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Exhaust change required to keep the vehicle inspectors happy?

Submitted by warren_dagnall on Thu, 17/02/2011
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Heavy Twins

Hi, I'm a Norton newbie and only recently got into classic bikes (my starter was a 1954 Matchless G3LS) and I need to take my Dominator 99 to a vehicle inspection to be reregistered here in Jersey from the UK. The snag I have is that the exhausts appear to be open race megaphones as my bike was bought as an old cafe racer which needed a bit of work to get it back on the road (judging by the DVLA docs and paperwork it was an auction lot from a berevement, so I think the cafe mods are old). Now I know that a bike from the 60's would be exempt from certain modern noise checks, but would keeping the mega's on be pushing my luck? A further snag is that the mega itself has been weldedonto a mid section of pipe, so I'm not convinced it going to be an easy swap of silencers.

Can anyone suggest a cheap quiet set of silencers that I could pop on for the inspection? None of the retaillers of the modern reverse cone megaphones say how loud they are (some do say not for road use mind you) and the cost of getting my hands on standard dominator silencers wouldn't be sensible based on spending a couple of hundred pounds on something that I'll only be using once (hopefully).

That is unless theres a way of putting a date on my mega's? I am quite fond of the noise they make :o)

Cheers

Chris

Submitted by warren_dagnall on Thu, 17/02/2011

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You will not need to put a date on the Megga assilencerswere not dated back then and themainland legislation is not retrospective. However if the megga is open you would not get it through over here.

Submitted by warren_dagnall on Fri, 18/02/2011

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Thanks Chris, I had a sinking feeling they'd be a bridge to far. Looks like I'll need to sort out something more inspector friendly.

Cheers

Submitted by gino_rondelli on Fri, 18/02/2011

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Find a friendly and sympathetic tester would be my advice, is anyone in the area aware of such a beast? from memory I didn't think noise came into the MOT until the 70's or 80's.

If your worried tack a plate over the end of the mega's and fill with wire wool, that'll get you through!

Submitted by richard_payne on Sat, 19/02/2011

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...until you start firing bits of red-hot glowing brillo pad out of the 'silencer'...Don't tell me that you haven't been there Gino !

Previously wrote:

Find a friendly and sympathetic tester would be my advice, is anyone in the area aware of such a beast? from memory I didn't think noise came into the MOT until the 70's or 80's.

If your worried tack a plate over the end of the mega's and fill with wire wool, that'll get you through!

Submitted by warren_dagnall on Fri, 04/03/2011

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Previously wrote:

You will not need to put a date on the Megga assilencerswere not dated back then and themainland legislation is not retrospective. However if the megga is open you would not get it through over here.

Well I've got myself a nice new pair of baffled meggas, should keep the volume low enough to get it through theinspection,look very smart too.

Amusingly I fired up the old beast at the weekend with my old meggas still on, they sounded even louder and rougher then last time I had it running. I looked behind and the exhaust gasses were only coming out of one side, a worrying sign as I was definitely running on both cylinders. To my relief when I climbed off I noticed that one megga was up and the other down, looks like it had just popped off the exhaust. I guess it had decided it was ready for the new silencers now!

Thanks for the advice everyone

 


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