Blaze's AE86

[banpei]

I'm sorry, I missed this question...

(08-29-2023 05:11 PM)Blaze0010 Wrote:  Other question is, my VIN plate in the firewall is lightly ruined, the "TOYOTA MOTOR COMPANY" printing it's almost gone. Should i try to restore mine or buy a reproduction?
For what i understand, messing too much with vin tags it's, well, illegal
Also i'm completely missing the vin tag on the dashboard.

In principle the firewall ID plate in Europe (and Japan) doesn't contain a VIN as back then it wasn't a mandatory standard yet. In the US they did get a VIN on both the firewall ID plate and the firewall. So in Europe the plate contains the serial number, trim level and other details of your car. The serial number is also stamped on the firewall itself.

This is the firewall ID plate:

And this is the same serial on the firewall:


Most countries, like the Netherlands, only care about the serial on the firewall. You can easily tamper with the firewall plate, but not that easily with the stamping of the firewall. Also some countries (like Belgium) sometimes feature different plates riveted over the firewall plate as their legislation in the 1980s required that.

So you should be able replace the firewall plate without a problem as long as it contains the same serial number. You can buy them online and get the either engraved or stamped. Toyota used both methods for the AE86, where it depended on the factory which methods they used. Tahara (A52/A54) used to engrave them (like seen above) while Higashi (M21) stamped them. It is also important to note that they are stamped outwards, so from behind.

This one seems to be a close match with the ones from Japanese: https://identification-plates.com/en/toy...n-tag.html
While this one is closer to the European/USDM plates: https://identification-plates.com/en/toy...n-tag.html