July 2000 Emissions Test and a pre '81 Car

Chicagoland
Mopar Connection

Mo-Power Madness Napervill North High
School (Mill St. & Ogden Ave)

Hog's & Hemi's 2007 (Woodstock Harley Davidson)

By Reena Fellner
Posted: 07/17/2000

I had my '73 Charger tested at 8:30 or 9:00am on a Thursday at the beginning of the month. There were no other cars at the test center.

The first thing that confused them was the Belvidere event plates on the car. The guy wrote down that plate number so I had to tell him to use my regular plate number. Then he looked for the VIN on my dash, but my ACC dash cover was covering it so I told him to read it off the sticker on the door, which he did. He said I must have done this before.

The test for pre '81 cars seems to be pretty much the same as before. The only exception that I noted was that for the tail pipe emissions test, it was done at idle only, and they wanted me to leave the car while they pulled it up (about two feet) to perform the test. I mentioned that I heard that I was allowed to stay in the vehicle for the test and I was told that was OK but I had to put on my seat belt and I couldn't talk to the "driver". The gentleman telling me this was the "driver". He tried to start the car without putting his foot on the gas, like it was fuel injected, so I talked to the driver anyway and told him it didn't have fuel injection. I figured he wasn't the driver yet if he didn't get the car started. (Same thing happens by the way, when you get new tires or at any service place that's not used to carbuerated cars.) They did place a seat cover (on top of my seat cover) on the seat prior to getting in the car. They said something about that being new. They noticed the dual exhaust and had to climb under the car to get the analyzer probes in because one side ends at the muffler, but they didn't say anything to me about it. The one tester did lean on the front fender while they were doing the test, but I haven't gotten new paint yet, so I didn't have too much of a problem with it. The gas cap test was done first, while I was still sitting in the driver's seat.

Haven't gotten the '98 tested yet, so I don't know what other fun I'm in for, but the Charger passed with no problem and I was on my way in about 5-10 minutes.