Chassis nos. (& thermostats)

[Guest]

Hi Guys, I'm in the final stages of stripping my Monty TD & because it's in a foreign land I want to grind away all the identity markings so: Are there any hidden stamped numbers please?

Also may I make the plea (I think I did years ago too?) to not trust old thermostats to open wide enough when required; esp. with a D.I. turbo diesel.
I had no warning with mine. It was pulling fine up a mountain until it wasn't.

Waffle: These days I'm driving a (cheap) Lexus LS430. It's supposed to be one of the world's best cars. Really? Well the Monty would cruise effortlessly & comfortably across Europe only needing a cruise control because it liked 95 mph, so I had to tediously keep watching the speedo.
I don't remember tiring road noise being much of an issue either, a pet hate of mine. On many modern cars that is all I can hear; so what has improved?

Best wishes. Zap

[E_T_V]

I don't think anyone would legitimately want to remove the identity markings as I can't htink of a legitimate reason why you'd want to.

[Guest]

I don't think anyone would legitimately want to remove the identity markings as I can't htink of a legitimate reason why you'd want to.

Cloning.
Laughable you would think with a Montego.
I know two people who have had it happen to them.
One wasn't even the same make of car, but it had the right badges & reg no.
In the country I am in you are guilty until you can prove (expensively) that you are not.

Best one so far was the road tax for 2008. The revenue gathering crooks that deal with it 'lost' all their records for that year, so everyone was asked to show proof that they had paid. If you didn't keep the paperwork you paid again. Plus heavy fines were attached to any delay..... & if you don't pay them you get your home auctioned off for buttons behind your back. Same applies to M'way tolls. No redress or appeals.
Incredible to Britains I have no doubt.

I'll just bury the car on the land along with the spares I stupidly removed because I thought they might be of use to someone one day. Sorry for the inconvenience ETV

[E_T_V]

Simply rivet a plate over the VIN number if you are worried about people copying it.

I'm not sure why removing the marks would help avoid this problem as then you have no proof your car is the genuine one, and you wouldn't need to remove any hidden marks either.

The usual reason marks are removed in foreign countries is to hide the fact that they are stolen cars which were then exported illegally around the world. Not that I can imagine there is much cause for exporting a stolen montego/maestro but you never know.

[mgdavid]

I seem to remember there is a body ID number stamped in the boot floor on the righthand side.

[Guest]

I seem to remember there is a body ID number stamped in the boot floor on the righthand side.

Thxs mg

[David3500]

My father designed the main VIN marking equipment for the Maestro and Montego bodies and his company built them. These were of a roll marker design and each character was embossed separately into several places on the body.

These are more difficult to remove through the usually methods compared to more recent alternative methods.

[David3500]

I don't think anyone would legitimately want to remove the identity markings as I can't htink of a legitimate reason why you'd want to.

The only legitimate reason I can think of is if you were reshelling an accident damaged car using a brand new unused bodyshell that had not previously been issued with a VIN. This might be done because the original bodyshell is too badly damaged or it is not economically viable to repair without it meaning a compromise in its overall strength/rigidity when completed. In this case the owner would need to transfer every other major component from the accident damaged car (i.e. engine and gearbox and axle/s) across to the new bodyshell to ensure they could retain the car's original VIN and registration number. At this point they would then scrap the unrepairable original bodyshell, taking steps to ensure it cannot be reused as this would otherwise mean there could technically be two bodyshells bearing the same VIN. Part of this scrapping process would mean removing all traces of its VIN and body number.

There are guidelines on this from the D.V.L.A. for those attempting this in the UK although I do not know how stringent the guidelines are in other countries.