Need help with early 80's White. Tried to register it and was told, to many numbers in VIN. I have 18 and industry standard is 17. I got the vin from door panel factory label. Truck was purchased at county auction and was an ex fire department truck. Any suggestions?
Clean the frame on the left side from the front cab mount forward and see if the VIN is stamped on top of the frame rail or on the side over the axle.
I would think you should have gotten an old bill of sale or a title to go along with the truck. Its hard to make those numbers out sometimes.
Since it is from California it should have had a license plate and associated registration just with no expiration date shown on the registration document as 12/31/99 for something that old. Ask the FD if they have the records on it anywhere and go with whatever VIN that has.
Could not find numbers on the drivers side even after sanding. The passengers side I found three different sets of numbers, but not the VIN. I will sand more on the drivers side as the paint is thick. I'm not the one that bought this at auction, the person I'm trying to get it from has had it for years. He's not sure when he got it as he is nearly 88 yrs old. i was hoping it would be easy to get SE Plates for it. We live in the mountains and things don't get registered like they would in town. So there is no paperwork. I don't know if diesels go out of the computer after so many years as cars and pick up trucks. He said it had tax exempt plates they removed at auction. I will try the fire department and see if they can do anything. There has to be a VIN stamped somewhere else I think. This is a great old truck, only 120K. For $1500 it will make a great mountain truck or just yard art. I will sand in hopes of finding. My old freightliners have numbers stamped boldly and very visible. This has dual shock set up and I was wondering if the numbers might be under the shock mount.
The VIN in the door sticker is probably mostly correct. A quick Google search for "18 digit VIN" seems to indicate that people have had success just dropping the last digit. I would try that first. Also try calling Freightliner and see if they have any records on it.
looking at pics I took and I did find the last six numbers in the VIN. 049368. The serial number I believe. Now I'm going out to see if I can see the rest. More sanding.