willysmjeeps.com

RG,
This material sounds like a wee bit of the outhouse lawyer info there.

1. Vehicles prior to the VIN number in most every state are registered by the engine serial number. The only way there is a conflict is if someone else made up a number and stamped it on the block and you don't need a number for a title.

Just as many states prior to the 70's emergence of VIN numbers titled vehicles by chassis serial numbers as by engine serial numbers.
2. It isn't a problem because in most every state if not every state the data plates are a military invention, they have no meaning to registering or identifying your vehicle especially since you have an assigned number now.

Automobiles in this country have been using Data Plates/Serial Plates to stamp their vehicle serial numbers on since the 1900's. Hardly a military thingy!

3. I respectfully disagree with Wes, but since the data plates are not VIN plates and have no meaning in legally identifying a vehicle they are not illegal to sell. If they were you couldn't buy blanks and put numbers on them. VIN plates and titles are a different story.

I respectfully disagree with RG. The difference between a serial number plate and a VIN (Vehicle Identification Number ) plate is the VIN plate includes additional data pertaining to manufacturer and location and equipment then it ends in the vehicle's serial number. Both plates ID a specific vehicle that the plates were installed in and both plates carry the same legal weight.

I do not encourage any member of our web site to blatantly ignore the law or play dumb when all it takes for you to head down a safe and legal path is for you to ask the legal authority in your state.

In RonD's case the safest course is to stamp the VIN that SC DMV assigned to his jeep on the jeep's data plate.

Next time any of you buy a surplus military vehicle take a look at the SF 97 form the DRMO issued to you. It will ID the vehicle by it's serial number on the serial data plate or VIN on the VIN plate.

I in not way suggested that anyone violate any law with the following sentence.

"The only way there is a conflict is if someone else made up a number and stamped it on the block and you don't need a number for a title."

It needs to be read in context, I may have been too subtle, and maybe I didn't complete the thought completely.

The point being that many of us have vehicles that the actual data plate and patent plate numbers are questionable and don't match, additionally I have spoken with folks who not knowing that the number on the title was an engine number have affixed the data plate or patent plate number on a decked block in an attempt to make everything match, not knowing the origin of their title number or the fact that the data and patent plate numbers do not match the engine number due to the production process.
The ramifications of these situations are endless.

We all have to live with the numbers or lack of them on our vehicles and unless you have a completely unmolested vehicle the question of which numbers contained on the data or patent plate are correct is a crap shoot. That is why I have suggested to folks that have a decked block that removed the serial number to see if the block number can be raised but that in and of it's self doesn't guarantee that that engine is original to that vehicle but it might give you a number that matches up with a title.

As to your question Brian, I don't know what the folks at the SO or PD in your county are capable of but I would be surprised if they didn't have the acid. All you can do is ask. Another place that many times has the stuff to raise a stamped serial number on metal is an honest pawn shop.