Petrol Dexta Register

Post by **Brian** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 3:53 pm

Just to say that the latest update is now on the board and a few interesting points are starting to appear.

As yet, no petrol Dexta has been found earlier than January 1961 although many have parts dating back to 1960 according to the casting codes. As they came out in November 1960 there must be some early ones out there still.

It seems there could have been only one batch of engines. I do not believe that they were built and fitted as the diesel engines were, on a "just in time basis". My reasoning for this is the seemingly muddled engine numbers. I have used engine numbers as the basis for sorting the table and they do not always tie up with the dates from serial numbers and date codes.

Dotty has earlier date codes than her companion that came back from New Zealand with her yet has a slightly later engine according to the numbers.

At least two other tractors have engine numbers that are up to a year in sequence, earlier than date codes and serial numbers of the tractors to which they are fitted. This leads me to believe that Ford (or Standard) had a stock of these engines and did not release them in serial number order.

Of course it is possible that these are replacement engines for ones that have failed in service and it is only my thoughts on the subject. Perhaps we shall never know for sure.

More tractors are being found in England. Most have been re-imported from their original country. We have only one so far, that never left these shores. Lets keep looking!

The more we can document, the more we can find out about these little beasts. As Oscar reminds me, I was not really aware of their existence, even having worked for many years in the Ford dealer organisation, until six years ago, and now I have one.

The Petrol Dexta register will be mentioned in two of the leading Tractor Magazines, "Classic Tractor" , thanks to our good friend and member of this site, Rory Day and also in "Tractor and Machinery" in the next few months. Hopefully this will bring in more information (and also publicise the site).