Farmall Cub

I will be painting a couple of cubs in the near future (John's and Dad's). I have gotten specific instructions from John on what gets painted what but, Dad wants his painted as close to original as possible. He wants the master control lever (hand lift)and the front rockshaft painted blue and the rear rockshaft unit, rod included, painted red. Any comments

I think that some of the early ones of all the parts you mentioned were blue but a little later were all red. Mixtures of red and blue could have been on the same tractor as delivered from a dealer.

However, it is unclear what you are refering to with "master control lever" and "rear rockshaft unit." On hand lift tractors, the master lift unit included the hand lever, quadrant, boost spring and the rear rockshaft as a single unit. The whole unit was either blue or red.

Thanks for the reply Jim. I have a copy of the owner's manual/parts list for the 144 cultivator. The items I speak of are on pages 37 and 40. From what you stated, it looks like it should all be blue.

Bud, I was checking some of my booklets, and I have one showing cub and attachments (all handlift). Most of the pictures are illustratons rather than actual photographs, but it shows the entire handlift assembly including rod and front rockshaft being red, as well as the universal mounting frame for the cultivator. All the rest of the attachments are shown in blue. The pamphlet is on Rudi's site under ADs Brochures, etc. It is the Balanced Farm Power And Quick-Change (ha ha) Implement Units" manual.
The hand lift is on page 16.

correct are not, I still want mine BLUE

You can see this in the paint committee decisions. Sometimes it is a little hard to figure out what parts they are talking about in the decisions. Here is decision 168, April 11, 1947. It says to paint all this stuff blue.
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/libraryarchives/ihc/paint/display.asp?pageurl=168_01.gif

The decision was amended on March 31, 1948. This changed all these parts to red. The amendment includes 3 pages of machine by machine details.
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/libraryarchives/ihc/paint/display.asp?pageurl=168_02.gif

I checked the casting dates on Dad's tractor and all cast parts were made in between 7-1-R and 10-29-R, well after the March 31 ammendment. So, I must conclude from this that the "master labor assembly" is RED.

CB:

All the Paint Committee Decisions that relates to Cubs in any way (that are available that is) are on the server under Paint, Decals and Other Finish ?'s/Paint Committee Decisions.
There are 10 of them.

Somewhere I read that early on if the implements came with the tractor from the factory everything was painted red including the master lift. If you purchased the lift and implements from a dealer as an add on they were blue. I know when I tore apart my early 48 there were remnants of blue on the plow, cultivators, sickle bar mower, master lift control lever and on the plow lever. I know the tractor was never repanited and the implements and controls were purchased from the dealer shortly after we bought the tractor.

The implements didn't even come from the same factory. Any bought with the tractor would have been put on by the dealer.

Cub-Bud wrote:I checked the casting dates on Dad's tractor and all cast parts were made in between 7-1-R and 10-29-R, well after the March 31 ammendment. So, I must conclude from this that the "master labor assembly" is RED.

Remember that amendment didn't mean that everything automatically changed back to red on April 1!! It took a while to get the word from IH corporate down to the factories. There were probably a tremendous number of blue parts still at various points in the IH system. I bet you could have still been getting all blue implements from your IH dealer well into 1949.

Al

Well, I read the paint decisions to Dad just before we painted the tractor yesterday and he said, "PAINT IT RED"

I don't think he is to wild about blue paint on a red tractor.

Sure makes the unusual items such as handlifts more noticeable.

John, I agree. I have ordered four cans of blue from Bermuda Ken at C&G. I am using some on your handlift and the rest I will use later on the turning plow I hope to get from Russ. I don't think I will have enough left to paint my cultivators.