in the eyes of the law they made the accusation now its up to me to prove otherwise i wish i had gotten there approval on paperwork .
As the car is still in the rego system i was thinking of getting the old owner to rego it sign it over to me then i have all the details and a car in my name but as VanMorrison said i bet they have the car noted now.

Register it in another state and then move it back home.

so i stripped pretty much my entire fire wall back to bare metal today - not a single stamp on it, anyone got pics of the location this elusive body stamp should be?

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196# Morris VAN
2013 JGC 5.7 Hemi
2012 Civic Type R

on your mini from your photos when your standing in front of your mini on the left hand side of the spedo hole there is a oil stain that is where my number is it is shallow in larger numbers most i have seen are smaller neater numbers behind masters

VanMorrison, your van is probably a 69. This is where you need to look...



Car number should be four digits, 18## like you said..
Body number should be YJBAV4 13## (around 500 lower than the car number)
The original engine number would have been 10YJ/U/H 23## (around 500 higher than the car number)

Ok so after numerous coats of pain.. I finally found the elusive number mine has 13** followed by 04V. What does the O4V represent, no one has mentioned this extra bit yet..

Cheers

David

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196# Morris VAN
2013 JGC 5.7 Hemi
2012 Civic Type R

04 V is the body code for a K van.
04 = 4th variant.
V = Van.

Awesome, Thanks...

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196# Morris VAN
2013 JGC 5.7 Hemi
2012 Civic Type R

Have another look on the radiator shroud panel next to the numbers and see if the YJBAV4 is stamped there.

I hope Watto doesn't mind me posting this extract from Issue #12 of The BMC Experience magazine that arrived today. It's part of a larger table that includes Austin, MG and other Morris and Leyland models but I've cropped it to just show the Mini data. You'll see the Mini K Van at the top of the list and the sedan a bit further down. DO in the heading stands for Australian Drawing Office number.

Every Ausmini member should consider subscribing to BMCE because it still has lots of Mini-specific stuff. In my opinion it's by far the best BMC/Leyland marque magazine being published anywhere in the world, and the only one that pays due credit to the Australian scene. At just under $13 for a year's digital subscription it's a no-brainer really.

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ex-NSW Police 1970 MK II Cooper S
VMCI #43

So i stripped all the paint back to bare metal today on the shroud, no other letters or numbers to be found. Interestingly whilst they are a similar font the ones in the gutter are about 5mm in size as where the ones on the shroud are 10mm the ones on the gutter appear to be almost etched as where the ones on the shroud are stamped.. not sure if this is common?

DD

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196# Morris VAN
2013 JGC 5.7 Hemi
2012 Civic Type R

That sounds about right. Often the rad shroud stamping is very poorly done, as if done by hand with little or no support under it.
On a Moke I had it was barely legible.

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

Below is the way cars were supposed to be stamped during the assembly process. Measurements are imperial, not metric (that means inches for VanMorrison and those other youngsters who weren't around in pre-metric days).

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ex-NSW Police 1970 MK II Cooper S
VMCI #43

The numbers in the gutter are stamped in the body plant before the body is painted and the ones on the shroud are stamped in the Car Assembly Building after the car is assembled.

It appears that the vans and the sedans are stamped differently.
The sedans don't have an ID plate from the middle of 69 to the end of 69. So they stamp the full prefix next to the car number on the shroud.
The vans still had the ID plate all year so they didn't need to add the prefix on the shroud.

Does that make sense to everyone?

Thanks Morris for adding some of your vast knowledge to the overall picture. I, for one, appreciate it.

I intentionally used the word supposedly in my earlier post because I don't have enough practical knowledge to know whether what transpired in practice truly reflected the latest piece of policy. That's the beauty of forum like Ausmini. Between us we can hopefully assemble a reasonably accurate history of Mini production details that's missing through lack of comprehensive factory records or other texts.

P.S. Would someone please put their hand up to write a manuscript compiling the knowledge already stored on this forum.

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ex-NSW Police 1970 MK II Cooper S
VMCI #43