Super A, serial number, engine number

My Super A has FAA 261313 on the left seat support. The engine serial number is FAAM 286389 and the tractor has T casting codes all over it. So I assume that I have a 1950 Super A, and that the seat support has been replaced.
Now, since there are some important serial number breaks, I'd like to make an estimate of my tractor serial number. Is there anyone having a Super A with engine serial number close to FAAM 286389 and who would be kind enough to post his tractor serial number FAA xxxxxx?
(I do NOT intend to have a new serial number plate made with a number I cannot be sure of. The search for an approximate serial number is for reference purposes only and I will leave the odd serial number plate on the tractor.)
Thanks, Hendrik

PS I looked into the tractor registry on the left but that doesn't help me much.

My 1948 Farmall Super A has tractor serial number FAA 253980 and the engine serial number is FAAM 255266 K. The tractor and engine serial numbers DO NOT match following the start of the Super A and C tractors. They were supposed to match for the Farmall A and B tractors.

Thanks, Athol. Yours numbers give me something to go by.

Does anyone have another set of numbers, so that I can "calibrate" my tractor serial number?

The best guess I made thus far is that my tractor serial number should be in the order of 2849xx.
Thanks, Hendik.

Not much help, but maybe can check it "backwards".From the late Hugh MacKay, C and SA up to serial number 310300 used block part # 251069R1. SA from seriaal # 310300 upwards and SC ,100 and 200 all used block 354898R1 and R2

You can look at the serial number lists in the archives at WHS.
http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/ihc/id/2126/rec/1
Look at the 1951-1952 page. During 1952 they started recording the engine number along with the serial number of the first tractor each month. You can see the difference the first few months was similar to what Athol reports. The variance from month to month is fairly large.

Jim, Thanks for the link and I used the data to calculate what my Farmall 240 engine no. would be by using interpolation between the chassis s/n's at the beginning of Sept. 1958 and Oct. 1958 and the actual chassis s/n on the tractor since my tractor was built during September 1958. I obtained the position where my tractor is located between the two chassis s/n's on the data sheet you linked and used the same ratio or percentage on the engine s/n and mine was within 9 units using this calculation and the actual engine no. on my tractor. I would say using a little math it appears you can come very close to the actual no. if one (either chassis or engine) s/n is known and the tractor was built when the data was recorded at the factory. I certainly believe it is close enough to determine if the original engine and chassis relationship is correct as to when the tractor was factory complete. Thanks for sharing, Hal.

I certainly believe it is close enough to determine if the original engine and chassis relationship is correct as to when the tractor was factory complete.

Click to expand...

I agree with that. But you do need to be careful to not read too much into those numbers. For example, if your look at the Super A first serial numbers from June and July '52, you see 330738 and 332910. Subtracting them indicates 2,172 tractors were built in June. If you do the same with the engine numbers, 332287 and 334049 you get 1,762. That isn't enough engines for all those tractors. If you assume all 2,172 tractors were built (no evidence otherwise) you come up 410 engines short. If you do the same calculation for July, you get 200 tractors and 697 engines. (I hope I got those numbers all right.)

Clearly something doesn't make sense. The obvious explanation is that the first engine for July was used out of sequence or the number misrecorded. Other explanations are possible.

You also have to be careful about other abberations such number blocks that were skipped. It is fairly well known that serial numbers were skipped with the change from A to Super A and from C to Super C. Probably less well known is that several thousand serial numbers were skipped on the Cubs in 1958. The Cub engine numbers don't have a corresponding large gap.

Thanks, Jim, for this link.
I will use it by making a calculation like farmallhal does.

Jim, I ran the same numbers and did the interpolation thing on my 1953 Super C (factory complete last week of August 1953) and the difference between the calculated no. and the actual had a spread of 473. Other then the items you pointed out along with during 1953 time frame the 123 cu. in. engine was also used in the Super A which might be somewhat of a cause of the increased spread as both were built in large quantities along with some power units on engine driven equipment. I think during the production of the Farmall and International 240's (both of which were made in relativity small numbers) they might have been the only main usage for the 123 engine except for a limited number of power units, Hal.

During 240 production, the C-123 was also shared with the 140. The same sequence of engine numbers was split across all three models.

You're right Jim, as I forgot about the 140 being introduced in 1958 as well, Hal.

Jim, thanks for showing your analyses. It seems that there are some discrepancies or outright errors.
Or should we interpret the serial number list (of 1952 onwards) differently? It may well be that the tractor serial numbers relate to the tractors built and, similarly, the engine serial numbers relate to the engines built but NOT necessarily mated to a tractor?!? In other words, these lists may just show what was produced, separately for (complete) tractors and engines.
Hence, for example, in July they may have used up the surplus of the production of engines in June. (If that is the case the math that you did is not as meaningful as I first thought.)
If this would be true, then we CANNOT read the serial number list as presenting an engine serial number that was mounted in the tractor with the given serial number
Question for Guy Fay or Bermuda Ken or ...?

I think that any entry in those reports does show a matchup of a specific engine to a specific tractor. However, I strongly suspect (based on some of the oddities as already stated) that engines were not necessarily used in numeric sequence.