Frame Numbers

[highbury731]

When you apply to the DVLA to register a bike which has been dormant for a long time, you have to be able to document the stamped numbers - whatever they are. That is my reason for number-hunting.

My father once bought a bike (a 4 year old Inter Norton), and checked the frame + engine numbers against the registration papers - and discovered that they had been incorrectly recorded. It was clearly a mistake, not a 'ringer'. Had this been discovered by someone 'in authority' without his dealing with it, he would have had a problem.

 

[vincenttwin]

My B/C / shadow / Rap bits from everywhere bike , B Rap engine painted black, Shadow UFM , It has no number on the RFM ,It was a RFM Sitting at Conways when they were up in London still had the old factory wrapper on it, so I guess it was meant as a replacement ,it is a B one. my mudguards are painted black and I think look a lot better than the alloy ones.,it runs and leaks oil so who cares.

 

[greg brillus]

That's got to be better than a pristinely restored garage queen, that leaks no oil and only goes somewhere by trailer......GB.

 

[John Smith-Daye]

When I got my first Comet all we worried about was that the Registration number matched the Log book.
MOT's only had the Reg Number on them,we didn't care so long as the bike went well..
My Comet(NKT267) has the UFM of the Reg number,the RFM of an unknown, and the engine out of my mates bike.His engine threw the bigend out the back of the crankcase,my engine went into his as the engine of NKT267 was sold of in my original Comet.
The original RFM for my first Comet is sitting on a shelf in my garage as a spare..John

Wow! How fantastic that you managed to get a Vin with a registration number that matched your forum name!

 

[nkt267]

Wow! How fantastic that you managed to get a Vin with a registration number that matched your forum name!

Took 19 years of looking..john

 

[aldeburgh]

1950 RFM matching 1950 UFM , 1955 engine (the "correct" engine in another VOC member Comet) 1952 wheel hubs (metric taper & ball/roller race) 1962 rider.
Its a Vincent , it has all the parts , but not necessarily in the right order ................as the late great Eric said

 

[Howard]

1950 RFM matching 1950 UFM , 1955 engine (the "correct" engine in another VOC member Comet) 1952 wheel hubs (metric taper & ball/roller race) 1962 rider.
Its a Vincent , it has all the parts , but not necessarily in the right order ................as the late great Eric said

My Comet has matching RFM and Engine, the UFM is Shadow. Apparently, the Comet and Shadow had the same owner in the past, and the Shadow still exists. I wonder if he realises how much he's cost the two current owners? . It looks like a Comet and rides like a Comet therefore ......................

H

 

[vibrac]

None of my Vincents have matching numbers all my Triumphs do....

I know which are the better bikes

Naturally I would not upset anyone by saying which, but I promise you it aint got nuffin to do with a few number stamps

 

[Hugo Myatt]

A number of Vincent B & C models had their frame and engine numbers transposed in the original registration books. I believe this was because at that time initial registration was done by the dealers. These dealers, unfamiliar with the novel design and persuaded by the publicity for the miraculous ‘frameless’ motorcycle, assumed the highly visible engine number was, in fact, the frame number, as the engine unit was the only ‘frame’ that the bicycle possessed. It was perhaps unfortunate that all the engine numbers are prefixed with an ‘F’.

These registration books often have the frame number added in different ink and by a different hand in the engine number slot. One assumes that a subsequent owner, on discovering the actual frame number on the headstock added it to the registration book in the only space left available, i.e. the engine number slot.

I have had two such machines with this registration book anomaly pass through my hands. After explaining the above to Swansea they were happy to correct them without any loss of the original registration number.

 

[Magnetoman]

None of my Vincents have matching numbers all my Triumphs do....

All of my Triumphs (plural) have matching numbers, as do all of my Vincent (singular).

This and another, now-closed, thread remind me that when my older daughter was born my father-in-law drove an old Mercedes across country from California to see her, and to give me the car (my mother-in-law sensibly took a plane both ways). I transferred the title to my name in that state and put the new document away. Seven years later I still had the car when we moved to another state. When I went to transfer the title I discovered during the previous title change that where they should have written the VIN they instead had written 4DRSD (i.e. 4 door sedan). The original information was long gone from California's vehicle database so it was impossible to fix the issue. That little mistake cost me a few hundred dollars to get a "bonded title" proving, if nothing else, that having the proper number on a vehicle is important...