Registration Number Determination

[w30bob]

Hi Guys,

I was searching thru old posts and ran across one that talks about the numbers painted on the hood and tailgate as being an Army registration number which was assigned to the trucks as they were shipped from the factory. The post went on to say that the Army would issue each vehicle manufacturer a block of registration numbers equal to the contracted number of units for each contract and the factory painted them on as they went out the door so to speak. From that point on the Army maintained and tracked each vehicle by it's registration number not it's serial number.

So my question is....is there any way to tell what the registration number is if those numbers were later painted over? Is the registration number stamped on a data plate or somewhere else? Is there a cross reference anywhere that correlates vehicle serial number to its registration number? Or is that information just lost to history? I''d really like to be able to put the original registration numbers back on my truck when it gets time to paint it.

thanks,
bob

[T. Highway]

Bob,

Most likely it's lost history, you could carefully sand down thru the old layers of paint and maybe find it, as long as a previous owner didn't already sand them off or swap out bumpers and or hood.

Bert

[w30bob]

Hi Bert,

Yeah, that's the plan. From the pics of the truck that I have (I pick it up tomorrow) it looks to have 4 layers of paint on it currently. I'm going to try to sand down to the numbers on the hood and just hope they're still there.

thanks,
bob

[Brett]

My US Army number was stamped on the top of the driver side frame rail, between the grill and the shackle bracket. It looks like it was done with the truck fully assembled, maybe when the army first took possesion of it or maybe before teardown during a depot rebuild. It matches the number on the tailgate that is is easily visible through the red paint. I have not sanded the original hood from my truck as I am not using it, and it is lettered up from the local Vol fire dept. where it served.

Brett

[w30bob]

Hi Brett,

Thanks for the info. I'll make sure to look there!

regards,
bob