placement of decals Farmall C

Recently I rebuilt a 51 Farmall C. I have a couple of decals that were not previously on the tractor or that were worn off. One is about hitching things to the drawbar and the other says be careful when turning and going to fast. Can anyone tell me where these shoulc be properly placed. Your help is greatly appreciated

I even bought Guy Fay's book, "Letter Series Farmalls - Originality Guide" and it was no help on decal placement for a super C. Other letter series tractor models, yes, but for some reason, not Super C. The guy that painted my '52 Super C put the decals on, but I suspect not all in the right place, but I'm afraid of damaging the paint if I try to remove them, and don't know for sure where to move them to. I'll be watching with interest to see if we get any help here.

I can't find any documentation, but my SuperC is still wearing her faded original paint, so I'm counting on the decals being in their original places. If that's the case . . .

The small yellow decal about hitching only to the drawbar is in the center of the rear of the seat support (not the toolbox, but the keyhole-shaped piece that your seatpan or flip-up bracket bolts to).

The one about turning too quickly is on the upright of the steering wheel support, above the electrical box and below where the headlight arms are mounted.

Look at page 41 in Guy Fay's "Farmall Letter Series Tractors". Two pictures show the placement of the decals you are asking about. The drawbar decal is placed on the rear of the seat just below the top lip of the seat (about 2" or so). The warning decal is placed on the gas tank , at the rear center, where the operator can easily see. Note: The gear pattern decal is placed at rear, center of tank, about 2" above gas tank seam. The warning decal is placed about 2" above the gear decal. My experience: To my taste, these two decals, (the gear decal and the warning decal), look more original if they are very carefully trimmed around the edge, removing the square-looking corners. My 2 cents. John

Now you've got me curious, John. Unfortunately my Guy Fay guide is over at the neighbor's just now and I can't get to it. (We're gettin' ready to start in on an A he acquired and he asked to borrow it for inspiration. He's trustworthy and it seemed like a good move to let him drool a little before we get started.)

Anyway . . . I got wonderin' most about the shift pattern decal and whether that was right. I know the question was about a C, and I'm talkin' about a SuperC, which has the shift pattern cast into the tranny cover/deck, just to the right and a little ahead of the shifter. Did the C not have that in the casting? If you read over some of the IH paint committee decisions, you'll see where they'll change colors to save $500 a year (red pigments are apparently costlier than other colors), so I'm surprised that they would spend money on shift-pattern decals, when that info was already cast into the iron.

Also wonderin' whether the warning decal on the fuel tank might have been the PTO warning instead of the sharp turn decal.

Not pickin' at ya, just thoughts (I'm REALLY missin' havin' that book right at hand).

Well shoot, Scott. Now you got me wonderin'.
So now I had to go out to the barn and look at a few of the Little Red Machines. I also took another walk through Guy's book.
As noted before, the book is not specific about the decal placement on the Super C. But if you look on page 41 at the C one can get a pretty good hint. Now, look on page 132 at the decal placement on the Farmall Super A. The Brake Warning decal is placed on the rear of the gas tank. (The PTO Warning decal is placed on the PTO shield at the rear of the tractor). The Gear Pattern decal is nowhere to be found in the book, on the A or C. Just my conjecture, but since the gas tank is basically the same on the A and C, and the operator view of the tank is basically the same, I bet the decal seen on the C gas tank on page 41 is the Brake Warning decal.
You know how these after-market decal sets are: not proper decals or too many (inappropriate) decals. When I did my Super C a few years back, and the gear pattern decal was in the set that I had, I decided to put the sucker just below the Brake Warning decal. Looks OK to me but, as you stated, the gear pattern is raised on the trans cover, so it's certainly not necessary (and most likely inappropriate). ....and so it goes. John

C/SC does not have a gearshift decal. Far as I know the C and SC decal placement is the same.

Guy did a TREmendous job in getting that book together. I looked at it a lot in restoring my BN and found the drawings to be pretty scarce for As and Bs, and, certainly, as you note, non-existent for the Cs/SCs. I expect if I were working on an H or M or a W of some sort, I'd wish there were more, too. I expect that Guy had to strike some kind of balance between what was available to him in the first place, and what there was room for in the book. Even with what it doesn't have, I don't know of any book that was done with any more care or is any more comprehensive on the subject. And it's a beautiful book, to boot.

So, like you did (and I did) we try to glean what we can from the pictures as well as the tech drawings in the back.

Like I said, I don't have the book here just now (but will soon!) so your page references are a blank to me tonight, but have a look at the drawings in the back for the SuperA. They're what I used for my BN and show the decals on the fuel tank to be the brake and sharp turn warning placed just ahead of the PTO warning. The two of them look pretty similar -- both start with BE CAREFUL at the top and have the hashed outline around them -- not easy to distinguish the two in anything other than a close-up photo. There was no shift pattern decal on the As and Bs. Again, the pattern was cast into the tranny cover.

The layout of the A/SA and B/BN left the fuel tank as the only place to put a warning label in front of the seated operator.

The C/SC had the spot where my sharp turn warning is on the steering/light pedestal available. I don't see any sign of there having been any decal on the fuel tank, which leaves the question of the placement of the PTO warning. Where does the book show it being on the Hs and Ms? With the seat on the C being centered up, I'm wondering if it might have been put on the PTO shield, if that's where it was on the bigger tractors. I never found one on mine, but the PTO shield on it was pretty beat up an if there ever was a decal there, it was long gone before I got it.

Why do people insist on putting the circle "C" decals on the sides of the grill instead of on the hood where there's a curved bead that fits the decal PERFECTLY?

Likely they didn't know or maybe just don't care.

Got a fella down the road has an H. Ya can tell it's an H because of the two brass colored stick-on italic mailbox letters he put where the circle decals would go. Right placement, wrong style. But, hey, he keeps it runnin' and works it. That, and it's his.

Leon, about getting decals off --

If they were the adhesive mylar or cut vinyl, heat or chemicals will work. The old water-soak style decals are a little tougher, but crinkling them with heat is a good place to start.

A heat gun could get hot enough to bubble the paint even on the low setting if you get in too close or linger too long with it, but can work fine as long as you keep it moving and keep a distance, and stop as soon as the decal starts to release and curl up. A safer bet is to use a hand-held hair dryer on the high setting. It will take longer than a heat gun but won't get hot enough to hurt your paint. With either, the aim is to soften the adhesive underneath and cause some shrinkage to the decal itself (without actually melting it) to help separate it. Then you can clean up the adhesive by just wiping, though a solvent might be needed to get it all.

Which gets to the second method, which is to use a solvent that is sold as a bumper sticker remover. Most auto parts will hae something like that. It's the same idea but much gentler than gasket remover, which will eat paint. You might ask a used car dealer with a shop what they use to clean up cars for sale.

Any chemical or solvent, whether used as the primary way of getting someting off or just to clean up after using the heat method, you would want to test it on an obscure part of the tractor (the underside of the axle housing comes first to my mind) to make sure it won't harm the paint where you intend to use it.

Only other thought is that moving decals is something better done sooner rather than later, as red is a notorious color for fading and, if your tractor is out in the light a lot, you'll have a tell-tale darker area where a decal has been removed.