UNSTYLED RADIATOR COLOR

[Anonymous-0]

HEY, I'VE SEEN IT BOTH WAYS AND I'M KINDA CONFUSED. ARE THE RADIATOR CORES PAINTED GREEN OR BLACK ON A 1936 UNSTYLED B ? THANKS IN ADVANCE.

 

[Mike M]

No paint at all is best and how mine are done.
Paint slows down heat transfer.
Plus by the time you put a shutter or curtain in front of it you don't see much of them.

 

[Anonymous-0]

They were painted green from the factory.

 

[CalJim]

You don't want any paint on your radiator,
Heat will not dissapate.

 

[Dave H]

jd

I dn't think heat transfer will be an issue on a hobby tractor, at least I never ran into it with a good rad. I do not have any green ones, but do not have unstyled tractors.

On the black, it was recommended to use more thinner than normal and up the pressure on the gun so the paint wiuld mist thru the radiator easier, using light coats. That has worked good for me on the black, I don't know about the green though but don't think it would hurt anything to try.

 

[P Browning]

Most of us have seen radiator cores painted and unpainted, green and black. The truth be known, JD Factory painting of John Deere tractors wasn't much to brag about. As for the radiator cores, all indications I have found tell us there was no effort to paint them, but if a mist of green overspray made its way there, well -- you have a core with a green tinge so to speak.

As for reducing the efficiency of the radiator because of painting, this is simply a fact of life, and as always -- simply informs you. The choice remains yours to make. If a tractor with a heavily painted radiator core were taken to the field for plowing, most will agree cooling will not be at its best and may be a problem!

This is another of those issues kicked around by many such as whether fan blades should be yellow or green. Some have even went so far as to tell us that the replacement fan blades in a John Deere dealership's storage bin were yellow -- and then quote this as proof as to what their color should be -- which is, of course, hogwash. And so from as many who may reply, you are bound to have that many authoritative responses. The bottom line -- it is your tractor, so make a choice and let that be that! It is very hard to do research on a talk forum, but you can gather opinions, and then let those be the basis for research of your own.

There are some issues about which little or nothing was left behind in print, either in Field Service Bulletins or archived memo's. And so for these, the forum is a great place to gather a general consensus as to what is generally accepted in the community. This is where the CORRECT POLICE come into play! Such minutia as the shape of a bezel on a gauge, or how far down on the letters of an unstyled tractor the yellow should go -- this is their kind of stuff to deal with -- lots of trivial stuff.

BTW, my ingrained OPINION on fan blades is that they were actually painted white on early D tractors as a safety measure, and I reckon when the 1st or 2nd can of white paint ran out, yellow was the logical choice. Somewhere during the 1940's, this process stopped, and fan blades were green thereafter. Have a Great Day! (PatB)
Restoration Site, JD H