Most of the time, the VIN numbers will be in one of three places.

The first and most obvious is stamped on the top of the left rail just behind the coupler.

The second is etched or stamped on the left rail side at or near the coupler.

The third and most obscure, is they will weld the number into the bottom of the rail (again, left rail just behind the coupler).

On newer trailers (I assume yours is late seventies?) they use laser etched ID tags, but still stamp them on the bottom of the rail.

GT

Ya, I was suprised also when the lady told me that the trailer needed to be inspected. Maybe it's because I'm transfering it to my name? anyways, I checked the locations that GT mentioned and there is nothing there. Looks like the dumbass that replaced that section of the trailer didn't notice that the vin was there. I'm just gonna take the thing in on monday and see what happens. The trailer looks old, so maybe the inspector will look at the title, see that it says 1978 and send me on my way.

I went through this same ordeal. Took to local Arizona MVD and they did an inspection and could not find anything so they told me to make an appt. For a level 2 inspection by a mvd officer. So I took it back for him to look at it and he could not find it either so he assigned me a new vin number. And being as I had zero paperwork I had to get a bonded title to put it into my name. I looked later on and saw where the 4 holes were for the vin on the front driver side of trailer. Looks like whoever re-did the trailer painted it and took off the vin and just filled the holes with bondo and never put the vin back on. Talk about a pain in the arse. Oh and all this cost me about 250 bones

Hell ya man. I just hope you don't have to go through what I did. twas a major headache

Borrowed a set of stamp punches from a friend and stamped in the vin number myself right on to the frame. I took the trailer this morning to AAA and had it inspected. The guy said: Oh, nice vin number....it's so clear and easy to read! Okay then, you are good to go sir. Just walk back in with me and get your new plate.