67 GMC vin plate question

[unreconstructed1]

OK, so this is actually 2 questions, so I'll start with the first question...

Both my 67 and 69 vin plates have been painted over several times, making the numbers less visible... I plan to be repainting them again, but plan on taping up the vin plate when I do. My question is, how would I go about stripping some of the paint of of the vin plates without ruining the plates? I just want to make them a little easier to read in case I ever decide to sell the trucks...

secondly, on my '67 GMC. I happened to be going through the vin decoder for my '69, trying to figure out how the truck came from the factory (I had a guess, and turned out to be right), but I also looked at the vin for my '67 GMC, and noticed that when the State printed the title, they left out the last letter denoting the GVW class... is this last letter actually considered to be part of the vin? and if it is, should I try to have the mistake corrected, or leave it as it is? The truck has been titled like this for me for 7 years, and was titled this way for the last owner as well...

[530FF]

Tape the edges with aluminum tape and use paint stripper, the vin plate is stainless and won't be affected by paint stripper. I use a good paint stripper availlable at your local auto body shop supply vendor

[bruceman1968]

Yes ,the last letter (denoting GVW) is considered to be part of the VIN.

[SS Tim]

THe plates should clean up well just make sure if you use stripper to tape up over the edge of the plate about 1/8th" inch to keep it from migrating down behind. Then you can back scrape it with a razor to clean up the border.

As far as the weight class suffix I would not worry about it. The VIN is a unique number with or without it and the series in place three indicates if it is a 1/2 or 3/4 ect.