Topic: Dilemma with vin

[Hipo giddyup]

Getting ready to do sheet-metal repairs on my son’s 1970 Mach I. As you can see in the picture, the Vin is stamped on the passenger side firewall crossing from the shock tower into the battery tray. Battery tray area is very bad and needs repaired and with it, part of the Vin will be removed. Don’t know if any other way to correct this or salvage. Might have to get a re-stamping from the state police? Curious what others think..

[CharlesTurner]

I thought for '70 the legal VIN of the car was the windshield tag?

[Coralsnake]

Consider this

When you get the State involved, they will do what they want, not what you want. You may end up with a new State supplied VIN and a legal issue,

[Bob Gaines]

Getting ready to do sheet-metal repairs on my son’s 1970 Mach I. As you can see in the picture, the Vin is stamped on the passenger side firewall crossing from the shock tower into the battery tray. Battery tray area is very bad and needs repaired and with it, part of the Vin will be removed. Don’t know if any other way to correct this or salvage. Might have to get a re-stamping from the state police? Curious what others think..

I think that you are asking for trouble involving the state police. I think you are being naive if you think that they will fill in the blanks with the same numbers on your repaired area where the numbers have been obliterated. A more realistic out come with the state police would be a mandatory state issued different vin. This type of thing gets done the way you want it done all of the time . It is just not supposed to get done in the eyes of the law.

[Hipo giddyup]

Thanks for all the good input. As for a 70', I'm still learning. The windshield tag is unmolested, in place, and correct. The drivers door looks to have the holes for rivets (metal door tag) but no door tag is present and the door appears to be original. Looks like the VIN sticker on the door has been primered over. I'll use some solvent to try and get the primer off to see what is under it. Thanks again for the input. None the less, the sheet metal will be replaced.

[Coralsnake]

Document what you do and keep that information private

[cobrajet_carl]

The 1 T seems like it should be a '71 Metuchen

[J_Speegle]

The 1 T seems like it should be a '71 Metuchen

NJ is know for issues with the first number in the stamped "hidden" VINs in 70. Not sire why it happened or why is is so fairly common. This has created problems for many an owner for decades and I've been contacted a fair number of times over the years to help sort things out here in my state. Just another bell you don't want to ring with agencies that have employees that were not born when the cars were built and tend to follow what is written to a "T" in their printed rules and guidelines

As far as the OP's question. I noticed you only mentioned the passenger side so guessing the drivers side VIN is in better condition

[cobrajet_carl]

The Arizona MVD questioned the windshield VIN on one of my DB 70s because it did not have the script F in front of and after the VIN. I had to loosen the fender bolts and lift the fender enough for the inspector to see the CUN stamped matched the windshield VIN. The inspector told me that all 70 fords had to have the script Fs.  That was one time out of a dozen or so. Trying to explain to him that it wasn't the  case would have been a waste of time.

[Mike_B_SVT]

The Arizona MVD questioned the windshield VIN on one of my DB 70s because it did not have the script F in front of and after the VIN. I had to loosen the fender bolts and lift the fender enough for the inspector to see the CUN stamped matched the windshield VIN. The inspector told me that all 70 fords had to have the script Fs.  That was one time out of a dozen or so. Trying to explain to him that it wasn't the  case would have been a waste of time.

Yeah, there was a change over date.  I forget when it was, but we've discussed it before.  I remember going through all my dash tag pics to figure out a time range.

Getting ready to do sheet-metal repairs on my son’s 1970 Mach I. As you can see in the picture, the Vin is stamped on the passenger side firewall crossing from the shock tower into the battery tray. Battery tray area is very bad and needs repaired and with it, part of the Vin will be removed. Don’t know if any other way to correct this or salvage. Might have to get a re-stamping from the state police? Curious what others think..

Judging from the condition, you have already lost most of that VIN stamp anyhow.  IMO, as long as the other shock tower stamp is in good, readable condition, then you should be able to get away with repairing it and not worrying about restamping.  If you restamp that side, then what's to stop someone from questioning the legitimate stamping on the other side?

[Bob Gaines]

Yeah, there was a change over date.  I forget when it was, but we've discussed it before.  I remember going through all my dash tag pics to figure out a time range.


Judging from the condition, you have already lost most of that VIN stamp anyhow.  IMO, as long as the other shock tower stamp is in good, readable condition, then you should be able to get away with repairing it and not worrying about restamping.  If you restamp that side, then what's to stop someone from questioning the legitimate stamping on the other side?

Not advocating doing it one one way or the other but just addressing the question you posed. The process of doing the stamping if one wanted to is not rocket science and If stamped properly there would be no reason to question the one let alone the other. That is of course if the repair area is done equally well and isn't obvious that a repair was done to raise a red flag and question if the vin in that area was a restamp or not.  FYI the authorities frown on any restamping by owners but things happen.

[Mike Bauman]

HiPo giddyup,
As I was reading through this thread, I noticed you had stated that the Drivers door had rivet holes for a metal door tag.... Would a 1970 drivers side door have rivet holes for a metal door tag?..... Maybe not the original door.... Just an observation from the text.
Mike

[J_Speegle]

HiPo giddyup,
As I was reading through this thread, I noticed you had stated that the Drivers door had rivet holes for a metal door tag.... Would a 1970 drivers side door have rivet holes for a metal door tag?..... Maybe not the original door.... Just an observation from the text.
Mike

Good catch

If you check the threads and one of Marcus' articles it will give you ways of confirming if you have a 69 or 70 door. But of course this is not going to solve the VIN/sheet metal issue

[70cj428]

That rust is really common on the east coast here, most people just cut it out and patch it. Most Metuchen cars will have 2 stamped partial VINS on the apron, one is usually out of the rust area.

The 1 T seems like it should be a '71 Metuchen

That's common on early Metuchen cars and is pretty well documented. It's on waay too many cars to be a mistake and it's usually a 1,2, or 4 that precedes the plant code. I was told back in the 1980's by a Ford district service rep that it identified the assembly line but never had any way to confirm this but I'm sure it meant something to Ford. All states are different but the windshield VIN is the Federally recognized VIN on a 70 so a missing apron VIN shouldn't be the end of the world. There are several horror stories circulating regarding this VIN Anomaly, the most popular one is a 70 Boss that was confiscated in California ....

I've been documenting 70 CJ cars since the 1980's, since I'm in Pennsylvania, most of the cars I come across are Metuchen cars. Another thing I noticed is that Metuchen had the worst Quality control by far of the 3 plants .....

JMHO, John

[Hipo giddyup]

Great info, appreciate all the feedback. As far as the doors, the passenger side is an NOS with the D0Z stencil across the top of the inner portion. The drivers side is still hard to tell as the corners that identify a 70' (stamping design to accommodate the Mach molding) is rusted, not easily identifiable and will need repair. It does have the large access holes present to accommodate the molding hardware so I am guessing it's the original door. Maybe these 69' tag rivet holes were still there since this is an early 70' build car??  Or, if the door was replaced, maybe someone drilled the access holes for the molding? Who knows? I'm attempting to save the door so if the 70 production cars never had the tag rivet holes, I'll fill them.
Another note, I tried to remove the primer over the door sticker but not even lacquer thinner is removing it.