I have a REDLINE that was originally stickered a MXII. The serial #'s are RJ02630 and under those are RHJ170404. Yes, it has 2 sets of numbers. I have been told that it is a 83/84 Series III, but am not 100% convinced. Is this a MXII or a SERIES III? REDLINE experts please...

you know we are gonna want pics

the first serial you posted looks like the correct one, which would make it a Japanese 1980 frame. they may have had some leftover frames at one point because i've heard of several '79 and 80 dated frames having been sold as later Series 3 era bikes. either that, or maybe dealers re-decaling old stock (we had a shop that did that here).

Look inside the BB. If it has 4 holes it is a Series 3. 2 holes a MX2.
Check out my site. You have to click on headlines often to see the story and pictures to see them full size.
http://redlinebmx.wordpress.com

yes, four holes. Does that mean it is definately a Series 3? If so which one? The 102B , ST-20, etc???
I need stickers for her

i wonder if they had found a bunch of old pre-stamped BB shells they refabbed for those frames?

I wish I knew for sure so I can put some stickers on her!

can you post a few good pics of the dropouts? the '82-84 style is different from the earlier styles.

Here is the dropout.

that is definitely a later "series 3" dropout. don't know what to say about the "1980" serial, for certain, other than this odd combo has turned up before, a few times.

So who has the correct sticker set for Pat? PPPllleeeeaassseeeee..

All Series 3 had the 4 holes. So it cant be a MX2. Did you powder/paint the frame? I dont see any gnurling so if it wasnt there it is a 83/84 Series 3. All the models used the same frame just different parts.

These are the only decals redline offers from those two years. Unless you get lucky and find someone who has originals or repops of the other models. Note they incorrectly list them as 1976 lol.

http://www.bmxstop.com/decals/redline/redl..._600a_decal_set

hmm, i'm hearing ya. but would they pre-stamp a BB before being welded into a frame. i would have thought the serial got stamped when the frame was complete.

tell us more about the dropout differences, or were you just talking about the knurling from the 1985 frames?

all that serialized stuff (BB shells, dropouts) is stamped ahead of time - sometimes shortly before use, sometimes a long time in advance.

here are the different dropout styles. the one on the left is the "Series 3" ('82/3/4) style.

the one on the right is the MX-II (approx '77-81) style.

the main difference is in the length ratio of the tabs that sit above and below the stay tubes. on the older style, the upper tabs are much longer compared to the newer style. there are other subtle shape differences, also, if you look at them.

mr coasterbrake, when you put them together like that it is quite obvious. thanks for that. the 4 hole BB would be way easier to id a series 3 over the mxII, but it is way cool to see other subtle changes as well.

interesting to see they stamp the BB before frame building. this may well prove why some of the serials sometimes don't correspond to years frames were sold in. i'm still a huge believer of the Japanese R serial breakdown.
with the US serials it would be nice to know approxamately how many units were made per week from the 10,000th unit in 1978. i have a 2 hole gusset mxII with a mid 9000 serial and a proline with a mid 12000 serial number. this puts my mxII late 1977 and i believe the proline may well be early to mid 1978.

I agree but only to a point Mr. Coasterbrake. The Japaneese are the most dialed mass producers ever. Ive seen US Production at couple places. Ive been inside at Torker, CW, SE, Brackens and the maker of Hyper/SM/Badd.
They didnt store tons of anything stamped or anything at all. The Japaneese Im sure also didnt stamp 10,000 BBs if they only sold 5,000 a year and had BBs stamped and date coded many months from ship dates. I bet most companies, and all the respectable Japaneese and Tawain builders kept stamping very close to ship dates.
Now Im sure some where stamped in April and went out in May etc but I bet most stamped in April never went out in say August.
I also believe sometimes they pushed inventories too close and had to borrow from old stock or future stock.
Say Redline had 1,000 Prolines on order. The last batch of 100 went out. But they had just 79 of part "a". They took some next gen or last gen items that would work and made the order complete.

i agree that these guys didn't stamp eons ahead of time (whereas a company like Hutch did). my point was they didn't do it after the frame was already welded and that it was possible some shells got "lost in the mix" and used up later.

when i first got into collecting in the late '80s, it was actual Redline people who told me how the "R_ ####" date codes worked, so going by that, "RJ" should have been a 1980 frame, assuming everything went according to plan.

the thing that makes me think they may have used up older shells is that i've heard of more than a couple frames that have this odd situation.

i suppose another explanation might be the "stamp guy" put the wrong letter in the machine one day.

did you get any info on approxamate units built per week?

no, i never asked about production unit #s.

at the time i was just trying to figure out how to date frames, since many were similar and i had a bunch without decals i wanted to ID.

i just asked my rep if he knew, he asked around at the HQ and called me back. i already knew the taiwan scheme and vaguely the USA scheme.

this was also when we discussed the overlapping time frame Japanese frames with the all-numeric serials (most seeming to have the extra seatstay gusset and between sometime in '82 thru sometime in 85). no one there knew for certain what that deal was, but they guessed it was multiple builders used at the same time.