identifying tractor

just purchased a farmall. sticker says super a, but believe it might be a cub. can't even find the oil dip stick on it. what number and where is it that i should find that would identify it?

Serial on the SA is on the inside of the left seat support, prefix FAA. To make it easier the Cub has a flathead 4 cyl engine, SA has valve in head, called OHV by some. Oil is checked with 2 petcocks on the left side of the oil pan. Top level is full, should not be allowed to go below the lower one.

cubs had a dipstick with a breather on it. heres a couple pics of my cub

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man, thats a sharp little cub!! pg

Well its not a super A. Cub for sure and its a nice one. Erik..

a couple quick checks, the cub gas tank and hood are all one piece. the super a will have a separate hood, gas tank and front grille. the cub serial number plate is located on the front lower casting where the steering shaft enters the casting. the cub also has a flat head engine, the spark plugs sit on the top of the head, no valve cover. the super a will have the spark plugs at an angle on the side of the head, also will have a valve cover.

Hey thanks a lot guys you have been a big help. The tractor is not a flat head 6 and it has a separate gas tank/hood. Plus I wondered what those petcocks were doing on the side of the oil pan. I suspected the old top one is full and the bottom is low. Thanks for the confirmation.
Sounds like I have a super A, now to find out what year, any clues what to look for?

if its a super a the serial number plate should be on the left side of the tractor at the clutch housing. if it is a reguler a, the serial number is on the rear seat bracket, if you walk up to the rear of the tractor, place both hands on the rear seat brackets. the serial number plate will be on the inner side of the seat bracket that your left hand is on. use a flashlight, they can be tricky to find, just a little bigger than a business card. on the left side of this page see research and info, click on serial numbers, then select your tractor. it gives serial number breakdowns.

Super A serial plates are on the seat bracket, same as an A. They moved to the bell housing on the number series models. Super A serial numbers are above 250,000 while A are below. The most obvious difference is that the Super A usually has a hydraulic system.

Very nice paint!!!

Those oil petcocks go back to the kerosene days of the 20s! All the old number series tractors had them. Kerosene would condense in some of the cylinders of an engine as it cooled, and this liquid would run down the sides of the pistons and dilute the oil. The instruction books for these old tractors call for draining oil to the bottom petcock and refilling with fresh oil until it ran out the top petcock! This was supposed to be done every day if the tractor had been run much the previous day. I expect quite a lot of oil got thrown away because of this.
I tried kerosene once in my father's 10-20. It is a first-class pain in the unmentionable. Start on gas, warm up by pulling up the radiator curtain (shutter on later models of IHC tractors), turn off gas, turn on kerosene. Keep engine hot by working it. If you didn't, it would spit and sputter when you tried to accelerate. If you shut off with kerosene in the carb, the engine would not start cold. Then you drained the carb, turned on the gasoline, and, to make things easier, squirted some gasoline into the two priming cups on top of the engine. Kerosene must have been a lot cheaper than gas, but it must have been because it was such a pain that in all the years (maybe 20) that I was around IHC tractors with kerosene-distillate engines, I never saw a one of them used with kerosene or distillate.

Distillate was the cheap tractor fuel used in most of these older engines. During WWII, oil refining was changing over from distillation to cracking which pretty well eliminated distillate as a waste product. Thus the cheap fuel went away. At the same time, gasoline was getting cheaper and octane rating was increasing. Higher octane allowed for more compression which improved efficiency. Pretty well put the kerosene and distillate engines out of the picture.

With all of your help I am pretty convinced I have an 1946 farmall model A. I put a new 6 volt battery in it and it started right up. I do think I have a head gasket leak as I am seeing a little oil from that area when it is running. All the gears are in place and the PTO works just fine. For my next question I would like all of you A owners to give me some advice on which shop manual to purchase. Before I dig into the engine etc. I want to know what I am getting into. In addtion, all of the old manual lifting mechanism are missing. Any idea where to find those? Thanks again.