Question about VIN stampings

[Pacecarjeff]

The hidden body stamps are different then the engine and trans stamps.

The Engine and Transmission stamps should be identical to each other.
They were stamped by the same guy at the same time.

[njsteve]

I guess I misunderstood your initial question. While the alpha numeric information will be the same, the stamps that imprint them are definitely different in both size and font.

[COPO]

Is that true on all full frame cars, the body doesn't have hidden VINs and they are only on the frame as outlined in the post above by dehw31? I though Chevelles had hidden VINs on the body like Camaros.

[Keith Tedford]

The transmission and engine were done with the same hand stamp. The frame and firewall were done with the roller type stamp. The numbers were changed manually so sometimes numbers were installed upside down and "6" and "9" got mixed up along with whatever other mistakes that could be made. I maintained these units in the Oshawa truck plant for many years. Hand stamping the firewall with that many numbers would cave the sheet metal in and just would not work. The roller type stamps for the sheet metal could act up some times and not index properly but worked pretty well for the most part when properly maintained. Our Baltimore built '69 had no VIN numbers on the frame, just some frame manufacturer's numbers.

[firstgenaddict]

My Pontiac built 68 GTO has no VIN on the frame nor does it hav any hidden VIN's that I can find...

[Rainer]

If the body VINs were stamped as described above, what are the thoughts on the cowl stampings of this LS6 rag on ebay?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...tem=4599998347

[Bill Pritchard]

My thoughts are that I would be suspicious of those stampings. The sheet metal looks pretty distorted in the stamped areas. Perhaps the Los Angeles plant used a different stamping method on the bodies

[Keith Tedford]

The firewall on the LS6 convertible looks like what you would expect from a hand stamping. The metal around the numbers on our car is flat and not indented like this one. The numbers are not stamped nearly as deep either.
The hand stamp shown above is the same as what we used on the truck engine and transmissions until a few years ago. We added a big flat knob to the back end of the stamp so that the operators had something to hit. New, unco-ordinated operators used to hit their hands a lot before this modification.

[SS427]

Charlie,
Full frame cars also have VIN's stamped on the frame and firewall. It depends on the plant and body style as to where they are found. Chevelles also have them stamped on the firewalls and frame though I seldom find any VIN stampings on Chevelle frames. Also, at least one plant routinely does not stamp the firewall on the Chevelle and stamps the VIN under the dash panel instead as I recently was informed.
Rick

[Bill Pritchard]

I know our old 69 Impala convertible (built at the St. Louis plant) had the CON VIN stamped under the blower motor housing on the firewall.