Dismantling the rear......what do these numbers mean?

[Craig Churchill]

Hi

After work tonight i took my delorean apart...li have loads of jobs to do on the rear and now is a good time!

I just have a few questions about some of the numbers i found...



what does this number refer to as my vin is 16723



and what about this one 006721 and my vin is 16723

any ideas?

i hope i can remember how to put it all back together



many thanks

craig

[MikeH]

probably the number that wa smade, so basicly as that part was made, and im guessing alot were they just wrote the number to keep a tally? ok thats a wild guess but still

[Chris Williams]

As I understand it the metal plate is the chassis number that has no relation to the cars chassis number or vin or engine number. It's just from manufacturing. The other I dont know :lol:
Chris

[Stuart Rees]

Hi Craig,

The number written on your chassis is your cars original VIN number when it left the production line.

Apparently, when 'Consolidated' bought the unsold cars that were parked up at the factory and the docks,
they were shipped to the USA & reissued new VINs. The cars that they acquired included some 10XXX, 11XXX & 12XXX series VINs.
The cars were then given a new number that was 5000 more than its original. Making them 15XXX, 16XXX & 17XXX series VINs.

They were given new numbers so that they could be identified as brand new 1983 cars, instead of 1982 model DeLoreans.

On these cars the initial VIN is sometimes found written under a door headliner and/or on the chassis.

This has recently been discussed on the DML in the last month or so. www.dmcnews.com
Messages 66248 & 66262 will explain this better than I can.

I think the difference of 5010 between your two numbers is because the VIN plates were not replaced in the same order
as they were removed!

Hope this helped.

Stu

[deloreanguy]

Stuart Rees Wrote:Hi Craig,

The number written on your chassis is your cars original VIN number when it left the production line.

The 5000 difference is exactly as Stuart states below. We often see differences of between 1 and 30 between the number handwritten on the rear of the frame and the actual VIN of the car.

Quote:Apparently, when 'Consolidated' bought the unsold cars that were parked up at the factory and the docks,
they were shipped to the USA & reissued new VINs. The cars that they acquired included some 10XXX, 11XXX & 12XXX series VINs.
The cars were then given a new number that was 5000 more than its original. Making them 15XXX, 16XXX & 17XXX series VINs.

They were given new numbers so that they could be identified as brand new 1983 cars, instead of 1982 model DeLoreans.

On these cars the initial VIN is sometimes found written under a door headliner and/or on the chassis.

The number written under the headliner is usually very, very close to the one on the VIN plates, save for these 82 models that were converted to 83's which all have a 5000 difference.

The number on the plate welded to the inside of the frame itself (6721) is the serial number of the frame, and has no reference to either the VIN or the engine number that we've discovered to date.

As an aside, I am interested in knowing on the Wooler-Hodec RHD cars - 12XXX VINs - what frame number and if anything is written under the headliners on those cars...

James