Oh dear the people at ford say there is no way to verify the age of an engine without the engine number so it looks like i'm screwed!
I had hoped to apply for sva this week but looking at the sva manual, it says the car will be tested on new car emissions regs if no proof of engine age available so i guess that means i have to buy and fit a cat :-(

Do any of you know a source of reasonably priced, suitable for a zetec cats, or does anybody know where i can hire one for the test?? I've tried a search but not a lot comes up.

Any help greatly appreciated :-(

erm, doesn't having no engine number land you in a WHOLE lot of other bother?

What you really want to do is find someone with a similar engine where the blocks been scrapped and then whip the engine number of that one.....

Get down the scrappy and get a number off a scrap motor. Chisel it off the engine and stamp it onto yours.

Not ideal I know before anyone slates me but if there's no theft involved its just a way of straightening the problem out.

Buy a brand new service engine off Ford and theres no number on it. They stamp the number of the old engine on its being exchanged for.

Agree with Coozer.

Or, buy a knackered engine of the same model for little money and take the number off this then scrap it.

Or, buy an engine of the same model with knackered internals and transfer your good internals across. Then use the new block (and number) with replaced internals.

Easy to sort out whichever way you go.

Cheers,
James

may have a plan

I bought my pinto off a mate who used it for racing so was he never noticed the engine number had been ground off.

I got an old pinto block off some one on here, ground the engine number off that and stamped it on mine.

Of course I only noticed once the engine was in the car so couldnt stamp the number on the original location. I phoned the DVLA and said the old number was unreadable but I knew what it was and they said for SVA and registration just stamp it somewhere easily seen so its on the block near the bell housing. When I took it for SVA then registration at DVLA no one batted an eye lid.

If you take the number off another similar engine (similar year, same capacity) grind the number off and scrap the engine then your not doing any harm. If your worried you could always damage the block so there is no chance anyone will use it again.

[Edited on 31/1/2009 by greggors84]

When ford changed an engine over they where surposed to stamp the old number on to the new engine. Hence loads of zetec's with out a number as they couldnt be bothered.

Just find an engine in a scrapie that has done the cambelt and use the number.

No harm done.

I would loan you a pre aug 95 zetec but you are to far away

Regarding stamping it on somewhere....

The guy at the SVA test station I used spent ages looking at the number on my Rover V8 and wasn't happy it was the original number... I ended up having to buy and fit an old engine, get through the test and then re-fit the other one.

I know Ford engines the number is stamped on when they are swapped and not on every block as it comes off the line so you have more chance of getting away with it.

Mark

Just out of curiosity more than anything else but do you reckon DVLA would notice if the engine number was a duplicate of another?

Phil

OOps i've been slightly misleading here.

The engine does have a number- XXVEDXX

This isn't a ford number hence the problem. As this number is actually stamped on the block icant actually add another unless i attempt to grind it off which wouldn't be easy as the engine is in the car :-(

if you know the registration no of the vehicle it come out of do a HPI check as it will give you the engine no

A thought. My Zetec has the engine number also stamped on the head by the coil.

Ian

I probably wont have time to do an engine change if i want to get it tested before the change to IVA as there are a pile of small jobs to get done too.

I found these:

http://www.demon-tweeks.co.uk/products/ProductDetail.asp?cls=MSPORT&pcode=BACSPORTS0A

On ebay. One to fit my car is around £250.

If i go down the 'put in another engine' route' i'll be likely to miss sva and have to cough up £500 odd for IVA instead. If i put in one of the above cats it would still be cheaper than the cost of IVA.

Would these cats work ok for sva when mated to zetec 2.0 on weber alpha tb's?

Or maybe i should try and make time to do an engine swop. Have you got a precat 2.0 zetec lying about i could borrow Mr Mango?

I wish i'd thought about this earlier :-(

Ian are you sure? that could solve my probs!

Where exactly if you can remember?

I'll go out and have a look now

I am pretty sure those cats are the same as the one theconrodkid fitted to his zetec,cost about £60 from the states so might be worth dropping him a u2u.

Well done Bob!!!!

I've just ordered one so hopefully problem solved :-)

Id go down the scrppy with a file and hammer. Write the number down off a block, fille it away and then smash a hole in the block with the hammer lol!