The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk New VIN Decoder Testers wanted!

Thanks, did not use caps, so I am ok,, the engine in it now is suspose to be a 54,,,I will have to look up the number,,, thanks again for your time,, I feel better,,,,,,,,,,,Fred

Fumblin, one more little correction of a previous overcorrection. LQ is the prefix for 1929 only (1.5-ton). The early 1930 1.5-ton prefix is LR.

Im4racin brought up an important point about the month coding. It was news to me. As far as I can tell, the letter codes for the months began in '46 (whether '46 first or second isn't clear). All previous used the 2 digit month number.

I'm still a little confused about the '41-'46 war production month coding. The Vehicles of Victory site says in one place that '42 started with 01=January, and in another it says '42 started with 13=January. It gives an example with month 32=August '43 (which would be for month 01 in '41 and 13 in '42). That would mean Im4racin's truck, with a build month of 28, would really be a '43, not a '44, but there were no civilian trucks built in '43 (see below). I think it makes the most sense assuming '42 began with month 01, since '42 does have its own set of prefixes different from the '41 prefixes, and Im4racin's number would seem to back that up too.

Here\'s a site that has lots of nice info for U.S. and Canadian Chevy cars, trucks, and military vehicles. Digging through all that info, I found that "after February 1942, all GM production was devoted to military contracts .... Then, with the requirements of the military being satisfied ..., from 1 January 1944 until 31 August 1945, 1942-style civilian trucks were started to be built in small numbers..." Also, elsewhere on that site, I found production dates that corroborated the dates I mentioned earlier. Apparently, there was production overlap between '46 first and second designs, as well as between '46 and '47.

Speaking of military vehicles, should the VIN cruncher include them? They have their own sets of prefixes different from the civilian trucks.

'42 started with 01 and "43" started with 13 and "44" started with 25

this website says that they produced convential big trucks (not coe's or .5 - 1 ton) in 43 and 44, start looking about 1/2 the way down

http://la.znet.com/~c1937/Prod.htm

My eyeballs are getting crossed.

What do I need to fix on our series.htm page -- for now at least.

I think once all this gets done, there are some great bits of additional information that can go on the page with the Cruncher.

But I am here to repair ... just let me know what.

Domo,
Peg

Ok, the following changes have been made to the VIN Cruncher, and the current update is now uploaded to the server:

LQ = 1929 1.5 Ton WB 131
LR = early 1930 1.5 ton WB 131

I'm planning on adding support thru 1959 soon, and once thats tested and checked for accuracy, then we can discuss what should get added next.

I've got enough to say grace over with the coding, so i'll probably not get too involved in trying to collect and determine the accuracy of additional data. If solid, complied data exsists for military trucks, canadian trucks, and engine casting numbers i'll add that functionality.

im4racin,

You say that, in regards to the two digit month numbering system, "'42 started with 01 and "43" started with 13 and "44" started with 25"

If thats the case, the serial number 21YS02 would be:

21 = Janesville, WI
YS = 1941 1.5 ton 160WB
02 = Febuary, 1942

So that means that perhaps in years between 1942 and 1944, that the 1941 "Series Code" was used for all trucks, and the year and date can only be determined via the two digit month/year code?

no ys would make it a febuary of 41 and 42 - 44 used ms for 42 both examples are for 160" wb

rh

All I got was Tarrytown, NY.

My engine serial number is/was 2948246.

It's not the original engine, but it is the VIN on my 1938 Title.

Rusty, the VIN cruncher won't work with an engine number, only the truck mfg. serial number. Is that number supposed to be from the original 1938 engine and is it on an actual 1938 title? It doesn't seem to be a 1938 number.

A little off topic here, but...
Assuming the number Rusty gave is an engine serial number, it might be for an engine from a 1940 car. 1940 engine serial numbers started at 2697268 and were sequentially numbered from there. Car engines built at Flint did not have a prefix, while truck engines built at Flint and all engines built at Tonawanda would have had a 1 or 2 letter prefix (for 1940). This info is from the serial number page in the 1940 Car & Truck Resto Pack. The numbering system changed in '41 to the system that went through '53--a prefix and a build sequence number starting at 1001 for each year.

Support for 1956 Chevrolet model years has been added to the VIN Cruncher.

1956, if i'm reading this data correctly, is the first year the "V" prefix appeared to indicate a V8 engine was included as a factory option.

The VIN Cruncher is able to recognise this prefix, and indicate it's meaning.

For example:

VA356A would indicate a 1956 3100 1/2 ton truck make in Janesville, WI with a V8.

A356A would be the same truck, just without the V8.

If you have a 1956 truck, please feel free to enter your serial number in the cruncher to verify the data is accurate, and for those of you with a '29 thru '55 second series truck, please re-check your number in the cruncher so I can make sure there aren't any "cross contaminated" chunks of data.

As always, if you run your serial number thru the cruncher and it dosen't work, or displays incorrect data, please post the number you entered, and the nature of the error.


Special thanks to Mike B who provided the data for '56 thru '59 trucks!! As soon as i'm sure the '56 data isn't screwing up the exsisting data, i'll add the '57 thru '59 model years.

The information I was working with concerning the 1933 thru 1952 trucks (found on the StoveBolt TechTips section) suggests that all Chevrolet Trucks between the years of 1933 thru 1952 conformed to the following format:

21 GD K 0000

21 being the plant location
GD being the series
K being the production month (A thru L)
0000 being the production order

So what your saying is, that in 1941, the production month was NOT an alphanumerical character, but a two digit number (i.e. 01 JAN, 02 FEB, etc) and in 1942 they made the month number sequential, (i.e. 01 JAN 42, 13 JAN 43, etc) and then in '46 went to the single Alphanumerical character?

If thats the case, then were ANY of the 'pre '46 trucks production months indicated with an Alphanumerical character? If so, when was this practice stopped and substituted with the two digit number?

Yes, on the 41-46 stuff, but I am not sure how many months the 42 lasted. I also have found some info on www.brads41-46chevys.com/id14.html that 46 also had alphanumerical month codes, but only from californa plants and late 46. As far as pre 41, I havn't purchesed a truck yet so i havn't done any reserch.

rh

My '46 2 ton has an alphanumerical month code, and it's a late production model made in Kansas City. (5PWG)

my last post should say californa plants or late 46

rh

Fumblin, you had some characters transposed in your above examples for the '56 1/2-ton. Should be 3A56A or V3A56A, and A=Atlanta, not Janesville. It is correct in the cruncher, though.

I think that is another error on the Stovebolt VIN tip page. As I mentioned earlier, the alpha month code definitely began by the '46 second design, as evidenced in the '46 truck resto pack. It seems the numerical month code began in '39. I've been looking at the resto packs on Keith Hardy\'s site going back to '37. Before '39, there is no month code in the serial number, at least it's not mentioned for '37 and '38. The serial is just a prefix and a sequence number. In '39, the 2-digit month number appears after the prefix.

We need somebody with a '46 first design to post a serial number, with C* or O* prefixes, to see what the month code looks like.

I just did a search of the message board on Brads41-46Chevys site. Someone had requested decoding of the following serial number: 9OS09-2076. That's an early '46 and it's using the numerical month code, which is also out of the '42-'45 sequence. So the numerical month codes went thru the early '46 models, and the sequencing started over.

This site also has info on the Art Deco trucks. He mentions the month numbering system for '42-'45. He also mentions that the '46 first design started production on 9-1-45 and went thru 4-1-46, not the 9-1-46 that the '49 Truck Data Book says (must be a typo). That does seem to make more sense, since the '46 second started on 5-1-46.

I'm going to try entering a bunch of Serial numbers into the cruncher tonight just to make sure my new '56 code isn't messing up the "crunching" of earlier serial numbers, then if that passes the test, then i'm going right into adding the '57 thru '59 years.

Since the numbering scheme is different with the '56 thru '59 years, and it's the first year where the series code can have a V prefix AND a THREE CHARACTER series identifier,(at least as far as the cruncher is concerned) the '56 thru '59 model years were a little more challenging to install (altho I had it licked in under an hour) so I really want to make sure the '56 code hasn't inadvertently goofed up the crunchers ability to correctly "crunch" earlier serial numbers before I add all that data for '57 thru '59.

In the meantime, there has been ZERO responce to my request for truck pics, so if anybody knows where I can score scanned illustrations of the different truck models and years, i'll just use those.