Seatbelts/SF Earthquake/Crazy Authorities

[Les Singh <Les.Singh@xxxxxxxxx>]

Sincere thanks to all you guys (Alan, Karl, Simon. David G, Marcus, Daave
S.) for all the descriptions of the earthquake's felt effects. I've got a
pretty good idea now of what it was like. Got a fix on the expicentre and
focal depth soon after it happened. Hey, isn't modern electronic technology
wonderful? ... as long as its not in my GTV..?! We're in a pretty active
area as well but not nearly as active as parts of the San Andreas with
fault creep as well as seismicity. Apologies for the non Alfa content.

I've just been through the 6-monthly rigmarole that all Kiwis go through -
getting a "warrant of fitness" for a car, the GTV in this case. No problem
except that the car must have sensed that strange hands were gonna probe
into its innards so a couple of days ago the brakes quit. Had put in a new
tandem underfloor mc, got the rear disks ground and rebuilt the rear
calipers, had new sections of steel tubing put in .. and the thing still
quit after a little while... the classic spongey pedal to no-pedal
syndrome. put it in to a shop I trust and they quickly found the fault, the
front one of the two brake light switches was sucking in air, although it
wasn't leaking any fluid. Just thought I'd pass this on in case someone
else experiences similar troubles. Apart from this, I'd gone through and
checked everything: found slight wear in the steering idler and a rod-end
on that side and replaced those - everything else was A-ok.

For warrant of fitness purposes, here in Godzone, the ultrasafe harness
type restraint is illegal while "El Cheapo self-destructing biodegradeable"
junk belts sourced from Asia are perfectly ok. Are the rule-making
authorities crazy or what?!

Les in  the Green GTV - legal again.....

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