HI Peter,
At 03:16 PM 3/15/01 -0500, you wrote:
>Last week I purchased what I was told is a 1964 TR4A. From what I understand
>from reading Bill Piggott's book, "The Original Triumph", the first TR4A was
>not made until January of '65.
That sounds about right; I don't have any of my reference material in
front of me, so this will all be from memory..
>I will not get the title to the car for about
>another two months so I thought I would try to find out just what I bought.
The title may not be completely accurate, either... Common practice
in the '60's was to title cars when they were sold, not when they were
made, so if a car sat on a dealer's lot for a while, it may be titled
incorrectly.
>After bringing the car home, I found that there was no VIN tag on the
>firewall. Only the body tag. The car had an electrical fire in the engine
>compartment and the VIN plate was destroyed. I checked the body number and
>found that it is 24422CT which means the car had to be made in '63.
That sounds about right - my '62 TR-4 has body number 12917.
>I then checked the engine number and found that to be CT58007E. That would be
>from a '65 TR4A but it has SU carbs, not Strombergs.
If they did an engine swap, it would be easy to put the original carbs back
on the newer engine. Anything that is easily swapped between cars is
not likely to be of much use as a diagnostic criteria.
>I then found the number 301603 on the diff. I have no idea what means.
...nor do I, although it might be a Stanpart casting number.
>My question is, is there any other place on the car that I can find the VIN?
No, sorry. You might be able to get the commission number from the
British Motor Heritage, who have all the old build records. In the past,
they would do a search based on the body number, but I have heard
rumors that they won't do that anymore.
>If not, would I be correct in assuming that my VIN would be STC 63 24422 L ?
No, definitely not. The commission number never matched the body number,
and it would not start with the year. It would be likely to be something more
like CT 25631 L
>Other clues as to what I have, the hand brake and seats are TR4
OK, the that's clearly different. The 4A had the handbrake mounted on
top of the transmission tunnel. I don't recall that the mounts for the
older style handbrake were incorporated in the 4A-style frame, so
this suggests that what you have is a TR-4.
>but it has a wood dash.
That was easy to change or retro fit (and late 4's had wooden dashes
anyway, as I recall).
>There are three taillight lenses. Two have 61 on them and one has 66.
Again, those could have been picked up at any time.
The easiest way to distinguish a TR-4 from a 4A is to look at the frame
in the rear - they are very different in that area and quite distinctive. I
am assuming that this is a live axle car - obviously, if it was an IRS car
it would have to be a 4A.
I hope that helps,
John Lye
'59 TR-3A, '62 TR-4, '70 GT-6+
email: rjl6n@virginia.edu
homepage: http://www.people.Virginia.EDU/~rjl6n/homepage.htm
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