[Pete'sWife]

Like I said, MMO worked like magic 11 years ago! I swear by it.

About my Pontiac, and any other automobile from that era:

It has no "crush zones."

It has a non-collapsible steering column.

The dashboard is made of the same material as the rest of the car - hard steel. In fact, it's welded to the cowl assembly. (This makes working on the wiring lots of fun!)

The engine / transmission will become unwelcome guests in the passenger compartment in a front end collision.

It is a chore to drive. Remember the movies from the '30's and '40's in scenes when someone is driving? They're constantly stirring the steering wheel. They're doing that for a reason - to keep the car on the road! My car has no power steering or power brakes. It doesn't even have ball joints - it has king pins. With the old bias-belted tires, it wandered all over the place, which made stirring the steering wheel a necessity. At the end of a long drive, I was exhausted! I'll be mounting wide-whitewall radials this time, and that should improve things, a little.

[backhoe]

Yes, what you said about those old cars is quite true- I was taught the dashboard was so named because "you dash your brains out" on it in the event of a wreck!

I remember reading a Popular Mechanics article by Tom MacCahill ( sic ) years ago, when he was stunt-driving for Hollywood, about how he had to find a piece of rope to lash him behind the wheel of an old Cadillac, which, of course in those days had nary a seatbelt.

I always liked working on the old iron, because they were very simple mechanically- but they weren't a good thing to have a wreck in.

[Iscool]

Normally, you can take most of the play out of the steering by adjusting the steering gear box...