CUB

CUB I"m restoring my 1948 cub.I need to know how it was painted.red,silver wheels,controls,starter,etc.how was it detailed. can anyone help?THANKS.

That's pretty easy. It wasn't detailed at all.

The tractor was basically completely assembled, then doused in red paint from top to bottom, front to back. Everything was painted red, except the rear rims, and tires. I think even the steering wheel was painted red, but the paint didn't stick.

The rear rims were either galvanized or painted dull grey, depending on who was supplying the rims. It is popular to paint them with aluminum rustoleum paint nowadays.

Sometimes you'll see the starter painted black. That's not original. It's a replacement starter. If you like the look, though, by all means paint it black. It's not "incorrect" despite what the correct police tell you. It's a replacement starter, and replacement starters often came painted black.

If you want original, then paint it completely red. It's your tractor, though. You can make whatever accents you want if you think it looks better.

Personally I would mask or remove the rear rims and tires, the steering wheel, spark plugs, spark plug wires, and distributor cap.

Click on "external_link". Site dedicated to Cubs

mkirsch is spot on. They were red, red and red from the factory, with the exception of the rims. All that was masked off were things like the gauges, the ring on the steering wheel, and electrical connections. No real effort was made to mask off the radiatior which usually ended up as what I call black with red overspray.

The only black paint on mine is the cover on my cutout relay which was black when I got it, and very likely a replacement like the starters mkirsch referred to.

My mag has the only other black, the distributor cap and coil cover. In the case of the mag, I read somewhere about some sort of electrically neutral lacquer that was used on the aluminum body of the mag. Left it just polished with a clear lacquer coating, and painted the base at the drive end red.

So it's your choice. Any color you want. If you want it to look like it did when it left the factory, red. But there's nothing wrong with making it look like a well-maintained tractor that's had the starter or other parts replaced. And, while I don't think it's something I'd do, I don't fault the fella that would paint one pink for his wife. Your tractor, your choice.

I've got them both lent out right now so I'm not sure about the latter, but Ken Updike has a book dedicated to the Cubs that has a lot of good information and pictures you could use for reference, and I think (not sure) that Guy Fay's Originality Guide for the letter series Farmalls has some on Cubs, as well. Both are published by MBI, pretty widely available, and make a nice part of a collector's library.