Distillate A

Ok' here's the question: 'Is my Farmall A (FAA 70813) really a distillate or not?
1. It has a distillate hood.
2. It has a distillate manifold.
3. There is no suffix on the tag.

Either it has the seat frame and serial number from another A, or there were no suffixes on the A serial tags.
I can't find any serial number on the engine.
thoughts? thanks, John

My 1948 Farmall Super A has a kerosene engine with all the associated bits except for the manifold heat shield which was obviously thrown away many years ago. The serial number FAA 253980 has no suffix letters as is suggested in the later TC-39C parts book. There is no reference to specialty code letters in TC-39. The engine serial number is FAAM 255266 K and I have been informed that the K does not refer to kerosene. It seems that for the Farmall A and Super A the heads were the same irrespective of fuel used (at least for the early Super A), the differences for different fuels, gasoline, distillate or kerosene, or for high altitudes (5000 ft or 8000 ft) was achieved by using different pistons. This was also done for the earlier 12 series engines i.e. the O-12 and Farmall 12 etc. tractors.

Hello John: Another tell-tail item is radiator shutters which are removed quite often when just gas was being used. They were usually hand operated with a small hand crank near the operator and mounting brackets near the radiator shroud. As a very young kid, I could never remember which way to turn the crank to open/close them.. Distillate has not been produced for a long time but there are a few comments on distillate fairly often if you use the search function to find those older Farmall comments ... ( How is the SMD starting? ) ag

On a couple of the As i have seen there was no different serial#. But if you have the manifold you do have one. Anybody could have a hood with the extra hole

Your A is a 1941 model and at that time, distillate was the standard configuration on the tractor therefore it did not have a special suffix on the serial number. If it had been a gasoline model it would "probably" have had the suffix X-1 for gasoline.

Harold H

Cool, my grandfather's Super A is also a '48, around 261xxx and is a distillate. All the distillate goodies disappeard off it over the years but I have everything back except for the manifold shield. I am not 100% sure I agree about the "K" not standing for kerosene, as my tractor has a "D" after the serial number and one of my other Super A's has a "G" and it's a gasoline. BUT---I have never seen anything in print to back me up so I could be dead wrong.

I agree there were no special "X" codes on the tractor serial number tag as with the bigger tractors.

Al

K does not indicate distillate or kerosene. The only official K suffux code was used on W series tractors where W1K stould for battery ignition, hyd pump drive, electric starting and lighting.

Harold H

Can i run gas in this A or does it have to be kerosene

The early sales literature for the Farmalls H and M imply that distillate was the standard fuel and that a high compression head and cold manifold were available for those who wanted to use high grade gasoline (70 octane or better) engines. Hence the use of a X1 suffix for tractors for gasoline only. The similar dated sales literature for the Farmalls A and B state that gasoline was the standard fuel but that distillate or kerosene burning attachments were available. Thus as gasoline was the normal fuel there was no necessity for a X1 suffix.
Distillate was never available in New Zealand, and I presume in Australia as well. In the late 1940s kerosene was about a third of the price of petrol (gasoline) per gallon and the norm was for kerosene to be the standard farm tractor fuel. In the 1950s the rules changed so that for off-road use, petrol could be obtained without the road user taxes (there was talk at the time of colouring it so that it could be detected in vehicles on the road) and the use of kerosene rapidly declined. Many radiator shutters were subsequently taken off tractors, put in the back of the tractor shed to get mangled and thus discarded. They are fairly hard to find today. I imported a shutter for my 1941 W-4 from eBay in the US, it had all the other bits except the shutter.

I would run on gasoline. If you read the manuals, it states that it may just use gasoline, but take the manifold shield off. With the current price of kerosene it is a no brainer choice. The use of kerosene implies greater oil use (you drain a pint off every morning caused by dilution of the oil with kerosene going past the piston rings) greater engine wear (the condensing kerosene washes the oil off the cylinder walls if the engine is not kept HOT) and more frequent oil changes.

With all due respect to the very knowledgable people who have posted, I have an original 1939 dealer booklet that covers the introduction of the new smaller Farmall A.

Distillate was NOT the standard, it was an option. Just as the adjustable front axle was an option, the standard equipment being a non-adjustable axle. Now, one could argue that the factory built a few of these as well as the dealer installing the option. so, at this point, not sure it matters much.

The distillate option included the following: low compression pistons, distillate manifold, starting tank, shutters, temp guage, distillate carb, hood, manifold heat shield, fuel bowl with 2 ports.

I am truly not trying to start an arguement, but I am reading from an orginal dealer booklet introducing the Farmall A. Distillate dual fuel was an option, but I will agree that it might have been a factory option.

Well, what do you feel your Farmall A really is, now with all the info posted?? Got to almost zero in on just the engine since there have been many swapped engines replacing original tractor engines. (There were many non-tractor use of those engines back in the '40-50's on combines/balers etc..) Almost like tracing family members back several generations... Don't always know who the kids real mother-father were.. ag

Tractor and engine serial number would be the same origially on the tractor. If engine doesn't have a number its probably whats changed. Or at least the block. No suffix was used to tell the fuel so if you have kerosene or distillate parts thats probably what it was. Probably rebuilt in its life with gasoline pistons by now though.