I was going to say, probably the US. The only inspections I have to do here in Illinois is emissions every two years. There is no such thing as a roadworthiness inspection, at least with non-commercial vehicles. I’m sometimes amazed at the cars I see on the road here. When I was living in Europe in various places, people found this astounding. To be honest, now that I think about it, I do too.
The OP’s posts read British to me, and the HiAce was sold there until 2012. However, the UK has stringent inspection requirements for older vehicles (“MOT”). I’m guessing Australian, as cars that would be scrapped in Japan are exported there.
I was thinking about this after my post. There are probably laws requiring you to have a roadworthy vehicle. So it is not true to say the OP’s car is legal to drive in the states it is just there is probably no mechanism to enforce it. Even in places that require inspections they tend to be every few years. The trend seems to be that older cars need to be inspected more frequently.
“Moved states” is a phrase that might occur in Australian use, since they have states too. (Also, that phrase doesn’t strike me as particularly American; I would have expected “changed states” or “moved to a different state”. But don’t rely too much on that; the US is big and has a lot of idiomatic variability.)
There was a car talk puzzler once, where a snapping hand-brake cable was associated with an electrical problem. I can’t recall hardly any detail about it, but it seemed to have something to do with the ground (and MAYBE a misconnected ground wire in the first place).
One caveat… If the cops see something clearly wrong that may inhibit your ability to safely drive, they may pull you over. This can lead to anything from a friendly sharing of info, to a warning, to a ticket. If the car can’t be safely operated they’ll probably impound it. Common issues that will lead to being pulled over are lights being or a badly damaged windshield.
Sadly it’s probably unlikely that the cops can tell you have no brakes unless you run through a stop sign/red light or crash into something.
Probably none, but the police aren’t omniscient, and they’re not going to be able to enforce that law until something happens that gives them an opportunity to inspect the car.
Huh. a missing ground strap caused an actuation cable (clutch in this case) to fail?
How 'bout the same thing happening and the car depending on the handbrake cable for its desperation starter ground?
And then after the improvised ground strap (brake cable) fails, the electrics go all eccentric because of improper grounding. How’s that for a hypothesis?
If I remember correctly, it was the clutch that made the ground connection so that the electrical stuff would work properly … thus the solution was adding a ground strap between the engine and body …
The hypothesis is a good one … and it sounds like the OP’s rig is due for the cutting torch … perhaps an inspection is in order …
