lazy394

Question, how can you tell a cars manufacture month from a pre 13 digit vin?


Scotty

MDchanic

You can't.

- Eric

lazy394

Hmmm rats, thanks mate

Charlie Jones

Not sure what year they started but Fisher Body stamped a date code on the cowl trim tag.
It will read like 04C or 12D etc. The number is the month and the letter is the week (A= 1st , B=2nd etc. ) that the body was assembled. Final assembly was usually that week or the following one in most cases.

MDchanic

To be clear, using 1961 as an example, the VIN was made up as below:

yysAXXXXXX, with

yy = Year
s = Series (2 for 32, 5 for 35, 8 for 38)
A = Assembly Plant (M for Michigan, etc.), and
XXXXXX = Sequential Number.

That's all there is and there ain't no more.

- Eric

lazy394

Is it correct the Hydra matic is date stamped?

MDchanic

I do not know that. I'm sure others will be able to say, though.

- Eric

jaunty75

I don't thiny ANY VIN, even the modern, 17-digit VINs, give this information. No VIN ever has. Date of manufacture information is found on the cowl tag or elsewhere, if it exists at all, depending on the manufacturer. The only date information the VIN gives is the model year.

lazy394

Thanks guys. Trying to find out when my car was built is proving to be a challenge. The cars cowl tag does not have a date. I know that a 98 Scenicoupe body number 1123 was sold 5 Nov 58, mine is body number 2486. Based on this my best guess is late 58 maybe very early 59


Thanks Scotty

Charlie Jones

Look at the castings on the engine. Heads ,manifolds , block for a three digit "julian code".
That number will be the day of the year that the part was cast. Example 001=Jan 1st, 365= Dec 31st.
Most castings were assembled into complete engines within a few days at Lansing MI .
All engines were built at Lansing . The cars assembled at Lansing would have engines that were cast within a few days before, in most cases.
The cars built at outlying assembly plants such as Texas , California , or Wilmington DE , would have engines built two or three weeks before final assembly because the engines had to be shipped there.
Keep in mind that the model year's production started in August of the previous year and ran through July of the current year.

jaunty75

Is there some reason you want to know this other than idle curiosity?

I don't think you can possibly make the kind of inference you did with regard to when yours was built. Cars can be sold in any order, certainly not in the order in which they're built, and very certainly not at any sort of linear rate.

Some cars were made to order. A customer sat down with a salesman, went down the list, and ordered a car equipped the way he wanted it. That order is transmitted to the factory, and the car is built. It's also sold before the building of it ever gets started.

But other cars, most of them, probably, are made on spec. They're built with popular options and in popular colors and sent to the dealers where they sit on the lot forming the inventory that a dealer has to sell to customers who aren't as particular about the car they buy, are happy to choose one right off the lot, and can drive it home that day rather than waiting two months for a specially-ordered car.

So a car made to order is sold immediately. But a car built, say, a month before it but only as dealer inventory might sit on the lot for two or three months before its sold, so it sold after the one that was built later. The body numbers and build dates on these two cars would have no relationship whatsoever to not only when they were sold relative to each other, but also the order in which they were sold.

I think that unless you can find some kind of date code on the body, the best you can do is know that it was built during the 1959 model year.

lazy394

The intake and exhaust manifolds have D5 cast in them and the steeringbox has *318*. If this is the Julian code This makes it 14th Nov 58. The car was made in Kansas.


Scotty

Charlie Jones

That 318 is probably as close as your going to get to a production date.
It means the car was ASSEMBLED after 14th Nov '58. Probably late Nov. or Dec. of 58.
As Jaunty said, no telling when it was sold . I've seen some cars sit the better part of a year on the showroom floor , waiting to be sold. I know, as a lot boy I had to dust them off every day.

lazy394

It all started when the Bay to Birdwood here changed the criteria for entry. There are 2 runs on alternate years from the first cars to 1956 then 56 to 79 for Classics. It is now Early to Dec 59. This started my quest to find out. I knew it was now in the vintage group as the model year change before Dec, but hated not knowing how to decode GM stuff.
Thanks for all your help guys, I really appreciate it!


Scotty


Ps this car was ordered, I have the original Dealer invoice . Would have been nice if they dated it lol

ignachuck

As Jaunty75 just said, the VIN number is established long before the car is scheduled to be built. As an example, when I was a Dodge salesman, the VIN number was assigned once the order was reviewed and accepted by Chrysler. At that point, the VIN was transferred to Chrysler Financial Credit, and they owned the vehicle until it was manufactured and delivered to the dealer. Then it was floorplanned to the dealer. We could track the build progress for a customer once we had a VIN, but parts availability could change the actual build date. I believe that all the car manufacturers used this process.

MDchanic

I was under the impression that in the '60s, GM's VINs were created when the build sheet for the car was printed out, just before the car began to roll down the line at the assembly plant. I think there was some sort of order number before that, but no VIN until the manufacturing process had actually begun, which is to say that the VIN was a product of the manufacturing process, and not the ordering process.

Is that incorrect?

- Eric

Koda

VINs are attached to cars on the line, once they're in order because you have to get the cars in line so they get the correct production number that they actually have.

My custom ordered silver 442 might have a order sheet and build sheet, as may your custom ordered pink 442, but which car is first on the VIN is only determined as the car is being made.

In modern plants, the bodies are the same in weld, so no one cares. In paint, they maintain a buffer of painted bodies in all colors. Once lifted to assembly, they are "in order" on the way, so we use that data to start building up the powertrains. Once they drop on trim 1, one of the first things is to laser print a vin tag and rivet it on.

MDchanic

That's what I thought, but it seems that with the newer cars, the manufacturing process is so predictable that they can tell you what the VIN will be before the process has even begun, whereas in the past, the VIN could not be known until that particular job was started on the line.

- Eric

Koda

You're correct, when the system works right. Just speaking about Toyota modern systems here as an example, you CAN get the VIN number ahead of time on an ordered vehicle, and that's probably what it will be, but it can change if stuff happens. I work in Final Assembly Engineering, so all of our cars have vins already.

Hey, if anyone cares, we don't put VINs any more on the engines, since the engine production number is associated with that vehicle in the records and those can be subpoenaed if necessary. I put in a VIN etcher when we built the Mississippi plant, and it was a POS we took from the shut down NUMMI plant, so I am glad we junked it soon. There's a federal rule about how you can remove one VIN stamp a year from a line, and track the numbers via records. I don't know if we do glass VIN etching any more on the windows.

Charlie Jones

If that's the case, then your car definatly qualifies . Because in December of 59 1960 models were already being built.

lazy394

Yes I does, thanks!
This turned out to be a very interesting thread for me, thanks heaps for the input!


Scott

lazy394

This is the Original Dealer Invoice that came with the car, and the VIN is listed.Are these documents done at sale or delivery?


Scott

btw

As original as this 59 sounds, have you ever had the back seat out of the car? I'm guessing the build sheet is resting comfortably between the back springs in the foam insulation - just waiting for you to find it!

lazy394

Yes I have, and so did the previous owner who had plastic covers made for the seats. There is no treasure there now I had them out to remove said awful covers lol