That’s Right. Keep Movin’, Pal

Well kids, you know entirely too much about CA license plates, and you’re wondering what’s next? Getting back into it, we’ll revisit our checklist:
- Top: Removed
- Hood: Removed
- Trunk Lid: Removed
- Windshield: Removed
- Interior: Removed
- Gas Tank: Removed
- Engine/Brake/Clutch Controls: Removed
- Wiring: Almost
- External Lights: Almost
- Grille: Later
- Bumpers: Later
- Fenders: Later
- Doors: Later
- Carriage Bolts: Later

I neglected to include an important checklist item: Removing the carbs/intake. We’ll take care of that lickety-split and then get started on the wiring.

Eventually, the body is going to be lifted straight up off the frame and anything in the way could either get damaged, do damage, or prevent the body from being removed. The carburetors pose a potential hazard because they ride right above the passenger wheel well. Since you have dual carbs, it’ll be better to keep them mounted on the intake manifold(s) and remove everything in one big heap. Remove the gas line and oil breather tube from the valve cover (choke and throttle linkage should already be gone) and you may need to remove the air cleaners for clearance.

Inspect the surrounding area to make sure nothing’s in the way and start unbolting the retainers around the intakes. Undo and remove the two nuts and clamps underneath first, then the four across the top (leave the two outer, lower nuts because they only hold the exhaust and don’t support the intakes). Once all the hardware’s out of the way, you can jostle, shake, wriggle, or otherwise muscle the assembly to remove it. Shove some rags in the exposed intake holes to keep debris out.

An added bonus of removing your intakes now is that it provides unobstructed access to your generator and starter. While you’re in the area, g’head and remove the wires from the generator and then move on to the starter.

Prepwork for the wiring harness should be mostly complete since the bulk of it is associated with your dash. You should be at a point now to disconnect the wiring connectors for the tail lights and license plate lights, located in the trunk on either side of where your gas tank used to be. This will free the remaining anchors on the wiring harness south of the firewall. Once the wires are free, bend the hold-down tabs along the length until you reach the bulkhead and have the rearward wires accounted for. Go to where your master cylinders were and disconnect the wires for your brake switch (if not already disconnected) and the wiper motor too. Feed those wires through the firewall and into your cockpit and then do the same for that wire connected to your started solenoid. Your voltage stabilizer, turn signal repeater, and hi/lo beam foot switch should be the only remaining connections on the inside – disconnect them. Now, you can undo the retaining tabs and collect all internal wiring on the passenger floor. The only ‘connection’ that should be left at this point on the interior is the harness passing through the pass-through hole into the engine compartment. Now move on into the engine bay.

Tip: While bending the hold-down tabs for the wiring, save the protective rubber boots for reuse. They clean up well with some acetone and provide the protection needed to prevent tabs from cutting into the wires. If you don’t know already, the Brits are World renowned for faulty electrics – we can only help to improve an imperfect situation.

Taking account of what’s needed north of the firewall can look a little overwhelming but they’re just wires, man. Starting from where your steering column is, we’ll move clockwise until we reach the harness pass-through, collecting wires as we go. The first connection we see should be the (+) connector on your ignition coil – disconnect it and move toward the front of the engine. Next will be your left horn and temperature sending unit at the water neck on your cylinder head – disconnect them. Now, there should be a grounding connection on the inner fender that’s connected to your left-side headlamp, parking, and turn lights – undo that and undo the connections for your front markers on your grille. The headlamp wires will need to be cut, so make sure you leave enough room to splice the wires later (3-inches minimum). You should now have all of the wires free for the left side of the engine bay and you can disconnect the supports going across the front grille support. Now, repeat the process for the lamps and horn on the right side – the harness should be taped to the support member – go ahead and free that up. Your generator and starter should already be disconnected, so only the fuse/regulator connections should be left.

Here’s where pre-planning helps. Mark the wires connected to the fuse block and the voltage regulator BEFORE removal. I use masking tape and a simple numbering scheme, but you can do something more elaborate. The point is to mark the wires only for a short time because once we pass the harness through the firewall you’ll want to reconnect the wires before forgetting where they go – better to store that harness for safekeeping.

Do a double check that all wires are disconnected.

Storytime: Sometimes you get impatient and do something that you know is a bad idea but, for whatever reason, you proceed. Instead of undoing all the connections under the hood (primarily because those voltage regulator connections scared me), I chose to pass the wires from the interior through that little hole into the engine bay. The interior wiring is much thicker in places and it still had gauge bulbs and other accessories attached. It was possible to get that mangled mess through, but to say the least, it was like trying to pick your nose through your ass. It is much more advisable to go the other route and pass the engine-side harness through into the interior.

That being said, do so. It’ll be a little tricky at times, but you’ll get there. Once you have the harness intact, find a safe place to store it along with the voltage regulator, fuse block, connectors, etc.

Side Note: If, during the process, you do not get frustrated, irritated, or otherwise heated, think about this: Not only do all of these wires need to go back through that teeny hole, they need to go through an even teenier one too, namely the rubber grommet that you’ll be replacing later. You may be tempted to just cut that harness, but be prepared for a much larger headache when figuring out how to reconnect those wires.

As I said previously, these cars are rife with suspicion when it comes to anything electrical – don’t tempt fate to save a little frustration. Mildly-humourous enthusiasts have dubbed Lucas the ‘King of Darkness’. Lucas is the company who made most of Britain’s automotive electrical components to include lighting and the ‘King of Darkness’ moniker comments on their perceived reliability. Oh, snap. But, if you get into any trouble, here’s a map:

While we’re talking electrics, kings of darkness, and lights, you can start removing all of the external fixtures:
Headlamps are easy enough to remove. Your TR4A should have chrome trim rings around each light – get rid of them to expose the headlamp retainer that’s affixed by way of three screws. Once the retainer is removed, the lamp should easily come out of the ‘bucket’ and you can disconnect the plug to completely remove the headlight. Each bucket includes an adjustment mechanism for headlamp alignment so it may be a little confusing, at first, to determine which screws to unscrew to remove the bucket assemblage. If you’ve made it this far, I think you can figure your way out of this pitfall.
Sidelamps need to be removed from the back, in the front wheel well via two nuts (#54 pictured below). It might be easier to turn your wheels out to create some clearance for your tinkering. Since you don’t have a steering wheel anymore, you can just manhandle the wheel. Or, if you’re not manly enough to handle it, jack the front end up and it’ll make your job easier – just be sure not spill any wine cooler on your skirt in the process. Before you remove each sidelamp, be sure to disconnect ground wires from inside the engine bay and feed the wires through into the wheel well.
Front Flasher Lights can be removed now or can be left on the grille for later retrieval. Whenever you’re ready, just remove the lens and your path will be obvious.
Tail Lamps are held in place by two small nuts (#105 in the picture) that are accessible via the trunk. Since the wiring should already be disconnected, tail lamps removal should be a breeze.
Plate Lights are integrated into the rear bumper overriders, so at this time you only need to fish the wiring from the trunk through the space between the rear fenders and the main body. There’s a grommet just above where your tail lights were – just pop the grommet through the hole and feed the wires in. We’ll get to the plate lights later when we talk bumper.

I think that’s it for now. We’ll continue our saga next time. Thanks for looking.

Just YOM, No Kippur

California, with all of its faults (not talking seismic), does offer a surprisingly great service through the DMV – the Year of Manufacture program, or YOM to those in the know. Basically, it allows you to legally register your classic car with vintage license plates. A few other states offer similar programs so consult your DMV to see what’s what (or check this out: http://www.thebolthole.com/misc/yom.html).







For CA, specifically, about forty years after license plate series have been retired, they are eligible for the YOM program. The older black-on-yellow tags went from 1956-62 (left - referred to as ‘56 base plate) and were eligible for YOM sometime in the early 00’s and the highly-recognized yellow-on-black plates from 1963-69 (right - referred to as ’63 base plate) have just matured enough to warrant YOM status last July (2009).

But wait, there’s more! Since we’re dealing with the DMV here, not everyone can benefit from this new-found generosity and there are some strings attached:
- Your car’s year of manufacture (hence, the name) needs to fall within the years of the plate you wish to use. A 1961 TR3 would require the ’56 series and a 1967 TR4A would go for the ’63 series. Got it? There are some exceptions, of course. Sometimes dealers made mistakes and titled cars as later models - a 1962 model sold new as a ’63 (more common than you’d think). Or people who bought used, out-of-state cars and registered them in California - my neighbor’s ’61 Sprite had ’63-series plates because he bought it in '65 from a man in AZ and registered it in CA (remember they were new-issue plates back then, not YOM). He happened to have pictures from that era, which he needed as proof to re-register for the black YOM tags after a few years off the road. Bottom line: it ain’t a perfect system.
- The license plates need to be ‘DMV Clear’, meaning that no record can exist in the DMV’s extensive database. A 35-minute call will take care of this (30 minutes of waiting for 5 minutes of business). You also need to have both plates in a matching pair.
- You will need a validation sticker that matches the year of your vehicle. A 1964 Amphicar needs a white 1964 sticker, a 1967 TR4A would need a blue one from 1967, and a 1965 Camaro wouldn’t need one at all because they weren’t made until ’67. You get the picture.







eBay has been a great source for YOM license plates and stickers – just be wary of counterfeit stickers. I was lucky enough to find a set of cleared license plates in very decent condition with the original ’67 sticker still intact. It took some looking, but they’re out there. To be as period-correct as can be, I did some research, some contemplating, and maybe a little bit of LARPing to figure out what to look for. You see, theoretically, license plate number AAA-000 was the first in 1963 and number ZZZ-999 was the last in 1969. So, I was looking for plates that began with T, U, or V for my ride. Thanking the British Heritage Trust for the info, my particular TR4A was dispatched in April of 1967. After a short spell of time on the road in Portsmouth, England (that’s a whole different story), I figured the car made its way to the great state of California in the good ole US of A about mid-year in ’67, so my search for YOM license plates targeted those starting with a “U”. A couple of weeks of searching, a few phone calls to the DMV, some lost eBay auctions, one last-second bid/win, and viola!, my new old tags.

I’ll leave it up to you to create your own adventure, but here are a couple of lessons-learned and tips for you to ponder:
- Always get your plates in pairs. Since the ’63 YOM is still relatively new, people are going ape sh!# over these old plates, selling for $300+. You could get a great bargain on single plates, but you will need both license plates to register as YOM. There are some shops out there that will make a copy of an existing plate for $50, but proceed with caution for two reasons: the dupe may not pass DMV inspection AND there’s another plate out there with your numbers – keeping in mind that these are hot right now, it’s quite possible that someone else had the same idea as you did one day earlier. In either case, you lose.
- Call the DMV. Don’t trust the seller that the plates are ‘DMV Clear’ without calling the CA DMV yourself to find out. I joked about the wait time earlier, but it’s worth your investment, I think.
- It’s no guarantee. Even though you’ve contacted DMV and they’ve told you that your plates are cleared, something can always go awry. The nitwit on the phone made a typo, someone else took legal claim to your tag numbers before you, the YOM officials in Sacramento didn’t like the cut of your jib – whatever; your application can be denied for a number of reasons, which leads to…
- Be prepared. Bring everything you think you might need and prepare yourself for a three-month wait on your application's approval. Many agents at your local DMV office are not experts on YOM – do your own research and bring guidelines with you. As outlined below, the process is just a process and regardless of how you think it should be, it is the process that will be followed, flawed or not. Keep in mind that from the day your application is submitted to the day you hear it was approved could take three months. Take the initiative to ensure everything is in order before venturing out to the DMV.
- Ugly is legal. If your YOM candidates are not the prettiest pig in the parlor, don’t worry too much about it as long as they are legible with no signs of alteration. Restored plates can be legal, if approved paint colors are used, but don’t waste the money restoring them until your application is approved. Once you have legal claim, then you can clean ‘em up.

The process, as determined by the CA DMV, appended by me:
1. Just like when you call tech support and verify that yes, indeed, your computer IS plugged in, I am going to start with the most obvious first: Make sure your car’s year, or more importantly, the title, is within the range of YOM plates you wish to use. As stated earlier, mistakes can be made and although your VIN tells you it’s a ’62, the title, registration, or other ‘official’ documentation may tell a different story. When in doubt, the DMV will refer to documentation. If you have an oddball situation, call the DMV to get their take – as with most things, if you can tell a compelling story, you’ll find someone who’ll listen.
2. Verify the cleared status of the prospective plates by calling the DMV HQ in Sacramento, CA (1-800-777-0133). The trick is that if the plate you’re calling about is in the system, there is a record, and that plate is not clear. You just need them to verify that the plate is not in their system – aka it is available for registration.
3. Get your plates and appropriate validation sticker for the year of your car.
4. Get your application here: http://www.dmv.ca.gov/forms/reg/reg352.pdf and fill it out. Double check all info is correct, print it, and sign it.
5. Print off these guidelines here: http://www.dmv.ca.gov/about/lad/pdfs/yom/new_text.pdf and bring them with you to the DMV. In the likely event your DMV Window Rep is not up-to-speed on these new-fangled regulations, it will be invaluable to have the DMV’s own gospel to refer to.
6. Pack a lunch and prepare for your day at the DMV. Bring the following with you to DMV:
- YOM plates (two of them)
- One correct year validation sticker (I don’t think it needs to be affixed to the plate)
- Currently-registered plates (two of them)
- Current registration
- Vehicle title (just in case you need it)
- $45
- Proof of insurance (just in case you need it)
- YOM Application
- DMV YOM guidelines for reference

What to expect from your visit: You will be able to keep the YOM plates, but the DMV will most likely want to retain the ‘old’ plates. Additionally, they will keep your registration and provide you with a temporary registration card, valid for two months so you can still drive your classic while in wait.

What to expect in the mail: When your application is approved, the DMV will send you a new registration card, a month sticker, a new year sticker, and two ‘ears’ that you’re supposed to put the new stickers on, like this from a ’56-series:
Good luck and happy motoring.