I'm restoring a1971 450 R/T and I want to be able to ride it on the street, but I can't seem to locate the vin number. Looked in all the usual places, head stock, down tube, and the frame under the tank. Any thoughts? Thanks Charlie
The R/Ts had a sticker with the vin on the headstock. The frames were not stamped at all. As you can imagine not many of the bikes still have these stickers. Assuming you wanted to register the bike in the UK you would have 3 choices: 1 - don't put a vin on the frame. 2 - buy new reproduction stickers off the bay, and stamp them accordingly with the engine number. 3 - stamp the frame with punches with the engine number. Assuming you have repainted the frame then (1) would be correct, but having no number might cause issues, so 2 or 3 would be better. When you send photos to the dating person he will know all about this and will write on the dating certificate. Personally I stamped my frame prior to having it painted, and this is recorded on my dating certificate. I see that you are in the USA, so I can't advise how or what you need to do to comply over there. I would probably go with the sticker option as its what the bike would have had when new. Hope that helps. p.s. in the UK there are a list of marque specialists that have to be used to provide the dating certificates. I used the Ducati Club UK.
