Serial Number Stamping.

[fredserfass12]

Did Ford stamp the serial number on the frame, or elsewhere, on the Model "T" like they did on the Model "A"? If so, i would like to compare that number with the number on the engine and the Title on my 1914 Touring. All replys appreciated.

[TWrenn]

Not on '14s. At least not that I'm aware of. They started it back up sometime very late '25.

[TWrenn]

They DID stamp body numbers up til mid to late 1915 BTW...then discontinued that. Forgot about that part.

[Been Here Before]

Until 1922/23, are the body numbers those of Ford or or the companies that manufactured the bodies for Ford?

Through the life of the Model T there were a variety of companies that produced the sedan, touring, coupe, runabout bodies.

From research it was about 1922/23 that Ford manufactured its' own all metal bodies.

So I'll ask, those who have both body and/frame/engine numbers on/with their cars , do the numbers match?

If they do match, is it a coincidence or was it the intent of Ford to have a matching set of manufacture year numbers?

Or the information from the period that state the only number that is important to the Model T Ford is the engine number?

[Scott_Conger]

For Fred:

While it's fun for folks to speculate, the fact is that records exist that say that frame stamping to match the engine serial number was done for the first time on 12th of December 1925 and that number was 12,861,044

[Steve Jelf]

Body numbers vary by supplier and do not match Ford engine numbers. Engine serial numbers tell the date of engine assembly, and sometimes you can even guess whether it was it was graveyard, day, or evening shift. I've never heard of frame numbers before 1925. If somebody can come up with documentation of earlier frame numbers I'd like to add it to my files. Beginning December 12, 1925, engine serial numbers were also (usually) stamped on the frame. Obviously, those were matching numbers. Today, often they're not because the engine is a replacement.

CHASSIS NUMBER.jpg (40.11 KiB) Viewed 6131 times

[JohnM]

My 27 Tudor was produced in April of 27, it had the number stamped on the frame. My 26 touring was produced in September of 25, it does not have the frame stamped. I believe marking the frame started November, December of 25 or early 1926. Someone will probably chime in with the exact date.

[Scott_Conger]

John

they already did

twice

[JohnM]

I'm typing as fast as I can on this little phone keyboard.

[Scott_Conger]

too funny!!

[TRDxB2]

Did Ford stamp the serial number on the frame, or elsewhere, on the Model "T" like they did on the Model "A"? If so, i would like to compare that number with the number on the engine and the Title on my 1914 Touring. All replys appreciated.

What is your concern? Are you expecting 2 of the 3 numbers to match?

[TWrenn]

For Fred:

While it's fun for folks to speculate, the fact is that records exist that say that frame stamping to match the engine serial number was done for the first time on 12th of December 1925 and that number was 12,861,044

Thank you Scott. Too often people confuse body numbers stamped on frames which ceased in 1915, from engine numbers which to my knowledge never happened for some reason until Dec. of 1925.

[Been Here Before]

Beginning December 12, 1925, engine serial numbers were also (usually) stamped on the frame. Obviously, those were matching numbers. Today, often they're not because the engine is a replacement.

According to the FHA site by 1924 there were over 15 million automobiles registered for road use.
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/summary95/mv200.pdf

By this time, late 1920s, automobile thefts and chop sites for parts were well established, both manufactures, insurance companies, and law enforcement were looking for a way to track possible stolen or miss used vehicles...having both similar manufacturing numbers on motor and frame/body numbers helped with the tracking.

Remember that once, one of the ways to once date a Model T was the engine number only.
Another Ford Birthday Party, Telling When Each Ford Was Born and Bring Motor Numbers Up to Date, The Fordowner, June 1919, PP63-68.

Too, Motor Age, February 1922, carried an article, Manufacturers will aid Theft Protection, that stated "The first step which the automobile thief usually takes in changing the identification of stolen automobiles is to change the engine numbers so that the automobile engine can not be identified." From that introduction pages 63 to 71 list all know sequences of vehicle identification numbers from ACE to Winther, circa 1911 to 1920. Of interest the Ford is identified from 11-1-1912 serial number beginning with 15001. With the article are diagrams showing the location "serial and engine numbers".

[Craig Leach]

I spent over a week convincing the inspactors @ DMV that there was no need to remove the body from my 1922 speedster so they could inspect
the frame #. This included taking a stack of documentation and a other T frame to show them there was no # stamped on it. In the end they
called in the head inspector. He took one look at the paper work & told them they didn't put #s on Model T frames untill 1926.
Craig.

[J1MGOLDEN]

They didn't always put the frame number on the passenger side either.

[J1MGOLDEN]

Someplace, I saw a photo of the tool used to sap all the number with one bang of the hammer.

The handle was just like this handle used on cook stoves.

The serial numbers that were all in a neat row were made by tis tool.

Replacement blocks got the same number stamped, but the row was never exact.

Evidently the tool was only available at the factory.

There was a slot long enough to hold 8 or 10 number stamps and a thumb screw on the end to tighten them together.

One man must have held the tool while another man hit it with a big hammer.

[fredserfass12]

Many thanks for the response to my post. According to the serial number my 1914 Touring was manufactured during May 1914. That is good enough for me.

[Rich Eagle]

FWIW, I scoured my '14 frame and found only an "S" on the front cross member.
Rich

[Susanne]

The body stamps were according not to Ford but his contractors who made the body (in 1914 there were 4 or 5), while they;re not technically a "VIN-worthy" number, you can usually (depending on the body builder) tell when the body was built...

Example - my August '15 Touring (a relic from the Panama Pacific In'l Expo) had a body stamp of "3F81517xxx"... The "3F" (which I originally thought was a Ford designation) was Fisher's Body Plant #3 in San Leandro, Ca. - they mainly built bodies for damned near everyone who was in the car game then on the west coast, from Buick and that ugly "bow tie" car, to ransom Olds & co, Hupp, those "Air Cooled monstrosity" people (man, I'd love to find a Franklin, BTW), possibly Overland and a few others.. They also supplied bodies for Henry at least on the west coast (and this took me over 20 years of painstaking anguish to chase down)

Anyway... The 3F was the Fisher Body Plant (Fisher plant #3), The 815 was the month and year (August 1915) and the remaining number was Fisher's serial number for the body....

BTW if you needed body parts you had to tell Ford what that Body number was so they could get the correct part, as EACH body manyfacturer (Fisher, Baudette, Briggs, etc.) had their own design specs, so say a Ford door would not fit on a Baudette car, etc....

[Hudson29]

I bought a 1914 Touring some years ago but have never been able to determine who the body builder might have been. Can anyone ID it?

[kmatt2]

A side note to the Fisher Body Plant 3, is that in 1917 GM owned Fisher Body, and in 1917 GM build the new assembly plant at Foothill Blvd and 73rd Ave in Oakland Ca to build the new 490 Chevy. Fisher Body moved their west headquarters to that location in Oakland for Chevy and remained there until 1964 when Chevy production moved to Fremont Ca, the assembly plant location that now is making Tesla’s. In 1971 when GM was building B bodies, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick cars and GMC pickups I got to tour the Fremont GM plant with my high school auto shop class, something I will never forget. The old Oakland Ca GM plant was torn down in 1965 to build a new shopping center, I had watched new Chevy’s being loaded on railroad cars and watched them tearing it down in 1965, living close by.

[Hap_Tucker]

Paul wrote:

I bought a 1914 Touring some years ago but have never been able to determine who the body builder might have been. Can anyone ID it?

Would you please look on the front seat and rear seat heel panels and see if you find any sort of letter on one of them. The heel panel is the panel that if you were sitting in the seat and kicked your foot backwards, the heel of your shoe or boot would hit that panel.

Below are a few samples showing a heel panel that has a letter - often near the top and about halfway from either side of the panel (i.e near the middle side to side).

Below is Paul Mikeska's 1914 touring that has an "H" stamped on the front heel panel:

and a close up:

Below shows one with a "B" for Beaudett (also spelled Beaudette and often called Pontiac in Ford records):

Respectfully requested,

Hap l9l5 cut off

[michaelb2296]

On the 1911/1912 Torpedo body I got from Don Ellis it has
5 numbers I can clearly read. I would like to say there was a smaller Z ? in front of it but it’s definitely not a marking that is the same height as the other5 numbers… 21724 and a diamond mark to the left….

[speedytinc]

Well how bout that! I checked my late 14.
Right under the seat lip dead center facing front is a big B.
Never noticed before.
Shucks, I hoped it was a pontiac body since it"s a wide track.

[nicklm]

Our 26 touring that was made in early August of 25 (by the motor number) and does not have a number on the frame. There is a mark on the rear cross member on the passenger side of a large "B". In the top part of the B there is a letter "M" and in the bottom of the B there is "C" and an "O".

What company made the frame with this marking? Thanks for your help.

[Steve Jelf]

Replacement blocks got the same number stamped, but the row was never exact.

No, replacement blocks were left unnumbered. Replacement engines got numbers.

[Been Here Before]

So, when Ford began to produce his own bodies after, (1922/23), were the bodies based on the dies he purchased from his original coach subcontractors? Or did he manufacture all new body dies up to the final run of Model Ts? If he did purchase the older dies, would not the lettering of the older bodies appear with the newer bodies?

[DanTreace]

So, when Ford began to produce his own bodies after, (1922/23), were the bodies based on the dies he purchased from his original coach subcontractors? Or did he manufacture all new body dies up to the final run of Model Ts?

Ford production of bodies began at the Highland Park plant. So Ford's mfg. design would have prevailed.

Rather doubt he would buy another company's fixtures and tools which decay anyway, and those fixtures wouldn't have the production requirement for Ford's massive processes.

In April 1914, 95% of the bodies were purchased, usually fully painted and upholstered, by October, 40% those purchased bodies were painted and upholstered in the new buildings at Highland Park. Likely then Ford was getting the know-how to build bodies on the assembly line process, something his suppliers likely didn't use.

Then during the construction of River Rouge plant, that began in 1917, as the stamping plant building was the first build it supplied more body panels than were made at Highland Park. Then assembly plant and associated buildings provide the breakdown parts shipped to the 36 branches and assembly plants all over the country. Of course 1923 was the heyday of production, after that total sales units fell, when River Rouge was fully built up in 1924.

Photo from 1925 shows what the manufacturing and assembly branches in the some of the major cities in the USA would have looked like for body building. This photo is from a foreign branch, but of course a replicated process invented by Ford USA. The body panels would have been stamped at Highland or River Rouge, for building bodies, just like done at the USA for the many manufacturing and assembly branches.

!C!Fro(w!mk~$(KGrHqJ,!hwE0E82d2uHBNBrhrwt0!~~0_3.jpg (137.14 KiB) Viewed 5556 times

scan0011 (800x531) (500x332) (500x332) (500x332).jpg (124.71 KiB) Viewed 5556 times

[Drkbp]

Paul O,

Your body may be by Herbert.
Both Hayes and Herbert are listed as body makers during the Spring of 1914
on tags attached to new cars. That may be a "H" over an "R" to distinguish
it from Hayes.
Is there any stamp on the heel kick panels? Maybe Hap has a sample for Herbert.

Ken

[Susanne]

A side note to the Fisher Body Plant 3, is that in 1917 GM owned Fisher Body, and in 1917 GM build the new assembly plant at Foothill Blvd and 73rd Ave in Oakland Ca to build the new 490 Chevy. Fisher Body moved their west headquarters to that location in Oakland for Chevy and remained there until 1964 when Chevy production moved to Fremont Ca, the assembly plant location that now is making Tesla’s. In 1971 when GM was building B bodies, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick cars and GMC pickups I got to tour the Fremont GM plant with my high school auto shop class, something I will never forget. The old Oakland Ca GM plant was torn down in 1965 to build a new shopping center, I had watched new Chevy’s being loaded on railroad cars and watched them tearing it down in 1965, living close by.

Eastmont Mall, Foorhill @ 73rd Ave... We used to live up the hill from there near 580. When I was going nuts chasing histories of west coast built cars, I tried to find the old Oakland GM plant, and didn't realize it was torn down to build the "mall" which is most famous for it's police substation and Gazalli's Market, which has an AMAZING meat market in back...

Other (to me) very cool historical car stuff in the general area - the original factory used by Abner Doble to build his amazing steam cars, and a company important to SEVERAL model T owners named Hall Scott... IIRC there was also a Maxwell factory in the area...

And I STILL can't say for sure THAT was also where Fisher #3 was before GM's Oakland facility... Someone somewhere somehow may have some piece of documentation - copy of the Oakland Tribune, Photographs, etc... - saying where the Fisher plant was before GM.

[John Codman]

In answer to an earlier question, my '27 has the numbers on the passenger's side frame rail and it does match the engine number. I have no reason to believe that the engine was ever replaced.

[Been Here Before]

Sorry for re-posting (from 2013) , but it adds to the discussion:

The following indicates Beaudette manufactured roadster bodies.

"Auto Industries" of 12 October 1922 (p 748) carried the following story, ' Rouge Plant Builds Most of Ford Bodies (Detroit 9 October).' The article states Ford is now building all bodies for its models (cars?) at the River Rouge Plant. The reason was the termination/sale of the Beaudette Company, Pontiac, Michigan to Fisher Bodies. The Beaudette Company, according to the 1922 article, built roadster bodies for Ford.

The Rouge plant now (1922) build 800 bodies daily in house. The Phaeton and all two-door sedans are built at Rouge River. The phaeton bodies are built in numbers of 3015 daily, with an average of 2650 daily. Sedans (bodies) are manufactured at 900 daily.

Bodies for Coupes and the new four door sedan bodies are manufactured by the Briggs Company and not by Ford. These two styles are low production (1922) cars averaging 5000 daily. The Ford Company is manufacturing 400 to 500 light trucks daily.

https://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/3 ... 1365385641

[kmatt2]

Susanne, The other east bay plant that I know about for sure is the old Fageol Truck plant that Peterbilt Trucks bought in the 1930’s and made trucks there into the mid 1960’s when Peterbilt moved to Newark Ca. That old Peterbilt plant was on MacArthur Blvd at 106 Avenue and was also torn down around 1965 to build another shopping center, I think that shopping center is called Foothill Square. I do know that there were other old assembly plant buildings from pre WW2 days located down Bancroft Avenue from Oakland and into San Leandro. GM once had a warehouse on Bancroft Ave in San Leandro, that location may have been the old Fisher Body plant, I don’t know, but that is the vicinity where I would start looking for information. I graduated from Castlemont High School in Oakland in 1971 and spent a lot of time in this area in the sixties. Much info on the old Oakland Chevy Foothill Blvd plant was in the Vintage Chevy Club magazine G & D , including a picture of the plant taken in 1917 showing the Oakland hills in the background before the quarry got large. I gave away most of my copies of the G&D a few years ago.

[Hudson29]

I just checked the heel board of the '14 Touring and could see no sign of a letter stamped there.

I have not heard of the Herbert. Where were they built? 7 & 14 are stamped on the wood, possibly July of 1914?

Paul

[DanTreace]

Scroll down to Sept 9, 12:11 for list of body makers and dates supplied to Ford. Older post with lots of info.




http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/33 ... 1378857924

[Drkbp]

Paul O,

Check the top center of the rear seat kick panel.
My July 1913 Touring (Beaudette) is marked "B" on the rear seat kick panel.
The only actual date stamped on the drive train during assembly is on the transmission stub shaft,
probably in June 1914 with the July 1914 on the body.

Ken

[Hap_Tucker]

Paul and others,

Thank you for sharing information from your car and also other sources. I have been working the issue for several years and I am hoping when I retire to be able to visit the Benson Ford Archives (at the Henry Ford) and find some additional information. Until then, the fossil record (what we can discover from looking at some of the cars -- especially those with a known history) along from written information can still help us with leads for where to look next.

Dan -- yes, as mentioned above please also check your rear seat heel panel for a letter. I had really hoped you would find a letter -- but that is still another data point to add to the search.

by DanTreace » Mon Jun 26, 2023 7:22 pm

Scroll down to Sept 9, 12:11 for list of body makers and dates supplied to Ford. Older post with lots of info.

Dan -- that listing was from the "Coach Built" site and it has several entries that I have not seen in other sources. As I mentioned in the earlier posting -- that doesn't mean they are inaccurate, but merely so far I haven't found any additional sources presenting some of that data. There is a good chance "Coach Built" has even updated that list that was posted back in September 2013. (Where has the time gone?)

From that same posting Dan referenced I had posted scans of 2 of the 4 original tags. Those paper tags were attached to the car when it came from the factory. They came on a 1914 touring and were date stamped Apr 21, 1914. (Used by permission from the May-Jun 1971 "Vintage Ford" pages 5-11 article. Also that article was reprinted within the last several years of 2013 in the "Vintage Ford" with an update on the car.)

The 2 tags that are posted below listed the "body maker" as well as the "Finisher" i.e. who installed the upholstery and what company made the top. I am reposting those 2 tags again. Notice that they do not completely agree with each other. The body maker Hayes is only listed on one and not both of the tags. And it appears that where the "Hayes" name would have been was left blank on one of the tags.

body no 148429 Fisher.JPG (32.07 KiB) Viewed 5265 times

Again, thank you to everyone helping us to discover more about the Ts (OK also the A, B, C, F, K, N, R, S, SR)

Respectfully submitted,

Hap l915 cut off
.

[Hudson29]

I had a look at the rear kick panel this morning and could find no markings of any kind. Too bad as it would have been nice to know who built it.

Paul

[michaelb2296]

Does anyone else have a diamond pattern on their seat riser that may provide me with some idea of who the manufacturer is?

[Been Here Before]

So I get in trouble with others interested in the Model T Ford. I have certain believes that..well are not to popular at times....

So my question is, why with the history, interest, and long life of the Model T Ford, why is certain information lacking?

I found this bit of information..some may already know..about numbers and stamping for the Model A.

Why not the same stuff for the T?
http://www.plucks329s.org/pdf/studies/L ... 0CODES.pdf

1
LETTERS, NUMBERS AND CODES FOR MODEL A/AA FORD PRODUCTION 1928-1931, BY STEVE PLUCKER
(As of July 26, 2011 )


Page 14 - THE ASSEMBLY PLANT CODES
Each 32 (35) USA assembly plants had a series of 1-4 letters associated with
them. Here they are in alphabetical order: Atlanta, GA (A or AA); Buffalo, NY
(BO); Charlotte, NC (CE); Chester, PA (CR); Chicago, IL (CHI); Cincinnati, OH
(CI); Cleveland, OH (CL or CLE); Columbus, OH (G); Dallas, TX (DS); Dearborn
(The Rouge) MI (F or FD); Denver, CO (DR); Des Moines, IA (DM); Edgewater,
NJ (E); Houston, TX (H); Indianapolis, IN (I); Jacksonville, FL (JE); Kansas City,
KS (KC?); Kearny, NJ (KY); Long Beach, CA (LA); Los Angles, CA (LA);
Louisville, KY (LE); Memphis, TN (MEM); Milwaukee, WI (??); New Orleans, LA
(NO); Norfolk, VA (NK); Oklahoma City, OK (OC); Omaha, NE (??); Pittsburgh,
PA (??); Portland, OR (PO); Richmond, CA (R); San Francisco, CA (SFA or
SFAA); Seattle, WA (AS); Somerville, MA (S); St. Louis, MO (STL); Twin City,
MN (TC).

[Scott_Conger]

Interesting info on the "A". Thanks.

Why not the same stuff for the T?

Maybe because most of it is not applicable due to not being a practice of the period?