Thread: Looking for a project - help!

Woo hoo, CalVIN is your friend

Ignore the question mark.
Enter 77600102

You get:

7 Model year: unknown year code
7 Model: Land Rover, Series I, petrol
6 Body type: 86in, completely knocked down (CKD)
0 Destination: Right-hand drive (RHD), home market
0102 Serial number
You have entered one or more VIN codes not fully known to me. When you did not make a typing error, would you please be so kind as to provide me with details, so that I can enlarge the information set of CalVIN?


Hmm, just realised it doesn't give the year.

And I haven't even seen the vehicle yet, let alone made a massive leap of faith and bought the thing. Just hooking into the classic vehicle chase.

I too have been looking into the VIN and found similar decoder as you have, but the results do not agree with what we see in the photos!

It is not a 86". It has to be a 107"or 109"' it is a long wheel base utility not a short wheel base 86" or 88". A person more familiar with reading series one VINs might be able to fill in the gaps, right know I am thinking that the VIN photo does not belong to that vehicle or we can't read all the numbers on the plate.

Now why doesn't that surprise me. I've come across similar in the MG world. Maybe the Brits liked to play games with us. Ah well, it was fun, which was the point of the exercise. I'll do it all for real when I finally buy a vehicle.

It has to be a 1956 107", they are the only option for a chassis number with a round top on the first digit and 776 for the next three digits.

As John suggests in another place the chassis number after 1949 contains a digit for the year. From after 1949 and prior to 1955 it was the first digit and the sequence contained eight digits. (That is why CalVIN suggests an unknown year with 8 digits) From 1955 to 1961 it was the fourth digit in a sequence of nine digits.

The options for that chassis number are:

1. 107" truck cab 277600102 (sold by Genges Garage, Canberra on 10/2/1956)
2. 107" station wagon 877600102, although its unlikely that there were 102 station wagons in Australia in 1956.

You can tell a wagon chassis because it remains low behind the front seats and only rises a little before the rear wheels, where the truck cab rises up immediately after the front seats/cab.

Diana

Wow, thanks Diana. That makes it rather attractive as it's the same year I was born. Yes yes, I know these things have no 'real' value but an emotional attachment works. Anyway, I have to see the beast in the metal before I can get serious about it. Will be viewing it tomorrow with Sitec.

Looking at the engine bay shot, not only are the obvious bits missing from the engine, there's a bucket of pushrods in the front left hand corner of the photo. Hmm, it won't be a case of 'awakening' the motor methinks.

Cheers
Richard

In case you want to check the engine number, here is an image of the entry in the Grenville Motors allocations book.

Well, thanks to the spotting skills of Simon (Sitec), I am now the scared ... er ... proud owner of a Series 1 Land Rover named Wombat. Appropriately, I've started a restoration thread in the Series 1 sub-folder which can be found here:

http://www.aulro.com/afvb/showthread...98#post2369198

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

[LIST=1][*]107" truck cab 277600102 (sold by Genges Garage, Canberra on 10/2/1956)

Diana, I think you are on the money here, and I'm fairly sure that first digit is indeed a 2. The rear tub needs some capping and the bonnet has worn thru the top of the wings... Normal on dirt roads. Chassis looks brilliant. Re the engine, its a 2.286, and the head (Im guessing) has been removed to do the head gasket. There's a little bit of water sat in pot 2 but otherwise it all looked ok. I chucked a rag in it to suck up the water, and once I get it out of there early next week for Crackers, I'll get it home, put it on a spare set of rims that hold air and pour a cup of diesel onto the top of each pot and then gauge the rust issue in the bore.. Being a 2.286, there'll be one floating around somewhere. I had one last yr but sold it!! ...

I'll take pics of the extraction and send them to Crackers so he can start his thread with them!!