The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Texas registration system flaw

In trying to update the title to my 1952 3100 AD I’ve hit on a flaw in the state DMV registration system. Texas uses ONLY motor numbers on titles that predate the standard VIN system. I have owned the truck since 1980. At some point my truck had the original 216 engine replaced with a 235 and the title was noted as “engine changed”. The stamp by the distributor is F0620J and that is the number the state insists I use on the title. All that number means is that the engine was made in Flint on June,20 and was going out as a “base” model as indicated by the J. The original door panel is still readable but the state refuses to use that number since it is not a standard VIN. My questions

1) Do other states use this same rule?
2) Since there were certainly other 235s made in Flint on the same date (no year indicator) do any of you know of trucks (or cars) carrying the same motor number-especially if in Texas. (Motor # F0620J)

If I can convince them there could be vehicles with the same number I might be able to challenge their silly system.

ILLINOIS excepted the title I got from from Kansas & they used the serial/vin numbers on the door jam & I have had no problems the last 5 plus years getting plates. Actually it's stupid what Texas is doing because how many older vehicles still have the original motors in them?? BUT that being said is just a means of iding the truck. That also means ANYTIME the mtr is changed the title has to be updated also..

I was born in Texas 75 years ago and was a licensed salvage dealer until not too long ago. I have dealt with a lot of title problems. Up until the mid 50's Texas vehicles were titled by the engine number. That was law back then. Factory short blocks were supplied with the serial number blank so the installer could stamp the number of the replacement block. Whoever installed the engine should have ground out the number and stamped it with the original number. I would suppose that a local tax assessors office put the number changed notation on the title. The law is not flawed. Whoever went to the tax office when they installed a different engine was stupid. They should have just changed the numbers on the engine and it would not have been illegal to do so. The number you cite doesn't even match a Chev serial number. But if the number you cite is stamped on the boss by the distributor, that would be the correct number to appear on the title. If you want to open a can of worms, drive down to the Texas DMV at 1001 E. Parmer Lane in Austin. If it were my vehicle and it is a clear title, I would leave it alone. I'm not sure I see your point in what you are trying to gain by criticizing what was law almost 70 years ago. Your statement "Texas uses ONLY motor numbers on titles that predate the standard VIN system" is false. The 17 digit standard VIN started in 1982. Texas started titling vehicles by the VIN number of the vehicle in the mid '50s.

Many states titled vehicles by engine number until the mid '50s.

Swinging swords at windmills? Not a good idea to mess with the DMV. They can and will make your life miserable. If your current title is valid, be content and move on to more important stuff.

That is a pretty concise way of telling the guy what I used up a whole paragraph of telling him. Hope he takes our advice.

There's an even shorter version of the same idea- - - - -"Don't get into a whizzing contest with a skunk!"
LOL!
Jerry

There were a number of states that were not forward thinkers back then. I have a truck from Oregon with the same issue. This is the reason I have kept the original 216 because of the engine number matches the title. But, in reality all you have is a engine that you have a title for, nothing to do with the truck. Alas, arm wrestling and trying to explain the merits of assigning a body number in lieu of the original engine number with the DMV will be fruitless, like Martin says. There should be no duplicates of engine numbers because the engine number's suffix is a production sequence number that is unique only for your truck.

Yep, it's a profit center for the DMV.
Back in the 60's, CA also used engine number, or at least required a visit to DMV if you swapped an engine. I ran into that when I licensed my first Model A. It hadn't been on the road, but DMV insisted that I needed to notify them within 10 days of an engine swap, even though the car hadn't been licensed or on the road for a number of years. They wanted charge me a penalty because I hadn't done that within their prescribed timeframe. Somehow magically, after that first unsuccessful visit to DMV for a license with the new engine number, the engine had JUST been swapped. Then I was able to get the registration and license.
What Jerry said. The power is in their hands.

California doesn't institutionalize sadistic psychopaths- - - -they just give them jobs at the DMV! One of the best scenes I've witnessed in the past 40-something years was the California state line fading out of view on my way back to Tennessee for good!
Jerry

The OP's engine number is F0620J which tells us it was built after 1956 (that was the last year Chevrolet stamped a serial number on the engine). This means every engine built in Flint on June 20th with a J code will have the exact same number... there's no way to tell them apart, so it can't be used for titling purposes... it's not a unique number.

Mike B

Did they stop stamping engines only on inlines then after 56?

I've changed titles on 2 AD trucks in the past 5 years in the great state of Texas, and had no such engine ID problems. Never even came up. When you tell those sweet young ladies at the DMV that were not even a twinkle in their old man's eye in the 40's, that you are registering a 1948 farm truck, they realize there are antiquated components in the process related to vintage vehicles and don't push on it. At least that was my experience.

If you find someone at the DMV that will alter a title, you are very lucky. Most DMV offices don't differentiate between antique vehicles. Every tax assessors office in Texas has to authority to do title work and there are 256 counties. The final say is the DMV in Austin. Titles can be altered, but it is a long process if the DMV in Austin Does it. The later 235 engines that I have seen still had the distributor boss but it was blank. It would have been simple for the installer to stamp the old engine number on it. And it was the recommended practice back then. And I have first hand information because I was swapping engines in the late '50s.

Just to be clear, all Chevrolet engines (I6's and V8's) that we talk about here on the bolt are stamped with plant, date and use codes. After 1956 they stopped stamping the unit sequential numbers, which in turn made it no good for titling purposes.

Mike B

I had to get mine titled in Texas with a bonded title. Officer had to come and check engine number just to make sure it wasn't stolen lol. It came out of an 84. I read somewhere that if you swap engines you have to change title. Again an officer has to sign off and you need to bring old engine with you.

Texas apparently does allow the door frame VIN tag numbers to be used, but I don't know the specific history/process/sequence of events that allowed my '53 Bel Air to be titled that way.

I have a clear TX title that uses the door frame VIN tag number. The title I received from the seller when the car was transferred to me already had that VIN tag number, so transfer/titling in my name was no issue. But, someone took care of the number change in the distant past, since the engine isn't original, and based on several other clues, was probably swapped in the '60's.

I only know a bit of the history of the car. It was displayed by a Sherman, TX local tire store for more than 20 years, and sold once more before I purchased it in 2017. I don't know where it was before that, and it could have been titled in a different state for all I know.

The car has PG transmission so would have originally had an early full-pressure 235 with hydraulic valve lifters. The '54 235 currently in the vehicle is a "standard" engine with solid lifters, SN ending in F54Z, stamped clearly on the machined pad near the distributor, and not recorded on the title.

One amusing fact: the first 4 digits of the VIN tag decode to the car model, year, and assembly plant, and the VIN is C53Oxxxxxx (O for Oakland, CA assembly plant). The title shows the fourth digit as a zero, since DMV "knows" that "O" is not an allowed digit in VINs. Close enough!

There is always more to the story in a question like this. Why does a person want to "update" a good title? ......after 39 years. "To sell or not to sell, that is the question"

Did the earlier 50's pickups as in 51 come off the assembly line with a vin tag on the pillar which was a serial # not related to the engine # and depending on what state (as in Texas) it was titled under the engine # not the serial #. If that is correct you could find a truck titled under the engine # and never changed if you could do a national data base search or search all the states using the vin tag on the pillar there would be no such truck.
Please let me know where I am off on this thought.
Thanks

Yes. And my experience has been that GMC trucks were generally titled using the number on the engine. So go figure.

Thanks Jon, it would be nice to know how many other state besides Texas titled by engine #'s. As of today I have had no luck finding.

My bet is you/we will never know.

We have seen titles/registrations that went either way in the same state, in the same year.

Do not ask me what state and what year. Maybe someone can give an example (that was posted here in the past)?

Most States if not all used the engine serial number for their title identification numbers up until about 1955. By 1957 you could no longer use a Chevrolet engine for that purpose as they stopped stamping unit numbers on the block, so you had to use the Body/Chassis numbers.

Lots of cars have legally gone through the process of having the engine number on their title switched to the Body/Chassis number by their local DMV so this adds to the confusion.

Mike B

Thanks for the additional info.

This comes up all the time. Add to it many states don’t issue a title on older ( +20) and sell on bill of sale only. Then add that many states title in the year of sale not year of production. You think cars and trucks are mixed up, try motorcycles, trailers , RV of all kinds, farm equipment.

If you can get a State DMV person to actually do something.........there’s a book (it often referee to as “the bible”) they all have one. It tells the complete history of every state and all the little issues each state has it related to title, regulation , year, dates, VIN, engine #, bill of sales etc......getting on person find it, read it, understand it and then act.....that’s the trick.

This title year, VIN, engine # went well into the 60-70’s in some states..........no titles on older vehicle sales is still done today in some states.

I've actually experienced the Illinois DMV pull out the "Bible" when I was re-titling a truck from Vermont to IL. Vermont doesn't use titles only registrations so they had to look it up to see how to transfer and title it in Illinois. She pulled a book out from under the counter that covers DMV's for all 50 states and instructions for titling in Illinois from each state.