super MTA lots of yellow under red paint?

Just got the new SMTA home and noticed it has lots of yellow showing under the red paint. It is almost too bright of a yellow to be a primer. What could it be? Can't see much of the yellow in the picture.

SMTA-I!!!! Maybe was used for municipal/construction work at some point, and painted yellow for that? From the looks of the red rims, the red was prob a repaint

yeah maybe I'll just repaint it yellow

yellow would sure turn heads on a SMTA at a show ive never seen a SMTA I before. you mind sending perodic updates to me on my email, im doing a M and would love to see your progress. Thanks taylor

(quoted from post at 17:20:21 09/02/10) yellow would sure turn heads on a SMTA at a show ive never seen a SMTA I before. you mind sending perodic updates to me on my email, im doing a M and would love to see your progress. Thanks taylor

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Sounds like you have an Industrial tractor..pretty rare. A forum friend of mine has a Super M that is an industrial tractor. His does not have a belt pully, or hydraulics. I would restore it to original if it were mine. I've always thought they were kind of neat. If you would like some more info on them, PM me and I'll get you in contact with him.

Here is his.



Heres another one

IH did NOT prime these tractors at the factory, so it is definitely not primer.

Keep in mind you're looking at a tractor that's 56 years old. A lot can happen in 56 years. The tractor could have been, and probably was, repainted multiple times. It could have, and probably has, changed owners multiple times.

For all we know, the tractor could have been purchased by a farmer with nothing but Minneapolis-Moline, and he painted it to match. Farmers tend to be fiercely brand loyal, and some have been known to do quirky things to keep neighbor farmers from knowing that they bought a different color tractor.

Can anyone prove that there was such a thing as an industrial Farmall M?
The belt pulley, P.T.O., and hydraulic belly pump were all extra cost, optional equipment, and the fact that the M in question does not have those options DOES NOT prove it is an industrial. There were some Ms that left the factory wearing yellow paint, and quite a few more Ms were repainted yellow because they were being used by construction companies for road building, or by county or state road departments for use in road maintenance. I personally own one of the latter, and I have seen a few other yellow painted Ms that saw similar use, but I have yet to see a yellow M that had a serial number prefix or suffix that would identify it as anything other than a run of the mill Farmall M that is painted yellow instead of red.

International Harvester DID build an industrial version, but it was called the International I6.

Back in the '40s and '50s, there wasn't a "standard" yellow for industrial equipment. In fact, orange was probably more common. A lot of the IH tractors sold for non-farm use were painted the standard harvester red. Many that were still in use by local highway departments got repainted yellow in the 1960s. So original color of these tractors really doesn't mean much.

There was a service bulletin from when the M was current that adderssed sales of the Farmall M for non-farm use. (I don't remember if they used the word industrial or the word commercial, probably commercial.) That bulletin instructed dealers to convert the tractors to the commercial version. The conversion consisted of:
1) Remove the "FARMALL" name plate from the front and replace with an "INTERNATIONAL" name plate.
2) Replace both hood side sheet decals with ones that said "INTERNATIONAL".
I don't know if they were available that way from the factory, but I presume so. I also don't know if the same applied to the Super M. Again, I presume so. Item 1 from above wouldn't have applied to a Super M.

As far as optional equipment goes, it would depend on the commercial use intended for the tractor. A belt pulley attachment would be unlikely, a wide front axle would have probably been common. Front wheels with attached lugs seems improbable.

Based on all of this, I don't think the 2 tractors pictured in this thread look like commercial/industrial tractors. They are just Farmalls that somebody shot with yellow paint.

The M that I own was purchased at an auction of surplus and obsolete county roads department equipment. It was covered in about 15 layers of construction yellow paint. Under that yellow paint was 2 layers of highway orange with Farmall hood side decals, and under the orange was the original Farmall red with the original decals. The M was a very well used tractor that the county purchased from the local IH dealer. It was used to pull the power broom and also the multi-wheeled packer when roads were being repaired or resurfaced.

Thanks for all the replies. I will most likely be restoring the MTA to its usual red color but it is interesting what was done to old tractors in the past 50 years.

Here is how I did mine. It is an attempt at preserving ALL of the history of the tractor. I did it several years ago, but now I'm not real sure that I like it that way. May have to make it all red sometime.

(quoted from post at 12:53:25 09/03/10)
Here is how I did mine. It is an attempt at preserving ALL of the history of the tractor. I did it several years ago, but now I'm not real sure that I like it that way. May have to make it all red sometime.

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No offense, but I am not really in love with it either. There is an M that pulls with our club that painted the red parts on yours black and the yellow parts red. That tractor looks pretty sharp. Probably bc there is not such a drastic contrast.