IHnut, Best Paint (Continued)

When the F-series tractors were painted at the factory they had all of their parts attached and run through a paint booth. The red you are seeing is the primer if it is under a part/nut/bolt. I have in my possession an original F-20 block that was still in the crate. The whole block (inside and out) is painted a red primer except where some machining took place. It sounds like most of the parts that were made were painted with the red primer and shipped to Farmall for installation. I'm in the same boat you are in, and while scraping paint I was unable to find gray paint. Eventually, I found a small speck on the corner of the engine. It sounds like the paint would just fall off and did not last long at all. IH had a program that would repaint the old gray tractors red when they were in for service.

I've also found articles that explain IH had to repaint the old gray tractors after six months if they were waiting at the factory outside. IH developed a better paint that would last a year and it was decided to change the color as well. IH wanted their tractors to be more visible on the road. It saved IH alot of money and that is why we have IH red.

Concluision: Not a lot of different paint colors available back in the twenties and early thirties. Even though I would have sworn at one time my tractor had to be red, I've decided that she was gray and repainted with a better paint.

Here is the picture of the engine block after it was cleaned up.

Here is the picture of the engine block before it was cleaned up and still in the crate.