Thread: 110 Defender Chassis

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

Brian

I know what you're saying and would like to agree with you on the sentiment. However because of the criminal gangs stealing and rebirthing cars Police and the courts frown upon the practice. Most importantly, it is not something I think an open forum like AuLRO should be seen to condone.

There are ways to legally use a chassis from another identical vehicle and to save any hassels for the current and subsequent owners, that is what I would suggest. It may even be that you get the ID plate and compliance plate from the donor vehicle.

Diana,
I take your point on the open forum comment. Quite a difference from what the rebirthing gangs are doing. They are doing it by stealing to deceive and make a huge profit. What we are talking about here a case of someone discarding a rusty chassis and substituting another in it's place for their own personal use. There is no intent to deceive here. As for current/future owners having hassles, how could they if the chassis number hasn't changed. If it's not a stolen vehicle in the first place no one would have any reason to look any further. All you have done is substituted one part of the vehicle for another. How many vehicles do you reckon are there out there that have been made up from parts of other vehicles, sometimes the majority of it. What happens when you get a brand new chassis from UK, does it have a number on it or do you have to stamp it yourself. If so, do you stamp your old number on it? I know the authorities frown on it but what I said was that is what I would do, not what AULRO says you should do and in no way does that imply that my advice is condoned by AULRO. My advice was to try to help the person with the cheapest/easiest solution.

why go to the trouble of keeping the original number, i would have thought you could use the number that comes with the replacement chassis providing you update the rego details

Originally Posted by weeds

why go to the trouble of keeping the original number, i would have thought you could use the number that comes with the replacement chassis providing you update the rego details

For 2 reasons mainly,
1.....to save the hassle of going through the paperwork trail with your state transport and waste time and money.
2.....to keep the vehicle original. I can imagine what a prospective buyer would think if he/she discovered the chassis number was different to the ID plate. Immediate thoughts would be stolen or made up from parts = lower resale value I reckon. Also if you used a different model chassis/ID plate
there is the problem for any possible future owners identifying the model when it comes to ordering parts etc

Originally Posted by Bearman

For 2 reasons mainly,
1.....to save the hassle of going through the paperwork trail with your state transport and waste time and money.
2.....to keep the vehicle original. I can imagine what a prospective buyer would think if he/she discovered the chassis number was different to the ID plate. Immediate thoughts would be stolen or made up from parts = lower resale value I reckon. Also if you used a different model chassis/ID plate
there is the problem for any possible future owners identifying the model when it comes to ordering parts etc

fair enough.....maybe swapping the ID plate would be easier, if it was available

In the UK the system is easier and there are companies that make replacement chassis and stamp your number on it. In Australia, where we don't have the same problems of salt on the roads we don't have the same issues with rust. The result is that there is not enough market for replacement chassis and the cost of shipping one from the UK is prohibitive.

There was however a recent white "Pretendie" Td5 station wagon in NSW that went through the auctions and was found to have been re-birthed from at least 3 vehicles. That vehicle came to the attention of the Police and was eventually sold to TR Spares in Adelaide for wrecking.

Whether a previous owner did a replacement chassis job or not, the evidence of the original number was found and people lost a lot of money.

Originally Posted by weeds

why go to the trouble of keeping the original number, i would have thought you could use the number that comes with the replacement chassis providing you update the rego details

These days the chassis number is the VIN number. So by changing the chassis you effectively have changed the vehicle.

I would be interested in hearing from someone who has changed the chassis (number) legally, how much effort and expense it was???

Thinking aloud...

On new(er) vehicles, the number is stamped using a series of dots. It would be difficult/impossible to replicate that by hand.

The police/dot are experienced in finding when numbers have been ground off to obliterate them. I am not sure how you could remove the old number from a landie chassis in such a way that it wouldn't be obvious down the track...

Originally Posted by isuzurover

I would be interested in hearing from someone who has changed the chassis (number) legally, how much effort and expense it was???

My advice having just gone through NSW Blue Slip with a Qld vehicle out of rego with the VIN/Chassis number NOT visible on the chassis ... don't even think about trying to fake it. I went through the proper channels with Bathurst Crime Scene, cost me nothing but Blue Slip and $29 for Police Papers from Blue Slip mechanics. Police forensics will go over the vehicle and if they find ANY evidence of tampering or fakery you have to ask yourself is it really worth it?

Read my recent experience below ...

Blue slip nightmare ...
For what I had, anybody might have thought it was going to be a bit of a nightmare, but yesterday I made it through in the one day and it was all too easy.

You see ... I bought my County a few weeks back in Qld, the owner canceled his rego and handed his plates in and I drove the truck back to NSW on permit. Before getting it home, we took it to an engineer in Northern NSW to get it engineered for NSW. Whilst at the engineers we discovered there was no sign of the chassis number on the chassis since the chassis had been gal'd. At this point all three parties looked at each other and exchanged a few dodgy concerned glances ....

Not to be deterred, I decided to take a punt and proceed with the purchase of the vehicle hoping that things would be ok when it came time to sorting out blue slip with the NSW authorities ( Was I mad? ). It was suggested to me by various parties along the way that the best way to solve the riddle of the missing chassis numbers was a DIY effort ... but I was not comfortable with that option and I decided to do the right thing. I had concerns though and I rang LVS in Silverdale and spoke to the boys there ... they were immediately sympathetic and had gone through the same thing many times with other owners vehicles. I was assured that getting a Police Number was the way to go and it would all work out fine.

With that assurance in the back of my mind, I did as many little jobs on the vehicle as I could to get it ready for Blue Slip and took it down to Hicks in Lithgow at 8am yesterday morning. As soon as the bloke who was doing the inspection realized my situation, his first words were ... "Yuck ..." ... now I was a bit concerned again. He kept muttering "Yuck ..." quite a few times as he started to go through all my paper work. I had everything though, all papers, previous owners record of rego in QLD, receipt of purchase, all prior engineering papers including the updated NSW one etc, etc, etc .... to be plain, I was air tight on paperwork, backed up on floppy!

He went through the procedure of break testing, getting the old girl on the hoist ... went through it with a fine toothed comb and after 1.5 hours handed me a bunch of papers to take to Bathurst Crime Scene for their V-Check. The truck got right through but for a bad earth on the headlight ( I knew what that was ... perished connector ) and a small gas leak from the engine bay. I was starting feel a small ray of hope ...

I got home and called Bathurst Crime Scene to make an appointment and was told there was nobody there to inspect my vehicle and I might be lucky sometime next week. When I asked if anything might be done "today" he said about 99% chance nothing would happen but he'd get them to contact me. Twenty mins later I get a phone call and it turns out there was one person on the job at BCS and I drove my truck up to Bathurst to get the inspection. Met the female Constable at the station ... drove the truck round the back and she went over the vehicle ... took pics, asked me a bunch of questions. I gave her all my paperwork ... she determined the vehicle was legit and then the coup de grace!

She said ... "Ok, we'll just assign a new number to the chassis .... " and I asked the question. Can I have the VIN numbers already original to the vehicle and located on the 3 engine plates stamped on the chassis rather than having a NEW number assigned? She said that was fine and that was perfect because that meant that my NSW Engineers report would now match up with everything else and didn't require amending! See, if they assigned me a new number I would have had to have had the NSW Engineer reprint and amend his report of my vehicle to show the new chassis number but this way everything now matched up perfectly.

I said goodbye to the nice Constable and thanked her for her time, drove the truck back to Hicks where we stamped the VIN number on the chassis - I left it with them to have the two small jobs sorted out and by 3.30pm yesterday afternoon I was blue slipped, chassis number legit and I can register the truck on Monday without a hitch. Could not have been easier!

I have read so many stories about my type of situation being a nightmare in NSW that I thought I would post up a success story to give heart to anybody else in my position needing assurance in future. The whole experience was no more difficult than standard Blue Slip, but for a couple more hoops, but it did not cost me more money --- $29 extra was all!

Bring on Monday ....

Cheers, Simon.

Originally Posted by isuzurover

These days the chassis number is the VIN number. So by changing the chassis you effectively have changed the vehicle.

I would be interested in hearing from someone who has changed the chassis (number) legally, how much effort and expense it was???

Thinking aloud...

On new(er) vehicles, the number is stamped using a series of dots. It would be difficult/impossible to replicate that by hand.

The police/dot are experienced in finding when numbers have been ground off to obliterate them. I am not sure how you could remove the old number from a landie chassis in such a way that it wouldn't be obvious down the track...

Did anyone read my post back on page one?

When I went to register my rebuilt defender the police took the number of the chassis(this was a chassis from a different defender) and the body number they checked their system and found they didnt match they then looked further into it and told me I could register it because this vehicle had been written off. I told them I was using this chassis as a spare part and I needed a surrogate vin number you cant use both chassis and body as spare parts from a written off vehicle its one or the other.

so to answer your question Isuzurover it can be done it was an absolute PITA but I now know you can do it and it would be alot easier next time round. I thought this was common but according to the police at the time not many knew.