Farmall restoration

[muellerd]

Prior to 1957 were the hood bolts the same color as the hood? I have seen some chrome or silver. What is the original color? My recollection is they were the same color as the hood.

 

[showcrop]

muellerd, you have to think about how the process worked at the factory. In order to paint everything under the hood they had to have the hood off while painting the chassis. In order to paint the underside of the hood they had to paint it off the tractor. They had to let the paint dry before attaching the hood. It is unlikely that they paid someone to go around and paint the bolts after assembly.

 

[muellerd]

Could they not have used already painted chrome or silver bolts for assembly?

 

[muellerd]

Well I agree with you. I thought all the tractors were assembled with red bolts. I restored my 300 and painted all the bolts red. I had a couple individuals try to tell me that International Harvester painted their bolts silver. I have a bet with a guy that all the tractors came out of the factory with all the bolts painted red. Any other comments on validating this or resources?

 

[showcrop]

(quoted from post at 11:39:15 02/22/20) Well I agree with you. I thought all the tractors were assembled with red bolts. I restored my 300 and painted all the bolts red. I had a couple individuals try to tell me that International Harvester painted their bolts silver. I have a bet with a guy that all the tractors came out of the factory with all the bolts painted red. Any other comments on validating this or resources?

There was no need to pain the bolts silver. They came plated from the vendor. Plated metal holds paint poorly so they would have had to first chemically etch them before painting them. All that extra work would not have resulted in any better sales or profits.

 

[DR. EVIL]

SHOWCROP is right. The hoods & grill were painted separately on a totally different paint line. After the
chassis of the tractor was painted on the assembly line the hoods and grill were attached with cadmium
plated screws, think they were Phillip's button head.
I worked at the FARMALL PLANT from fall of 1976 to Christmas 1981. There was the paint booth on the
start assembly line where all the tractor chassis got painted. ANYTHING put on the tractor on the finish
assembly line had to be painted elsewhere or not painted. The cast rear wheel centers had their own
overhead conveyor to be painted on because of the weight, and dual wheel hubs and rear wheel weights and
frt suitcase weights also painted on that line. All the sheetmetal, clips, clamps, was painted on the
"Bonderizer line", the bonderizer was a hot water caustic cleaning wash with a phosphatizing coating to
improve paint adhesion. And the service parts group way down by shipping had their own paint line to
paint parts shipping to IHC Broadview, Illinois parts depot, ALL parts shipped there then were
distributed to all the other parts depots. Seems like there was another paint line too. On the '86 and
'88 series tractors the cabs from the IH East Moline plant were painted at East Moline, castings had a
sealer applied by dipping at outside contractors, mostly a red oxide primer color, or a yellow, depended
on which foundry they came from. Some suppliers of small exposed parts also painted parts with paint from
FARMALL'S paint supplier so the shade of red matched. A great example was the 2+2 emblems used on the
dash and the large ones used on the hood had a recessed area, think the "+" painted red. Most of our 2150
red came from Moline Paint Mfg in 325 gallon totes, also 55 gal drums, and 5 gal buckets. We also painted
some tractors 483 Federal Yellow, used some semi-gloss black, #935 white. And we had a Huge carrot farmer
out in California buy ten 1086's and wanted the tractors orange, and the cabs green, kinda a mint green.
There was a 1066 from his prior batch of tractors at a Red Power Round-Up years ago.

 

[muellerd]

thanks for your answer

 

[jaoneill]

While on the subject of hood bolts, what would the small clips that hold the square nuts that these bolts screw into be called, and/or where might one find them?

 

[showcrop]

(quoted from post at 02:36:04 05/03/20) While on the subject of hood bolts, what would the small clips that hold the square nuts that these bolts screw into be called, and/or where might one find them?

They are called captive nuts, and you can get them from McMaster-Carr.

 

[jaoneill]

Thank you!