You are missing something. They will stand by you watching at the side of the road and watch you "sand thru 5 crappy layers of paint in an inconvenient spot to reach". Of course you don't have the correct tools with you. Alternatively, they will impound the car since it doesn't have a visible VIN and they know the one on the tag is fake. I am not excited, it will be your problem. I, and several others were just trying to give some valuable advice, take it is you want. Charlie Stephens
Gimpy play nice, no name calling. PA State Police and our locals both take their jobs seriously. Most are reasonable and understand what is happening in a situation like this. If push comes to shove you better be able to back up that extra tag with real numbers on the vehicle. I have been there when the guy comes out and takes a flapper wheel to a freshly restored car. The owner is never happy. Charlie, It seems to me that most over restored Fords must be in the impound yards in California. They are hard to read the numbers because of location and then they have all that high build paint on them to make them pretty. How do you drive your cars with the cops pulling you over every mile looking for numbers?
Well, as I said all the negativity motivated me to make a mess of that part of the frame to reveal the factory stampings. I will still add a tag for back up. Believe it or not most Cops don't know shit. I had a Cop dispute the frame #'s on a 32 I had. He said all #'s are stamped on a specialized plate which is then attached to the car and not right into the frame........
I can only tell you my personal experience. I had a car inspected to get a bonded title, and the inspector (a guy about 30 y/o) looked at the number on the '26 Ford engine. Then he surprised me by saying that Ford also started placing the number on the frame partway through 1926. He had a link to a book showing ALL LOCATIONS of the serial numbers on any car ever made in the US. We couldn't find the number on the frame, so he surmised it must have been produced too early in the year for the frame stampings to start.
When I needed to get the VIN inspected on my '34 Ford, I was assured by the CHP VIN inspector specialist that the number was on the engine and since I had a different engine, I was out of luck. I went to another county and was in and out in 15 minutes. Not all educated experts are created equally.
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