Using the engine number is fine, if that is absolutely all you have.
However, if a car is missing its VIN, body number plate, and any other
numbers that can be related to the original chassis number, then there is no
guarantee that the engine that is in the car is the original, either. What
you will get from BMIHT is the manufacturing data for the car that left the
factory with that engine, whether it is original to your car or not. From
there, it is a leap of faith as to whether you actually know the true
identity of your car.
If Stephen will excuse my jumping in here, he and I have been trying to
figure out his car's true identity since 2003 (he has owned it since 1975).
It was carrying a BJ7 VIN plate, but had previously had a plate issued by
the Quebec authorities with a made-up number. The Quebec number included
the digits 31481, which we thought might be a clue since it appeared to be a
valid BJ8 chassis number. The only other clue available was the last two
letters of the engine serial number plate (81), the rest of which was
missing, perhaps due to a hot tanking of the block during an engine rebuild.
There was no legible VIN stamped on the shock tower.
Via a friend who researches for me periodically in the BMIHT archives, we
learned that chassis 31481 was a French-spec car sent to Paris that
originally had engine 29KFA/RU/H281 installed. This car also had fixed
steering, which Stephens' car also has (and which is relatively rare on a
BJ8). The information available to my researcher at BMIHT is not exactly
the same as that used to produce the certificates, and has no identification
of the rear axle numbers. However, my researcher was able to convince the
BMIHT staff to check to see if 31481 had a rear axle number identified in
their records (they will not normally do a reverse search on a rear axle
number, since it is labor intensive). It did, and the number matched what
Stephen subsequently found on his rear axle.
The successes are what make this registry stuff fun, and useful.
Steve Byers
HBJ8L/36666
BJ8 Registry
Havelock, NC USA
BT 7s do not have stamps anywhere. I sent my engine # to bmht for vin info
Ira Erbs
Digs 4 Solutions
Computer Consultants
Portland, OR
On Jan 4, 2011 11:52 AM, "Healey" <healey at hunterbane.com> wrote:
> And Stephen, isn't there also a body number stamped on the front
> chassis? Maybe another bit of detective work left.
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