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1
Garage / Re: VIN
« Last post by berni29 on Today at 02:32:22 PM »
Hi

It seems that in the US you can register a car as anything you like. Mine was a Lotu Champion with the Vin number 3940R.

Berni
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Garage / Re: 5 speed leak
« Last post by jbcollier on Today at 01:19:19 PM »
Yes, you can remove the cover in situ.

READ THE MANUAL CAREFULLY

If disassembled improperly, you will drop a detent ball inside the main casings, not good!
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Garage / Re: VIN
« Last post by rjbaren on Today at 10:50:31 AM »
I have tried numerous sites, and they all require 17 digits.  Even with a license plate nothing comes up.
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Technical Articles and DIY tools and tips / Re: Registering an Imported Car in the UK
« Last post by BDA on Today at 10:15:00 AM »
Quote
At least they admit their mistakes.

That's unusual and refreshing!! I'm happy for the good news!
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Garage / Re: 5 speed leak
« Last post by BDA on Today at 10:12:48 AM »
It's been a long time since I had a 365, which is what I expect you have, but I think you can get the end cover off without pulling the tranny out of the car. I think after you unbolt the rear mounting plate from the frame, you can take the mounting plate off the end cover and by raising or lowering the rear of the tranny I think you'll be able to the end cover off.

Be careful to keep the detent ball and spring for the 5th/R detent that lives under the little plastic cover. I don't know if you can get the spacer plate off.

It's not necessary to use a gasket. You can use a good RTV (room temperature vulcanizing silicone) sealant. Permatex makes a specific RTV for synthetic oils and one for gear oil. When I rebuilt my NG3 tranny, I asked Permatex which one I should use. They recommended the Permatex Gear Oil RTV which I used and it has worked great.
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Garage / Re: VIN
« Last post by BDA on Today at 09:32:19 AM »
Well the VIN sorta isn't just six digits and a letter. I guess, formally it is eight digits and a letter: YYMMIIIIM where YY is the year and MM is the month of manufacture. IIII is an incremental part and M is the letter designating the market. Of course, the VIN has to be viewable from outside the windshield but that plate shows only the incremental and market parts of the "formal" VIN. I have no idea what various DMVs used for a VIN back when the cars were new. So I don't really know what the VIN of a Europa is. I guess it depends on how it was registered. When I registered my car in a new state after more than twenty years off the road, I had forgotten about the "formal" VIN and had it registered as "3635R."

None of that is probably useful for answering your question. As you probably already knew, Carfax requires 17 characters. I tried a few examples from the registry that looked likely to be driving cars including  my "3635R" at https://www.vehiclehistory.com/ and got nothing.

So I guess in the world of Carfax or VHRs, our cars don't exist!
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eBay - Craigslist Ads - Other Listings / Re: '74 Special on auction at BaT
« Last post by BDA on Today at 08:57:58 AM »
I'm amazed at what some people will pay for something too.

For example, who buys a Bugatti Veyron? A quick look at the BaT history shows three examples that were bid to $1M or more but apparently did not meet the reserve. The newest one was a 2010 model and all had less than 10,000 miles on them. Well, nobody snagged any of those but if somebody had put down the money the seller thought was justified, what would the buyer do with it? I guess there are people with enough disposable income or assets to buy a car for well over $1M and use it to be seen at a car show or lend it out to be viewed at a shopping center... And apparently nobody is really interested in driving them (or maybe they can't afford to after putting down the money to buy it). I'm willing to believe they are an engineering marvel and all but really...

Contrast that with any number of cars - but since we're hear to talk about Europas, let's consider them. Europas are affordable to buy and maintain, they are a blast to drive, and if it's important to you (and even if it isn't), they attract a lot of positive attention nearly everywhere you park one. I can only guess that people who own very expensive cars consider them investments.

Getting back to this TC Special being auctioned, I just noticed that the seller posted that the crossover pipes are blocked off! So they are there just for show. I'm not sure why one would want to show them off...   :P

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Technical Articles and DIY tools and tips / Re: Registering an Imported Car in the UK
« Last post by 4129R on Today at 08:54:02 AM »
Well...............I had a telephone conversation with DVLA complaints department.

She looked into my case and admits she should not have sent that letter to my MP, as my application was still being dealt with by "another department", which she did not know about.

I told her my previous 4 registrations had all been given different styles of VIN numbers, despite all having the same YYMM####R VIN number plate. It seems the USA knows the cars as 74/####R,, and the last car which took 8 months, was a Canadian export car with less identification plates, which confuses them.

She gave me the details of the very helpful lady with the musical Welsh accent, who will deal with my next 2 applications to prevent the same thing happening again.  At least they admit their mistakes.
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Garage / Re: VIN
« Last post by 4129R on Today at 08:44:06 AM »
I have spent 8 months debating VIN numbers with the UK registration authorities (and we made the car in the UK).
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Garage / VIN
« Last post by rjbaren on Today at 08:41:13 AM »
If I wanted to do a VIN or VHR report, how do you do it when our VIN is 6 digits and a letter?
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