Slipstream - September 2015

Destination Restoration: Race to Inspection
By Ash Seidl-Staley
My least
favorite
day of the
year, not counting
International
Eat Your Brussel
Sprouts Day and
Justin Bieber Day,
is the day that I
have to get my cars inspected. It
doesn’t matter which car I take to
get inspected -- am nearly always
met with problems. My vehicles
could run fine the entire year, not
having experienced any problems,
repairs, or issues, but on the day that
I choose to take them to the inspection
station, tail lights go out, their
idles go wonky, and their “check engine”
lights comes on. Are my cars
and I cursed to live under Murphy’s
Law forever? I don’t think I will ever
know for sure, but I really hope not.
When House Bill 2305, which
eradicated the use of an inspection
sticker, passed through the Texas
State Legislature, I was worried that
my inspection chronicles would get
worse. But, much to my surprise, the
process actually became easier. If
you have already dealt with this system,
I hope you liked it as much as I
did, but if your Porsche isn’t due for
registration until later this year, here
are some things you need to know
about the “Two Steps, One Sticker”
process.
First things first: You will still need
to get your car inspected. In fact, you
need to get the car inspected within
the 90 days preceding the vehicle’s
registration expiration date. This
means that if your car’s registration
expires on Oct 31, 2015, then you
can -- and should -- get your inspection
done between July 1 and October
30. When your car passes, the
inspection station will not give you
a new sticker; instead, they will give
you a printout of the Vehicle Inspection
Report (VIR), which you will
then need to provide to the DMV
12 September
when it comes time to actually register
your vehicle. Upon completing
these two steps, your inspection and
registration are now what the DMV
calls “in sync.” From that point on
you will use only the one sticker to
prove that your inspection and registration
are up to date. In 2016 and
every year that follows, you will have
to repeat this exact same process.
When it came to my register my
914, I was able to find a legal loophole
in this two-step process. My
registration was up in April, but my
inspection was still good through
October. Instead of having to do
two inspections in the same year I
was able to get a copy of my sevenmonth
old VIR and use it to get my
new registration sticker. This means
that I don’t have to get the 914 inspected
until 2016!!
Unlike my 914, my 944’s stickers
had expired in 2013. Thankfully
though, it is over 25 years old, and is
only required to pass the safety portion
of the Texas State inspection.
This means that all of the tires have
to be inflated, the car has to run and
idle, the brakes have to stop the car,
the parking brake has to be operable,
all of the lights have to work,
the windshield wipers have to run,
and the horn has to sound off. Most
of these things are usually taken for
granted by the average motorist, but
to a vintage Porsche owner, they are
a serious set of requirements. Preparing
a classic vehicle for inspection
can be accomplished by just
inflating the rear tires and changing
out a few tail lights, or can be as difficult
and time-consuming as replacing
a car’s main computer.
Since I just rebuilt the top half of
the 944’s engine and had previously
replaced the car’s brakes and rotors,
the stopping and going part of
my inspection was a shoo-in. After
checking my lights, I found that I
only needed to replace my right
rear brake light. My prospects for a
Photo by the Author
good inspection were looking great
until I sat in the driver’s seat and attempted
to honk my horn and start
my wiper blades; both actions produced
no effect. I reached under my
dash to feel for any loose wires, but
found that everything was hooked
up properly. When I pressed on
the wire that I believed to be connected
to the windshield wipers,
they started to move. I was limited
to only one wiper setting, and had
to continually apply pressure to the
wire, but they did move. This meant
that there was a short somewhere
else in the system.
As far as the horn was concerned,
I couldn’t get it to do anything. I
checked the fuses, relays, and all the
connections to and from the horns,
but I couldn’t find out why the horn
was dead. It was at this point that I
realized my issues had to be within
the steering console itself. Looking
up into the console, I was immediately
overwhelmed with a mesh of
wires and connections. There was
no way I was going to get the horn
fixed without a new console, and
there was no way I was going to be
able to accomplish the job myself.
My limited mechanical knowledge
only goes so far and unfortunately
extensive electrical work is not yet
within its threshold.
I broke down and called a shop that
was willing to give it a try; the only
problem was that the car was running
on expired registration and inspection
stickers and I couldn’t get
the stickers until I got the horn and
wipers fixed. Talk about a conundrum!
Q: How was I to get to the
auto shop (without shelling out tow
money) with a car that has no tags?
A: Covertly, quickly, and via the back
roads! After I made it to the shop,
sans tickets, it was confirmed that
the motherboard within the steering
console was fried. If I had waited
any longer, I would have started to
lose other functions, like hazards,
signals, and even my lights.