OK so I bought a 68 Dart 4dr w/ the slant 6. I have gotten everything done for the registration except for my Saftey

I went to a local shop that my work uses alot and they do the saftey. At the end the mechanic comes to me and tells me that the car failed.
1. Washer bottle is clogged(2 min with a can of compressed air freed it)
2. MY rear seat belts were tucked into the seat
3.There is some play in the steering wheel.(its a 38yr old car)(about 1/2 inch each way)
4 My pinion seal on the rear Diff is leaking(I get that one as a good reason)
5. The left axle seal is leaking a little(i also get this one)
6. The Mechanic couldnt find the switch for high/low beams(yea that's in a real tricky spot LOL)


Do you think a car should fail for that?

Just needed to vent.
Also is the PInion seal hard to change?

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Stock 68 dart 225.

Why should you or anybody else have to get the government to "validate" the safety of your car? If you want to drive a wreck, and go off a cliff, ultimately, that is your problem, not anybody elses. I can almost see the point of putting somebody else in danger, but in general, a poorly maintained car is only going to hurt the owner.

This sort of nonsense leads to somebody, not necessarily an expert, being put in a position where their opinion or personal feelings carry the weight of the law. I used to work in a Planning department for a local government, and in way too many cases, it was the asthetic sensibilities of the code enforcement guy or planner than sent off a letter with a threat, or fine to the property owners.

Sorry about the idiot, but I think that it is par for the course.

'cause roadway safety is everybody's job, and roadway dangers are everybody's problem.
That may be your pet belief, but it's not based on any science or fact. It's absolutely not true. Faulty safety systems in vehicles kill and maim and cause property damage to others, often with the rolling wreck blundering blithely on its way, its cheapass driver blissfully unaware of the mayhem his car has caused.

I agree that vehicle inspection programs are very, very tricky to set up such that they remedy actual, real safety/pollution problems without becoming a corrupt cash cow for the state or the inspecting garage or his associated parts source, but such properly-implemented programs do exist in the world. Ontario's safety inspection program isn't perfect, but it's much, much closer to the clean end of the scale than the dirty end.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Simple problem, simple zero-dollar fix, and it was a genuine safety problem. Done. Next?
Simple problem, simple zero-dollar fix, and it was a genuine safety problem. Done. Next?
"It's a 38 year old car" does not excuse sloppy steering. Is this car equipped with power or nonpower steering? How many miles on it? You may only need a steering box adjustment, which is easy and inexpensive.
Interesting that you "get" these as valid failure reasons. The pinion seal isn't really safety-related by any stretch. The axle seal is, 'cause leaking axle seals spill oil on the brake shoes, which causes the brakes to grab. Definitely a safety problem.
OK, so a relatively young mechanic. This one's a non-issue, 'cause you showed him where it is, right?
Not if you have access to a nice air impact wrench!

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Hi all,

Dan, I know that I can count on you to disagree. ( Politely, of course).

here in California, we have the biyearly smog test. The smog shops are actually lobbying the state like crazy to keep this increasingly unnecessary requirement. Why unnecessary? Becauses cars are getting too clean. Between Hybrids, ULEVs, and ZEVs, ( some trucks even qualify! I was shocked), superclean gasolines required here, and the emissions warranty on new cars, most cars flat out don't need to be smog tested during their average lifespan.

See this link for complaints that the station owners havehttp://www.cssara.org/www/STARS/Drivers ... hoices.htm

Safety inspections in places like VA are similarly corrupted by the steady cash stream that these operators depend on. If Ontario is pristine, good for you. I contend that they are a cash cow, and ususally unnecessary. I further will argue that adult citizens of a free country assume some risks, and don't need or want a nanny state. If you like this sort of involvment of the government, cool. Just don't impose it on me.

Ya can NOT! No way! I refuse to disagree!


...oh, wait a sec. Oops.
The California smog check is famous. It was the nation's first. The rules change very frequently, and on a seemingly random, capricious and arbitrary basis. Some of the rules that have gone before have been truly mindbogglingly stupid; I've posted about them here before (see e.g. Here). The initial intent behind the program was a good one, but it's outmoded and has been for quite awhile, for exactly the reason you cite: New cars are clean and tend to stay that way, barring intentional tampering, gross abuse or massive systems failure. So few cars flunk smog any more that testing all cars to catch the dirty ones is a completely foolish way to do it.

Much, much better and more economical and less wasteful is clean-screening, in which an on-the-fly emissions sensor is placed at e.g. a highway off ramp. Car's running clean? You never hear the word "emissions" from the state. Car's dirty? You get a "Bring it in" postcard. Don Stedman, of Denver University, has done a great deal of work on the technology, which is truly impressive. I sat in his lab about 10 years ago and watched the system at work in a test run on the I-25 offramp at Speer Blvd, a good 10 miles away from the lab. Car license plate numbers would appear on the screen, with emissions readings right next to them. The system was linked into the make-model-year portion of the DMV database so that clean/dirty standards were appropriate to each vehicle. The vast majority of cars driving by the sniffer registered as clean. A small percentage, cutting across make-model-year lines, came up dirty. Their owners were sent postcards saying "Please bring in your car for FREE evaluation and repair".

I still remember a few of the gross polluters the system caught: An '83 Oldsmobile diesel whose owner had swapped in a '68 engine without a catalyst—yep, that'll be stinky. A '79 Chev Malibu with one of Chevrolet's notorious soft camshafts. When that camshaft was taken out in the lab, it had virtually no lobes left. The owner, an elderly gentleman, opted for the free repair. He got a new camshaft and lifters and was overjoyed with the improved performance and mileage.

Of course, as you point out, some people fight improvements like this vociferously. The smog techs, for instance, who'd be thrown out of work. And of course you can always rely on misguided paranoiacs to bitch and moan about the government "spying" on them (despite there being absolutely zero difference in the information gleaned from a an on-the-fly emissions test vs. the wait-in-line kind).
I'd respond you don't get to choose the risks I assume by imposing on me your "right" to drive a falling-apart, dangerous piece of crap. (not "you" specifically, probably never *you* at all..I'm talking about the guy who truly doesn't give a $#!+ what unnecessary threat he poses to others). Unfortunately, too many people don't maintain their cars to a minimally-safe standard, so the government has to police them. I wish it weren't so. I wish we didn't need speed limits 'cause everyone would drive at reasonable and prudent speeds for prevailing conditions, whether that be 15 mph or 110 mph. I wish we didn't need antipollution regulations 'cause everybody would keep his own messes as small as possible and clean up after 'em. I wish we didn't need laws against murder, rape, child abuse, 'cause nobody would ever do those things.

I wish it weren't so, but we humans can be awfully stupid sometimes.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Uhh, Dan, what years did Chevrolet have the soft camshafts that you mentioned. I hope they had it fixed by 1985.

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82 D150-225/727
02 Dakota-3.9/5 speed
87 GMC C7000-8.2 Detroit Diesel/5+2

Yeah, don't worry -- the soft cams in Chev V8s were '76-'80 (officially '77-'79).

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Jay, I had Ed Buma at Caledonia Auto do my dart's safety. I trust his judgement completely. There are not too many places in Toronto that will write a pass for a 38 year old car due to the insane amounts of fraud taking place in Toronto. There are people there who will beg a mechanic for hours to let a small issue go, then if they succeed, will drive that car straight to the MTO and force the mechanic to perform all the repairs for free. Go outside the city for your cert unless you happen to find one single mechanic in Toronto that wont fleece you. (Dan, anyone you recommend?)

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I've been calling it as i see it for my entire life and that's not about to change. Take it or leave it.

And I thought a law that forces you to use seatbelt was oppressing!!, the good thing here is that we don´t need our cars to get a Safety Check, only use safety seatbelts.

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Mopar Muscle is well defend by Slant Six!

Valiant Duster 1971

Master Mechanic at Dupont & Concord in the West End.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

A lot of people—Americans in particular, 'cause that's the only 1st-world country left in the world where significant numbers don't buckle up—argue against must-use-seatbelt laws.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Like Dan SHOUTED ... uh, wait, it wasn't all caps, just all bold...

Well anyway, yeah, we do need laws to protect us from the stupid and the greedy, and others who would endanger the citizenry. Where I get upset is when the government becomes a nanny, doing things "for our own good" that are done so poorly as to be a bad joke, or even create a hazard.

Government bureaucrats are not experts in the areas they write regulations for, so we get idiocy like smog laws that require owners to find original parts for pollution control systems. Especially when those systems weren't very good, They were quick and cheap ways to meet standards written by ignorant lawmakers. Much better technology exists today, and our new cars are much cleaner.

What to do about the old cars still on the road? Well, I don't have all the answers, but it just seems so glaringly obvious that whatever standard is applied, the measure should be "Is it CLEAN?" and not "Is it as manufactured?"

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'64 Dart GT convertible, 64 Dart 170 2-door post sedan in faded blue and rust (the Az Dart) & a sixty THREE Dart 170 2-door post sedan in faded blue and rust. (future project)
Early Dart Disorder (EDD) is real, and I've got it!

Exactly.........

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Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes

I say the safety check is a good idea. I"ve seen way too many dangerous cars and trailers on the road. They pick on the truckers with the big rigs but often it is the cars on the road that are a bigger problem.

I know of one old guy who had a 1973 Fury that was rusted out way beyond safe. All the structural parts of the unibody were rusted completely away. He still drove it. I called the highway patrol about it and they did nothing. Finally he quit driving it a year later, he said the front end came up when he applied the brakes. Well, I tell you, with the condition that thing was in, had he hit the brakes hard two years earlier that whole car would have flew to pieces.

Then there is all these home made trailers on the road that are unsafe. I saw one a few years ago, a guy was passing through the area hauling petrifed wood (I imagine he stold it from a state park) and the trailer toung was held on by one tiny weld that was about to break. I know of another home made car hauler trailer where the guy used a little 110 volt wire feed welder to assemble it, the welds are all no good. I can' t understand why it hasn't broke yet.

Then there was that other trailer that went by my house last year, it was a small enclosed rental trailer, the toung broke in half just as the guy was driving my my house.