After getting the car put back together, I went through the extremely complicated process of getting the car to an inspection station.
Last year Texas changed their laws and processes to where the safety inspection sticker and the registration sticker are merged into one process. While this sounds great on paper (and simplifies the process for the average driver), it made things complicated for me to get the car inspected and registered. The car was "Title Only" and as a result was illegal to drive on the road. To be legal it needed a license plate and registration, but to get that it had to be inspected. To be inspected, it needed license and registration to be driven on the road for testing.
Apparently I was the first person in the county with this problem, as they had 6 clerks on duty that day, and not one of them knew what to do. They got out the law book and it didn't cover it either. After an hour on the phone with Austin, they still weren't any further ahead. Ultimately they gave me 2 temporary plates (one for the trip to the inspection depot and one for the return home) and a handwritten/signed note explaining what was going on "in case I got pulled over".
Long story short, the place I took it to installed 4 new tires (the 10 year old dry-rotted tires were still holding air if you can believe it) and put it through the inspection process. It passed!
Went back to the courthouse with the inspection certificate and completed the registration process and the car went legally back on the road the Friday before Thanksgiving.
The first few miles were not without their problems though. The engine ran fine, but the smoke was pretty epic every time you took off from a stop. After some hard romping on the loud pedal, the heavy smoking went away. The car still needs a good long drive on the highway, but still a few things standing in the way before I trust it enough for that to happen.
After sitting for so long, the shocks were completely gone, unsurprisingly, which caused a very interesting "effect" when you went around a left hand turn - the low oil warning light would come on. Going up hill or turning left would show you up with that fun yellow light. Got really annoying since the oil level was never below 3/4 up the dipstick at any given time.
Overly "cautious" low oil warning light
After driving the car for a bit, I noticed some really weird tire wear on the front left tire which turned out to be from the body striking the tire from blown shocks.
Weird Tire Wear
After seeing that, it was time for shocks. The wallowing and exhaust pipe dragging were getting old and that overly cautious warning light was really starting to piss me off. After a long debate on the forum, I settled on Bilstein B4 HD's and couldn't be happier with the decision. The guys saying they're too firm must have back problems or something!
Shocks - Comfort/Standard vs. Heavy Duty
Replacing the shocks improved the ride tremendously and eliminated the wallow/roll in the turns. As a nice side effect, it raised the ride height about 2", so no more belly dragging or body scuffing.