This may be a stupid question but ….Somebody locally is selling a 3800 and telling me it has very low miles. Is the VIN number on the motor/trans somewhere that I could use to run a car fax and verify the mileage?
Series II vin K is 3800N/A L36, vin 1 is 3800SC L67 for series III I believe vin 4 is for the 3800SC L32 and vin 2 is for the 3800N/A L26 not positive on the series III engines though as it has been a while since I looked for one. Dan
Originally posted by NetCam: I think the question is, is there a VIN stamped on the engine so you can find out what car it came out of so you can trace the history of the car?
Exactly, this is a drop out. I’ve been keeping an eye out for a L67/L32 as they are hard to come by in this area. Found one that sounds too good to be true and want to verify to see if it's truly a low mileage car or the standard "only dove it 1 mile to church"BS. I imagine it doesn't have a stamp in the block but it might have one of those aluminum tags on it someplace.
[This message has been edited by DLCLK87GT (edited 12-06-2013).]
That's too bad, I thought there was always a tag on the engine so you could match it back to the original vehicle. Maybe this is something they don't do anymore?
It is possible to figure out approximately what year the engine is and whether it is out of a W or H body but other then that there is no way of knowing for sure.
That's too bad, I thought there was always a tag on the engine so you could match it back to the original vehicle. Maybe this is something they don't do anymore?
I have never found unique identification other than for some reason I remember seeing a paper barcode one time. I believe you would need some type of GM database access to see what that specific barcode went to.
Not sure on the 3800 but other GM engines the bar code if still readable should have a set of letters that will let you know a little like it is a 1999 to 2003 for example. I found this with a truck 5.3L I was installing for a customer and the letters showed it to be a 2005 truck engine but as stated I do not know if the 3800 works the same way. The trucks have it up higher on the end of the head not down low like the 3800 where it is usually gone or unreadable like the three 3800SC engines I have in the garage. Dan
AGain, good luck. Call GM and see if they will give you some info on this if the VIN is really that important to you.. I honestly cant see any reason why you would want the vin for this motor other than if the cops were at your house right now saying its stolen.
AGain, good luck. Call GM and see if they will give you some info on this if the VIN is really that important to you.. I honestly cant see any reason why you would want the vin for this motor other than if the cops were at your house right now saying its stolen.
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I have the same question as this guy did. I bought a low mileage L32 supposedly and am trying to confirm. I do have a pic of a connecting rod. Can you tell by looking at it?
Specifically its a l67 rod... its not smooth cast as you can see the cast lines in the side. The valvecovers are white which most of the time will say its a l67.
I have never seen a VIN number anywhere on any 3800 Series 2 or 3 engine. Not even on one of those white barcode tags.
Casting date numbers can tell you the date the engine (or heads) were cast, but that doesn't confirm what model year of car it was put in.
I have seen a faint ink date stamp in one of the valve covers on some of these engines. In every instance that ink stamp date was later than the casting date. I cannot confirm what this ink stamp date means, however. It could simply be anything from when the engine was shipped from the manufacturing facility where it was made or it could have been the date it was put into the car.
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[This message has been edited by Darth Fiero (edited 03-19-2014).]
Series III will have black valve covers and an aluminum oil pan.
Not all of them. I've run across more than a few 2004 model year 3800 Series 3 SC engines that still had the cream color valve covers, stamped steel oil pans, and casting in the block that said "Series II". These engines still had the cast connecting rods. But they did have the correct Series 3 GenV blower, DBW TB, and returnless fuel rails.
Originally posted by darkhorizon: No VIN will be on the engine anywhere... Sorry.
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Originally posted by Darth Fiero: I have never seen a VIN number anywhere on any 3800 Series 2 or 3 engine.
NO offense intended in any way, but this is inaccurate information, sorry.
Thanks to advice from olejoedad, I can confirm that the last 9 digits of the VIN number are also on my 3800SC Series III that came out of a 2004 GTP.
The numbers are on the mount for the starter here:
These are the last 9 of my VIN:
With a little research using GM's VIN decoder, and finding a VIN number of a same mode year and make car on sites like carfinder and autotrader, you can cobble together the VIN for a car for the most part.
[This message has been edited by JohnWPB (edited 03-22-2016).]
That sounds very likely to me. Otherwise what good would it do? There are numbers all over the place to aid in tracking stolen vehicles and their parts. Surely they're on the engine! Isn't that what people mean by "matching numbers?"
Unfortunately your suspicions are likely correct. All the whole donor cars I've looked at on the net seem to be at least into six figures on mileage. I examined a few Buick Ultra's in this area (but via the internet, not in person). They looked to be pretty nice, but had lots of miles, like close to 300k.
If you look at Rockauto you see one of the most popular parts is a rebuild kit. These are good engines that people keep for a long time and/or rebuild for a second use. I'd suggest planning on a rebuild. If someone wants you to pay for a low mileage engine let them provide the proof.
There are numbers all over the place to aid in tracking stolen vehicles and their parts. Surely they're on the engine! Isn't that what people mean by "matching numbers?" [....] If someone wants you to pay for a low mileage engine let them provide the proof.
That is exactly what I was thinking.
Anyhow, I can confirm 100% that the 9 numbers on my starter bracket are indeed the last 9 digits of the VIN# . I was able to run a VIN check, and find the car was purchased in Florida, spent a couple years in Tennessee, and then ended up in Alabama before getting into an accident. The last entry is for a salvage title in 2012, issued to a Pick n' Pull in Montgomery, Alabama. When I bought the engine from Joe, he told me he pulled it from a car at Montgomery Pick-n-Pull.
I was very happy to finds the engine has just over 80,000 miles on it
[This message has been edited by JohnWPB (edited 03-22-2016).]
NO offense intended in any way, but this is inaccurate information, sorry.
No offense taken. However, I have three 3800 Series 2 engines here - and I just went and looked at them. All of my engine blocks are very rusty in the area you mentioned. And they are rusted so bad I cannot see any numbers. I took a scotch brite pad to the one with the least amount of rust and cleaned it off as best I could, by hand. After cleaning, I could see some faint stamped numbers (stamping that looks very different than the picture you posted), but I could only make out one number on this one block. So even if the last 9 of the VIN are stamped into the blocks I have, I cannot tell what they are because of the deep rust pitting present in that area of the blocks I have.
Your stamping looks like it is much deeper into the casting than what I'm seeing on my blocks I have here. I'm sure if my blocks had your stamping method, I could probably see the numbers despite the rust.
So perhaps you are right and GM did stamp all their 3800 blocks with the last 9 vin digits. But it does me no good if I can't read them due to rust pitting destroying what was stamped in there.
That's a shame about the rust, I guess I got lucky!
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Originally posted by Darth Fiero: I could see some faint stamped numbers (stamping that looks very different than the picture you posted)!
If I had to take a guess about the number on my block, I would say they were done with a pretty crude laser to "pulse" the dots to make up the numbers. The dots certainly are not very deep at all.
Found this under the front mount
And this bar code
