Vehicle ID

[sgo]

I've just discovered that my 59 sedan has one number on the plate on the firewall and a different number stamped on the RH inner gaurd in the engine bay.
Does this mean the subframe has been replaced at some stage or is there some other likely explanation?

[Blown_FC]

I'm no expert...but if I'm not mistaken.......the No. on the RH Inner Guard is not on the Compliance Plate...(ie) no way to have matching No's

I think this is because not all cars were built from the factory, as Perth for example just ASSEMBLED the cars from CKD kits....

My car for example was built in adelaide and is the 205th FC made in Adelaide, but it's the 169th FC Assembled in PERTH.

My compliance plate says FC 225-205-A
and the inner guard says 8-1169 P

So your subframe may have been changed, but then again, it may be the original one aswell....there really is no way of telling.

But I'm sure Ken or Ret could explain further or correct me if I'm wrong.

Cheers

Mark

[RET]

Mark is pretty well spot on.

Neither of the numbers on the vehicle is really the equivalent of a modern vehicle's compliance plate.

The number that appears on the ID plate tells you the sequence number of the specific model/bodystyle and manufacturing plant.

The number that appears on the subframe tells you the year (more or less), and sequence number of assembly and the plant at which the car was assembled.  For reasons known only to GM-H, this number started at 1001, not 1, so you have to subtract 1000 from the stamped number to arrive at the actual assembly sequence number.

All these numbers make it difficult to ascertain the originality of any specific vehicle in any absolute manner.  You actually have 3 number sequences to consider:

The Body Number, a sequence managed by the manufacturing plant
The Chassis Number, a sequence managed by the assembling plant, and
The Engine Number, a single number sequence managed at Fishermans Bend (the only engine-manufacturing plant), but sent in haphazard batches to all assembling factories, and presumably fitted to vehicles in the order in which they were removed from the crates.

However, resident Guru Ken has a heuristic method of resolving this complexity, based on his many years of researching FEs and FCs, and collation of vehicle data.  Based on the information collected from real cars, original papers and so on, Ken can plot the data you have from your car, and make an educated guess as to whether the 3 numbers in combination vary significantly from the trends apparent in his vast collection.

Hope all that helps.

cheers
RET

[sgo]

The reason it came up was that I gave the engineer the firewall number for a VIN, as listed on the rego papers, but he wanted to see it as stamped on the body as well.
I suppose he can take his pick

[RET]

Unusual - in NSW the chassis number is the one used on the rego papers.

cheers
RET

[Blown_FC]

Just goes to show that half the so called VEHICLE ENGINEERS / EXAMINERS  don't always know about cars....and you can't tell me that unless this guys was 20 years old, that he has never seen an old holden before for licensing.