So after a weekend of breaking the prerequisite amount of tools, slicing open my thumb, and generally spending one more day getting cold, I've got the car back to MOT status. It's been off the road for a year and a half now, so I was counting down the days to get it back on the road.
There was a decent checklist to get through, first off was a driver's side door card. You can't really have interior that could slice you open if you see the passenger door. I bought some sheet plastic from demon tweaks and got cutting. You can also see the check panel simply glued in place with the glue gun. I thought wow that's pretty solid, so after failing twice to get the OMP horn to work from the wheel, I just glued that in place too. Some house keeping then, so handbrake light on the dash was a loose bulb, some messy wires near the pedals and where the glovebox was were cable tied, and the ECU was bolted down. I gave the interior a clean and checked all the lights.
I also bled the remaining brake, eventually with a bit of pipe and one way valve. Ingenious kit well recommended, put my (now broken!) Gucci pump to shame. So after all that, the time came to drive it to the garage for it's test. Just a silly little side story, when I got to the garage I didn't know whether it had passed or not, only that it was ready. Got there, and whilst the lady went to find the keys, I read an utter horror show of a refusal sheet. Assuming it was mine of course. "Offside rusted this" and "something in poor condition that" and the sheet carried on. I was pretty relieved when I read the top of the sheet which read "Transit Van", "Ford" !!!
So the mechanic came to chat about the car, told me about a battery tray hole (which I've hammerited up anyway), and told me after his refresher tester course, technically my race seat was illegal, according to some garbage about it not being the original BMW seat. Thankfully, that bit was overlooked. Therefore, all WRC rally drivers break the law by driving from stage to stage. I think this was before VOSA came back after having taken a sensible pill, and released "clarification". Other than that, my car had a clean bill of health!
So to drive, obviously I very gingerly drove to the garage, stopped after half a mile and had a look round to ensure everything was still attached. One of the front wheels has a wobble which feels very much like a wheel/tyre out of balance. But everything feels good, the back is much tighter with the rear beam bushes doing their job. Haven't opened the taps properly yet, but leaving the revs rise a few times - it's good to hear the straight 6 back at work again.