 (same as Celica ?) rear brake discs, calipers and pads, which have an eyelet for attaching a handbrake cable. I am looking for someone who can weld up a bracket to support the handbrake lever plus a couple of pulleys to guide the cable - any recommendations in the Hampshire / Dorset / Berkshire / Surrey area ? or are there any other solutions (e-brake ?)

2) Will the car require indicators mounted on the front (it only has indicators in the front of the door mirrors, so I suspect that these will not be accepted as clearly visible from the front). What height and distance from the edges must these be mounted ?

3) I have bought some LED orange indicators for the rear, but they have no E type approval markings on them. Will these be acceptable, or do I have to go for the ugly Land Rover circular units ? Again, what height and distance from the edge of the car must these be fitted ?

4) Does the car require a reversing light ? (it is not fitted, I will have to find / fit a gearbox switch and light if required)

5) The car was constructed in 2009 (although the main information to support this was on www.grabercars.com, which no longer exists). Can other information, like sales adverts, be used to support this date ? (I want to put a personal plate on it, not a Q plate). If I could contact the first owner in the USA, would his statement of first registration date be acceptable ?

6) I will have to fit a rear fog lamp, but can this be via a simple switch, or must it be wired so that it goes off when the ignition is turned off and doesn't come back on unless switched back on manually ?

7) There is a (Toyota ?) charcoal filter mounted above the petrol tank, but not connected to anything. Does anyone know how to connect this to a Cadillac Northstar engine ? (I can't see anywhere obvious to plug it into, but the engine runs very rich - black smoke when the throttle is blipped - so I suspect this might be the issue).

8) Are there any other La Bala owners out there ? that have perhaps found a trimmer that can make up a softtop with side screens for the UK weather ?

So many questions, so much left to sort out :-(

TIA, Dave Butcher

welcome!

because the car is less than 10 years old it will require IVA on import.
the rules for this are well defined, and if it passes that, the mot should be easy

but, yes, it will require a handbrake, fog light etc, and rhd headlights.

https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-approval/individual-vehicle-approval

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/696880/individual-vehicle-approval-inspection-manual-passenger-vehicles.pdf< br />
it might be worth waiting a year before trying to register it

[Edited on 30/6/18 by gremlin1234]

You'll need to wait a year (until it is over 10 years past its first registration in another country), or pass an iva test to register it before the 10 year period.

1)The handbrake will require mounting to the chassis with decent structural integrity, you would do best to have flexible sheathed cables from the handbrake lever to the caliper to minimise the possibility of failures, using a pulley system is not ideal and could be affected by suspension movement.

2)The front indicators for mot purposes need to be clearly visible from the front, symetrically positioned and the correct colour, so in the bottom of your headlamp pods will be ok. The requirementa for iva are far more complicated, involving positioning and visibility from specific angles, it might be worth reading up on this to ensure you are compliant with c+u regulations (the law that underpins the iva requirements).

3) For mot purposes these will probably be ok, for iva they would need to be proven as equivalent to an e-marked lamp (which may depend upon tester at the time)

4) If first used after 01/09/2009 reverse lamps will be needed for mot, and are an iva requirement.

5) You'll need a copy of the state title document, which should have a date of first registration.

6) For the mot it will need to operate with the sidelamps and headlamps on and have a visible tell tale, the iva it's the same plus the positioning and angle of the lamp and e marking.

7) As in v8 northstar? Black smoke sound like overfueling - if it uses map to calculate engine load, is the map sensor hose disconnected? this would give a permenent full throttle signal and black smoke.

Have a read of this, is covers some of the iva basics, and there is a link to the iva manual in there:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/individual-vehicle-approval-iva-for-cars-help-to-get-a-pass/individual-vehicle-approval-iva-for-cars-help-t o-get-a-pass

Dave

Many thanks for all the info :-)

I don't want to wait another year (I imported the car in November 2016, but have had some health issues, and have only recently been able to start work on it, so I want to enjoy driving it soon).

1) Agreed, ideally the handbrake will have sheathed cables rather than bare cables over pulley guides (I had bare cables and pulleys in mind, only because I saw that setup on a Super Seven recently, and I'm not sure what the MR2 handbrake cables are like). I will ask at our local garage when the car is almost ready, perhaps they can sort this, it should be easy for anyone who can weld to extend the supporting bracket for the gearchange selector assembly backwards for the handbrake lever.

2) There isn't much space inside the headlamp pods to add indicators without severely restricting the headlamp output, so I will read up on the positioning restrictions for separate (external) indicators at the front.

3) I will fit the orange LED indicators at the rear (they only require a tiny hole drilled in the bodywork), and if the IVA or MOT examiner objects, I will replace them with the Land Rover type.

4) & 5) The car was registered in 2009 (no specific first date), according to the Certificate Of Title from Oklahoma, so I will bite the bullet and fit reversing lamps just in case (not such a bad idea anyway). I might be lucky and find a switch on the (Corvette) auto gear selector assembly.

6) That is much easier to wire up, with a feed from the dipped headlight cable to a fog light switch with tell-tale light :-)

7) Yes, Cadillac Northstar 4.6 V8 :-) I haven't driven the car since it arrived in England in November 2016, only started it and let it run for a minute once a month or so. It is running rich when the throttle is blipped or revved above 1500 rpm, the black smoke isn't a thick cloud like a diesel with worn injectors or doing a DPF regen dump, so maybe it just needs a run for the engine to be warmed up properly and blow the moths out. I don't know what the MAP sensor hose should be connected to, but it could be that it wasn't fitted during the original build ? I also have a 2001 Cadillac Seville STS with the same engine, so tried comparing the plumbing around the air intake bodies, but they are very different (can take photos and post tomorrow).

Dave.