Keith on Yesterdays Tractors asked a question about his Super Dexta date. His serial number is way after the last Dextas built in September 1964.
Last Dexta, according to Ford Motor Company is 09D 928428 (Home) and 09D 928427 (Export) yet Keith's number is 09D 933326.
This makes it around 5000n tractors AFTER the last one built. There were around 21,000 Dextas of all types built from January to September 1964 yet according to that number 5000 were built in the last three months.
My initial thought was dealer re-numbered tractor but the stamping is Ford.
Keith is looking for the casting codes.
Keith's picture.
Fordson Tractor Pages, now officially linked to: Fordson Tractor Club of Australia, Ford and Fordson Association and Blue Force.
Brian
According to my graph of tractor number vs clutch housing casting code, there appear to be some large discontinuities, notably at end of 1961 when numbers jumped by some 600,000 between Aug 61 and early 62.
They did change things around in that period when they changed from the 957/959E numbers to the "Alphabetic" system, but from that point on they were consistent.
The numbers I quote come from Fords own dealer parts book, 1965 supplement, so it should be fairly accurate. Normally I would have accepted a small variation but the production line was shut down and being moved out of the factory. Some reports say Dexta production finished as early as June/July 1964. I know we had many tractors in stock in the yard ex Ford factory.
Serial numbers and casting codes will vary for many reasons, old stock castings, broken castings, etc. I am waiting to see what Keith comes up with on those.
Fordson Tractor Pages, now officially linked to: Fordson Tractor Club of Australia, Ford and Fordson Association and Blue Force.
Brian
Who knows, could be the guy who did the punching, It was probably the last tractor of the day to be assembled, Maybe it was a bit late comeing through 10 past 5 or something and he' d allready put his punches away, forgot what the number should have been, and thought . what the heck. I reckon it should have been O9D 926333.
I wonder?
Could it be that they needed to close the plant but were still getting too many orders?
If so, and it happens a lot in industry (always has) could they have subcontracted further builds 'out', eventually to almost to order, maybe where the petrol models were assembled?
Mybe some bright spark had a gripe witht the firm and this was his way of protest ,now days they would probley do some thing more drastic, if no more turn up after the cut off there can be no other explanation Gerry
Mystery cleared! Ben and Les were right! I boobed!
The "D" is a "C".
The casting codes give September/October 1963. Ford data shows that Fords numbering system for Dextas went up to 934924 in 1963 then trhey went back again to 90XXXX in January 1964.
So the number we were looking at is a November 1963 tractor.
Well done chaps!
Fordson Tractor Pages, now officially linked to: Fordson Tractor Club of Australia, Ford and Fordson Association and Blue Force.
Brian
It looks like in Jan/63 they switched over to 09C from 09B and left the 700000 series of numbers intact but then in Feb/63 started with the 900000 series??
And in Jan/64 they started 09D and reset the numbers but I'm not sure they started right at 900000, maybe 904000.
But all speculation on my part. Just by checking serial #'s that have come up at sales and on registries.
Gerry
