Re: [DML] VIN Conflict (more, long)

["James Espey" <james@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mike,

Does it say 8/1/82 or 1/8/82? The former would actually be January
8th, 1982. We have VIN 17144 here (12144 under the headliners) and
written on that door is 18/2/82 - Feb 18th 1982.

In your case, Jan 8th was a Friday and Feb 8th (more likely) was a
Monday. Of the cars that I have seen over the here at DMC, all 10XXX
and 15XXX cars have Dec 81 dates under the headliners, and 11XXX and
16XXX cars have Jan 82 dates under the headliners, 17XXX cars are
actually 12XXX cars and have Feb 82 dates under the headliners.

Interestingly, there are a number of 20XXX doors here in the
warehouse. Almost all of these doors are completely assembled with
glass, lock mechanisms, window mechanisms, solenoids and in some cases
interior trim. Based on the final 20XXX VIN believed to be 20104 (plus
the gold car, 20105), these doors were assembled for cars that were
never built or in one or two cases (noted below), may have been built
but the originally intended door for some reason was not used (failed
QC check?).

20093 dated 8-4-82
20104 dated 25-3-82
20113 dated 19-1-82
20115 dated 12-1-82
20116 dated 12-1-82
20117 dated 19-4-82

There are also a number of doors dated 13-5-82, with no VIN. We know
the doors were built on their own assembly line, and according to SSI,
an extra 500 sets of doors were made. I'm thinking more and more that
the dates on the doors are the dates the *door shells* were assembled,
and the VIN and key codes were added once it got attached to a door.

In the heyday of production (most of 1981) doors were stuck on cars
probably just as soon as they could get the doors assembled, so the
dates written on the doors match up pretty good with VIN plate build
dates.

But as production started and stopped (again and again) through 1982,
that was probably less of a problem. Hence, door shells that were
assembled earlier in Jan/Feb/Mar of 1982, may not have gotten
"assigned" to cars (and therefore VINs) until much later - explaining
the 20XXX doors above. It's a theory.  :-)

We don't see many 20XXX cars here in Houston, but I would be
interested in knowing what is written under their headliners in the
way of VIN's and dates.

James


--- In dmcnews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Mike Walsh" <mike@xxxx> wrote:
> Tate, I found the same thing on #17084. Taking off the headliners
from the
> door, I saw the original vin of 12084 with a build date of Aug 1st '82
> (BTW - that is a Sunday - was the factory open Sundays?). Others
might know
> more, but I was under the impression that a number of cars were set
aside to
> convert to other then the US build. That would include the right
hand drive
> and the Canadian spec cars. Have a look at the DML production
chronology and
> the close grouping of 16xxx and 17xxx vins that are built to different
> specs.
> 
> - Mike Walsh
> #17084






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