The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk '50 3100 - 'vin' number

the truck i just bought has a driver's side door pillar plate, bare, except for the stamped 'vin' of 2HPJ20635. and it doesn't have a engine/cowl plate. but it also has a texas registration windshield sticker that has the vehicle serial number as HBM52478. engine code as serial number registration? I'm confused - any guesses?

The HBM number would agree with an original 3100 series 216 engine. The 2HP number is the unit or body serial number and it agrees with a 3100 truck. Texas probably used the engine number as the VIN. What number is on the title?

yeah, that's what i've deduced, and here's the problem, to make a long story short, there's no title. just sales receipts from two different states. a pig in a poke, and my money is already spent. so, now i want to look for another number, maybe on the frame, to see if this is a case of a laundered vehicle/title therefore fraud

Is there a motor in it? Original type motor (216)? What is the serial number on it? Does the serial/VIN agree on all the paperwork you have? I would guess its a case of lost title instead of fraud. You will have to research what the laws/rules are in your state. Maybe you can get a bonded title? Good luck.

Get your info from the folks you'll need to deal with, your state licensing authority. Every state has a way of dealing with your issue. They are the people you'll have to please to get your title. Anyone else's opinion is conjecture.

I know that when I bought my 50' 3100 I had the title from Colorado but when I went to title it in Ga they wouldn't do it. Said all I needed was a bill of sale and bam the old girl had a tag on her, no problems. So it could be that the state no longer requires a title for your truck.

yep, original 216 with the HBM52478 engine serial number. and the state of tx used the HBM number as the serial number for giving it a number for an inspection sticker of road worthiness. and i'm guessing at that time, the pillar plate was still painted over and ignored. and since there is no actual title, the 2HP number shows up as the vehicle's 'vin' number on a sales receipt. and no, wv doesn't do bonded titles. and in the meantime, i slowly wiped the paint off of the plate, and lo and behold, there's an actual chevy plate under all that paint. so, fraud appears to be out of the question. but it makes me scratch my head as to why tx wouldn't allow the guy to file for a lost title, and get a tx title since he had the plate serial number on the truck. i do know that wv will not let me get a title with what i have/receipts. i checked twice just to be sure

thanks for the support

As was mentioned above, many states used the engine number for titling purposes until the mid'50s. Texas is one of them. Even today a pre-55 will be titled by engine number or an state assigned number. They cannot be titled by body number in Texas.

You need to find someone who knows what they are doing at the DMV. There has to be a way. Ask a supervisor what you need to do to title it in your state.

aha! don't mess with tx! thanks for the info. when i checked with tx dmv regarding the 2hp number, they said it wasn't in their system, and from what you said, that'd be correct. but i didn't ask them to check the other number at that time. but i will now

and as far as wv, i checked it twice; no registry unless i have a signed title from the seller's state, tx. and the last person went as far as reading from a book that stated that tx has been a title state since '39