Scared of losing my engine in New York

[TeeBee9320]

I missed a major assignment in doing my pre-build homework (I did not check if the serial number on the engine matched the VIN of my donor car) and after going to the open house on Saturday I am afraid New York State will take my engine if I bring it up for inspection the way it is .

I remember reading Arrowhead's Hot Rod build and becoming first aware of the problem.

https://sites.google.com/site/arrowh...e/dmv-problems

I thought that I could speak to a few junkyards our company does business with and get a receipt for my serial number....however I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to chat with Arrowhead more at the open house and I now know that would have been useless since my block had been re-stamped along the line. He told me that no matter what I do NY will confiscate it since they have no way of knowing the original serial number. I have attached a picture of what my serial number looks like for reference.

I was also considering buying another used 302 (one with the stamped tag they came with) and putting the tag on my engine where it is supposed to be. I know people check the tags before the stamped numbers (especially since the stamped ones are such a PITA to get to). I am just scared to chance this method. Can anybody who has gone through the inspection chime in and tell me if they check the tag or the etched number on the back of the block?

The worst part of this is that the block is the ONLY thing I did not buy new for my engine. I had the donor one dipped and redone with a new rotating assembly, new heads, and a new intake manifold.

Now I am stuck between a rock and a hard place and I am hoping that the some of the experts out there will be kind enough to lend some advice.

I know that at this point I have these 4 options:
1) swap the motor (even if only for the inspection and then swap it back)
2) title the car in a different state and transfer it back to NY
3) have a really expensive lawn ornament
4) put a stamped tag on my engine as I mentioned earlier.

Does anybody have any other ideas of what I can do/recommend one of the above options over the others? I was reading through a LOT of the the threads and Florida seems like a breeze to get a title in. Can I "sell" my car to a friend in Florida, and have him title it for me? (I really do not want to do option 3)

Gotta <3 NY lol

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!
Theo

[Riptide Motorsport]

you dont have to sell it to your friend, title it to yourself in florida using his address.........your a snowbird, 6 mo here , 6 mo. therre.

[Michael Everson]

I have never heard of a stamped tag on a 302? Could you elaborate. I have taken apart 2 Mustang Cobra engines this year and neither of them had a VIN stamped on them. I wonder if this was normal, or something else is going on. I will be in the same boat as you with my engine.
Mike

[TeeBee9320]

Originally Posted by Riptide Motorsport

you dont have to sell it to your friend, title it to yourself in florida using his address.........your a snowbird, 6 mo here , 6 mo. therre.

I'm allowed to do that?
Is it hard to register the car in New York after doing this?

Thanks!

[TeeBee9320]

Originally Posted by Michael Everson

I have never heard of a stamped tag on a 302? Could you elaborate. I have taken apart 2 Mustang Cobra engines this year and neither of them had a VIN stamped on them. I wonder if this was normal, or something else is going on. I will be in the same boat as you with my engine.
Mike

I think it's something like this.
Deciphering Your Ford Engine's ID Tag - FORDification.com

It's possible that they never put them on the 302's, but Ford did put them on their engines at some point, and If I had one with a receipt on my engine, I wonder if they would go through the trouble to check the etched serial number on the back of the block. (they'd have to climb a bit and clear away the oxidation)

If you think you are going to have the same problem I would recommend sorting it out before you go any further. I really wish I had. Although it appears that you are in MA which I don't believe is as strict as NY.

Theo

[Whaler]

Although I ultimately turned out to have good enough paperwork to go through the MA State Police inspection, I fretted and worried LITERALLY FOR FOUR YEARS about the fact that the engine block I'd purchased at a junk yard out of a donor 2000 Mountaineer had NO serial number.
If I had to do it all over again (or I were in your shoes), I would just go out, get a well documented running motor, move your gear over to it, and get through the process. Then swap it out in a day or two.
Ten times better than facing the prospect of impoundment, and loss of the engine, componentry, etc. Maybe you can title/register in another state, but that wasn't available to me for emissions exemption process. Better safe than sorry.
BEST OF LUCK WHICHEVER ROUTE YOU CHOOSE!
- Paul

[Whaler]

Mike -
I'd read somewhere in my research that not all motors in FORD cars are stamped with the VIN. Can't say where I heard it, what timeframes that applies to, or if I'd rely on that without getting some research done. My inspector never checked the block serial number on the stamp pad, so I don't know what might have happened.
- Paul

[Genghis]

For reproduction tags, you can check out this site:

Marti Auto Works - Replacement Door Tags plus more

However, I have no idea what the legalities are for your state. Marti Auto might.

[mctavish]

Hi, Tee Bee. I went through the NYS "system" in late 2009. It is true that 88-93 302 engine blocks had the last 8 digits of the VIN stamped into the top flange and also true that the later Explorer 302 blocks have no such identifier. The guys at the DMV inspection will run that partial VIN number to see if it pairs up to a vehicle VIN number that has been stolen. With a bit of research, you can do the same thing. However, the restamped block is suspicious...don't know what they will do with that. I also had a different engine SN than the vehicle VIN so I checked a Ford VIN decoder website to find the possible real VINs (it took a while but found there's only a few) for that engine and then checked Carfax to see if there were any red flags for those VINs. I didn't find any, so I went ahead with my paperwork and DMV inspection, which went off without a hitch.

[AC Bill]

Is it so hard for State officials to understand, that engine swaps do occur for any number of reasons? Maybe it was replaced under warranty, or the previous owner grenaded the original one, and bought another from a wrecker, or a rebuilder.. Does every engine swap need to be reported to the State or something to keep things legal? I don't get it?

Is there a State record kept, of all cars that are written off, IE; salvage vehicles?
Perhaps there a way to figure out, maybe through a Ford dealer, what the vehicle VIN, your engine may have originally come from? If the engine will show up as being out of a salvage vehicle, not a stolen vehicle, maybe you will be fine with that engine.

I bought my parts from a wrecker, but didn't know I needed the original VIN that they came out of. Fortunately it wasn't crushed, so I was still able to get it.
When I was registering my car, they punched the VIN into a computer and it showed it as a "salvage" vehicle. Still, I needed to swear an affidavit, that I had purchased the parts from a wrecker, even though I had receipts for the parts. Thought that was kinda weird..

The stamp on your block doesn't look "re-stamped" to me? What do you mean by that?

[Rich A]

TeeBee9320,
PM Sent.

[TeeBee9320]

Thanks for the relies guys!

I thought my number was re-stamped because it is crooked and faded towards the end, but after speaking to a bunch of people I realized that that is what the number looked like from the factory those years. I was expecting it to be an etched code like the newer ones....not a stamp.

I also had a friend who is in the police department run the serial number through autocrime's database and he said nothing came up since they don't keep records for cars older than 15 years. This helped alleviate a lot of my worries...I am currently in the process of scheduling an inspection date; however I will be much more relieved when I am through the inspection and still have my car with the engine in it.

I will post back here with any updates. Thanks for the help! This site really is the best.

Theo