Basically, there is a blanket 25 year restriction on things like engine swaps to a engine that was not originally available in the vehicle from the factory. This is the EPA federal restriction. I could do an engine swap, but it could only be a 4.3 V6 gas, or a 4cyl gas, which were both available in 1989.

However, each state has its own specific laws related to this, and its more or less the state which governs what you can do, not really the EPA.

In my state, RI, they generally follow the EPA restriction. The language of the law is a little weird, but essentially, as long as you own the car, it must be safety inspected and emissions inspected every two years, regardless of age, (unless its a historic plate, at which point, no inspections, but restrictions on driving use). However, once a vehicle is 25 years old or older, it no longer has to pass any emissions inspections, even though it still has to take them.

Since my van is an 89, I just had it reinspected immediately before pulling the engine out, it has a two year sticker which will expire past the vans 25th year birthday, at which point the fact that it has a diesel, and will fail a gas inspection does not matter.

Secondly, I "might" be able to retitle it as diesel long term. DMV people are notoriously contradictory when it comes to telling you what you can and can't do as far as paperwork. We will see on that eventually

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I have similar hoops to jump through over here. Well I would if I or anyone else knew what the hoops were. The Dutch government are still in the process of working out what they want to do about all of these stinky diesels...

...the thing is that at the moment the system is set up in such a way that it is possible that business people could (in principle) use an old 1980s diesel car and rack up 50K miles per year at a reduced rate of tax than everyone else - this is considered to be unfair. Thing is I've never known anyone to be able to reliably (for business purposes) drive that far in a 1980s diesel; I mean how many oil changes alone would that need??? Total nonsense you'd spend most of your time trying to catch up for the time the car had spent at the dealer. (There's a bit more to the story but I won't whinge on about it)

Still I guess it is the same the world over - pen pushers will make things more complicated than they need to be!

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

Very crafty.

Agree about ambiguity from DMV....

What happened to the 4.3?

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On some nights I still believe that a car with the fuel gauge on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio. - HST

1983 300SD - 305000
1984 Toyota Landcruiser - 190000
1994 GMC Jimmy - 203000

https://media.giphy.com/media/X3nnss8PAj5aU/giphy.gif

its got about 205k on it, and puffs a bit of smoke on startup. Otherwise reliable, but definitely tired. Needs leaking valve stem seals replaced to get rid of the leaking of motor oil into the cylinders, and might as well be rebuilt if I went so far as to do that. Additionally, ive overheated the transmission 3-4 times. Last time, van could not tow anymore, but was still fine for day to day service with no trailers.

Basically, ive used the crap out of the stock drivetrain, and it needs some major TLC.

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