VIN decoding.
One of the questions I’ve had about my FrankenScout since I got it has been what is original and what isn’t. I have the VIN from the title and the plate (which is screwed into the driver’s A pillar), and which most likely comes from the body itself. But what about the frame? is it original or a donor? If I send in for a lineset ticket, will it even be relevant to the jumble of parts I’ve got?
Browsing through Binder Planet last night, I stumbled on a post about the location of the frame serial and how it’s keyed to the last 8 digits of the VIN, so I picked up a scraper and headed out to the garage. I first looked in the wrong place (back behind the B body mount), but then found the right location after scraping off some engine grease: right in front of the driver’s firewall, forward of the hoist port, on the vertical rise.
Frame VIN
As it turns out, the VIN screwed to this truck does not match the frame. Big surprise. Using a VIN decoder linked from the BP, the tub correctly dates to a ‘76 model Scout II. But when I drop the eight numbers from the frame (Year, Plant, Line, serial) in front of the first five from the body (Model Year/Unused/Model/Model/Engine), I come up with a 1979 model year frame. Curious.
I suppose I could spend $100 on a lineset ticket to see if the VIN I’ve got on the title matches the tub (I know the original color of this tub, which is always on the lineset ticket), but its current location and method of attachment leads me to believe it may be from a third donor vehicle—one that had a clear title, and made it easy to register—and that would be money wasted.
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