cab swap question

[captmatthew1]

i have a question for you cab swap veterans. i am planning to replace the damaged body of my truck and dont know about swapping the main cab.

is it legal to take the vin from my old cab and put it on the new one? thats pretty much all i need to know. if not i will just repair my current cab, but man i found a super nice low milage truck to do a full body swap and would like to keep all the same color.

[captmatthew1]

and im in oregon. dont know if it varies from state to state

[JimmieD]

In Kalifornia 'Legal' seems to be a gray area on cab swaps. I did a full body swap of '78 D-200 body onto '77 W-200 chassis. Went to a small local DMV office and spoke with the guy there who happened to be the honcho on Serial Number stuff, like 'Compliance Officer' or something, explained what I had done. He was going to make an appt with me to come inspect vehicle and do the actual body tag swap with some 'special' small pop rivets. I offered that I already had the pop rivets and the vehicle body tags etc. and was there any problem if I did it myself?

"Well no, I guess not..."

Thing was I had to fill out paperwork for the '78 vehicle that it had been scrapped. I used some of the parts from leftover '78 chassis and then 'Scrapped' the remainder. I could have legally sold all of the '78 parts too. The '77 W-200 remained in DMV records and '78 D-200 was then a 'Scrap Vehicle' in DMV records.

[JimmieD]

As I recall I also could have re-registered both vehicles with body tags matching running gear per truck. I didn't want to pay registration & fees on the '78 because engine was trashed etc. and I was on short bucks, but I could have legally done so, having all paperwork and Kali 'Pink Slip' for both trucks.

[captmatthew1]

my thought was that i would swap bodies on both and maybe either sell the one with the junk body, or scrap it if it has to go that way. the body i am planning on using is on a truck with 90k original miles. of course its a gas donor, but it would be a shame to scrap another square body (even if it is ugly as sthi)

[captmatthew1]

im assuming its just a door jamb vin and the plate on the dash. any others?

[PToombs]

There is a plate riveted on under the wiper cowl too. When I swapped my cab I just switched the dash and the plate, and removed the sticker from the door post on the donor cab. I cut out the section of door post from the original cab and kept it. I heard you can heat it and it will come off in 1 piece, I haven't tried it yet. If you try to scrape it off it will peel back and say "voidvoidvoidvoid" across the whole thing. I didn't tell DMV anything, and Philip said he has to get his inspected at DMV or someplace. He or somebody else said they have to get a "salvage" title because it was swapped.

[CumminsPower59]

The only plate on my pile is on the dash...some surgical precision with a cut off wheel and very low voltage with a Mig welder, everything looks as it left the factory...rosette rivets and all

Best thing to do, if you aren't doing much to it besides the cab swap, and your state isnt ridiculously crazy about rebuilding vehicles, and doesn't have inspections, don't say a word. Crap gets complicated and if you had lived in IN like Philip, stuff gets impounded and there is fines involved. I rattle canned my pile, it looks like the rust got fixed and it got a cheap paint job, yet the only original panel is the hood.

[captmatthew1]

Well, I suppose since we don't have inspections here or anything of the like I won't worry about it. Finally time to replace the body after the freak lift fall accident!

[joshotto94]

good question and good info im doing a cab swap right now im thinking gray area the main answer though