Check,
__it out.
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...ml#post9845724
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It is illegal.

 

It's sketchy...

In Ford truck terms the VIN of the frame is what counts. But think of guys who build a pro-street tube chassis. The frame VIN is now gone. You can buy re-pop cabs and doors, so the VIN is gone from them as well.

I believe it has more to do with a person's intentions. Whether honest or dishonest.

Say you have a 2wd with a decent body and you swap the cab over to a 4X4 frame. You would then title the 4X4 frame to drive it, the cab has nothing to do with it. If you have the old 4X4 door data plate you could swap that to the 2wd door and then get a re-pop warranty sticker from Marti for the door jamb.

Josh

 

I know of a guy that has a lot of 73-79 ford trucks and when one is stripped down enough that it is ready for the junkyard he will take the tag off the door and cut the vin off the frame and weld the piece on the frame of a truck he wants to fix up.

 

Highly illegal. It's called re-tagging. The only public VIN on these trucks is located on the frame. To weld a VIN from another vehicle is illegal. The plate on the door is not a VIN plate, it is a trim tag. It only contains a partial VIN. Partial VINs are located throughout a vehicle. They are placed there to identify stolen parts from vehicles that have gone through a chop shop. If you swap VINs, you may get lucky and never be stopped by a Cop who knows about these older vehicles. If you aren't so lucky, your truck will be impounded and you may find yourself charged with any number of felonies. Even if you are able to worm your way out of the criminal case, you may lose your truck or at the very least finding yourself engulfed in a myriad of towing, storage, and fees related to having your vehicle properly registered. Not to mention legal fees and a huge headache.

If the seller doesn't have a valid title. Walk away. If the title doesn't match the VIN on the frame, walk away. It just isn't worth the hassle.

 

The warranty sticker contains the entire VIN code as does the data plate on the door.

Rarely does ANY other part contain a VIN or partial VIN code other than the frame. There are a FEW transmissions having a partial VIN stamp and in the rare instance the back of the cylinder head.

Josh

 

Unless one of these trucks is unique and reported stolen, I wonder how many officers would go to the extreme in looking on these trucks. Over the years, there have been so many "frankensteins" that who knows how many titles/registrations don't match the chassis VIN. Now some things are obvious, title says 2wd and the truck is a 4x4 and so on, but if things are pretty well matched, how many actually check. Don't get me wrong, everything stated so far is very illegal, but there is a reason people are doing these things.....they never get checked BUT, you still don't want to get caught doing something like this. I'm sure there are some good police officers that would check if things are really fishy.

 

How about when the frame rail is rusted enough the VIN's are not there?

Bucks77, do your titles state if it is 2WD vs 4WD?

 

Josh,
Neither the data plate nor the warranty sticker are the official VIN's. If a Vin plate was installed, it was held in place with special rivets. In that era, the rivets were known as rosette rivets. The Dents did not have rosette rivetted VIN plates. As you know, those were stamped into the frame.

Those may be the areas where you have located partial VIN's but they can be on any part of the vehicle. The ones you've noted are the most obvious. In order to know where they all are, you would have to be LE and make the request for information over a NCIC computer. You would then be provided the list for all of the VINS on that year, make and model. Even vehicles with similar bodies styles but different years will have hidden VINs in different spots.

I once impounded a Corvette that had parts from 5 different vehicles. At least 4 of the vehicles had been stolen and stripped. The frame and passenger part of the car were legally purchased by the driver from a wrecking yard under a salvage title. The front clip was from a different year vette and was stolen. The motor was from a different car. Stolen. The trans was from still a different car. Stolen. rear body panels were from at least a couple more cars based on paint and were were able to determine at least one was stolen. All of the identified parts had partial VINs hidden on them. It took about a week to go through the car several times. We had to go through and identify the model year of the various parts to obtain the the locations of the partial VINs. In the end the driver was charged with receiving and concealing stolen property and lost the car which was auctioned.

 

You know, I have to look. I know each state is different. I'll check mine.

Also, I'm sure some type of chemical could bring about the VIN stamping on the frame, but if it's rusted enough, I don't think it could be visible. But, who knows. The guys on CSI could probably figure it out.

 

Usually at least part of the VIN can be recovered. If you know some general information about the vehicle, such as the year it is supposed to be, the make, model, etc., you can "reconstruct the VIN." Although automakers don't advertise it to the general public, and probably wouldn't act on a request from the general public, they have security people who do cooperate with law enforcement. For example, if law enforcement provides a vehicle description, the car company can provide them with a VIN for every vehicle matching that description. they can break that information out by state, zip code, region of the country, etc. Really handy when some guy in a factory hot rod is involved in a hit and run accident.

 

I had to look!! I am converting my 77 2WD F-150 to 4WD F250 using bits and pieces and got a little worried.
It does not on any of mine in Va.

 

Same principle they use to pull up serial numbers from guns that have had them ground off. Stamping changes the molecular structure of the steel. Crime labs have the ability to pull these numbers up with a variety of techniques, unless the section of rail is completely rusted away or cut away. Both of course will bring about their own separate issues.

 

I am using the front part of a frame for the spring hangers. As has been said on here at least one VIN stamping should be there but no one can locate it. I was just going to continue to use my current title. Sorry for the thread jack crazedfox but it seemed related to the topic.

 

have you taken steps to clean and degrease the frame rail ? The VIN could actually be further back partially under the cab.