Vin Plate Color

I have seen bare aluminum and body color VIN plates on this site. Which way did the plate come?

 

I don't know if earlier year Jeeps were the same, but my both '71 and '69 still have original paint and have bare aluminum serial number plates:

The '69:


The '71:

 

Thank you.

 

My '71, still sporting original paint also, looks just like Fireballs.

 

Always natural aluminum, and most (prior to 1969-1970-ish?) held on by small Philips screws.
-Donny
Edit: my comments apply to the Kaiser-era Jeeps. Howard is correct regarding the Willys Jeeps, though some later Willys had natural aluminum

 

I did alot of research a while back trying to figure this out. I didn't have the best luck researching it for cj5s but did find alot of info from the rest of the willys line.

From what I could find, if your serial number is recessed or etched into plate. Then your plate should be partially painted. Either black or white depending on the year. If your serial number is raised then your plate should be bare metal.

This is the plate from my parts jeep, a 1961. It's raised and shows no signs of being painted. My 1960 is the same way. I'm not sure when they changed to this style of plate but it was definitely before the willys branding was discontinued.

 

So is there anything I need to worry about when stripping paint off aluminum? I’m not going to blast it, because I don’t want to damage the aluminum. I was thinking just like an aircraft paint stripper or some product like that.

 

Wilesbd,

Each year from about 1954-1970 there was a multi page blueprint chart titled "Model Identification Chart For 19XX" it listed the Jeep Model, Vehicle Description, Chassis Model, Chassis Code, Body Style Code, first serial for model year, AND a part number for the serial plate used.

The individual print showed details of the Serial plate. There were dozens of variations. Most years differed only by the patent numbers listed. It comes in handy figuring out when someone bought a 'replacement' Serial tag and stamped their own, or SWAPPED serial tags from Jeep to Jeep.

 

Citristrip

 

To clean mine I used a soapy SOS pad to gently remove paint/oxidation