Some Brochure Shots

We have a fairly extensive brochure library at one of the warehouses. Today I went there and shot a few pictures for my D15D restoration and picked out a few others that were interesting to me and the immediate machines I am working on. I thought I'd post those for others interest. Let me know specifics of any other models you might want and I'll see what I can do. It's mostly older ACs. We have a lot for other brands too.

What seemed interesting to me in these was:

1. B from early 50s. Note black starter, orange fronts (no silver), B shroud decal placement, and bullet rear light. I restored mine to this standard even though it's a 51 and this is likely 52 or 53.
2. D17 and D15 decal placement on some photos. Same year different location of the D15 decal. Note in the group photo, it's in the middle of the hood, yet the other photos have it in the more traditional tank position. I cut out the D10 and 12 in the photo, but they also had a D decal in that position. Probably 60 since they had black bar and cream grills.
3. Also weird in that same photo is the front badge has the AC in black.
4. The earlier D17 photo shows a very strange D17 oval decal. That is a colorized photo and I saw the original black and white in another brochure, oddly, that oval decal had a white background, I've never seen that, they colorized it to orange. I'm guessing it was a pre-production mockup decal.
5. Note the orange steering wheel paint. On most original photos, it's in black except for prototypes which appeared to always be orange.
6. D14 has front lug bolts in silver and orange air stack, only time I've ever seen that but could have been colorized by a zealous marketing artist.

Gotta love the picture of the D-17. I grew up on one. (Didn't have the oval
decal though)

It would appear that most, if not all photos were taken in black and white, and colored later. Add to that, that AC was fond of making little running changes without any designation, or documentation at the time.

It's hard to see in the shadow, but the first picture shows the belt pulley control knob.

Yes, to my knowledge, only 57-58 would have had that. After that they moved the model number to various tank and hood positions.

It was really the D15 that got me digging through the brochures.

Yes, seems like it's hard to say "always" with how any specific year would be painted or where the decals would be. I decided to go with no Even though colors are harder to discern, I prefer the black and white photos because no artistic license would be taken in the colorization.

I have said it for years. Allis Chalmers wasn't nearly as concerned about producing detail correct tractors as the correct police are about about reproducing them today. None the less it's a fun subject to talk about until some know it all comes along claiming they only made them this way or that way. Photos in parts books and operators manuals are often referenced as the gospel but think about that for a moment, those books were being written and edited long before the first tractor rolled off the line, same with the sales literature. Dad bought a D-15 new in 1961 and a good many of the photos in the operators manual were D-14s. His tractor was ordered by the county for a mowing tractor and wasn't taken. It was an industrial with optional adjustable wide front. Know what the difference was between that tractor and a farm tractor? Yellow paint vs Orange. Paint an adjustable wide front tractor yellow and the correct police are going to cry foul because it doesnt have the H-D non adjustable axle but dad owned one and Delaware county Ohio had a bunch of same.

Point is that while it's not a bad thing to try and get the tractor period correct a lot of the smaller details just cannot be pinned down to 100% right. No matter how it's finished you will have differing opinions of it being "right", or not. Some due to variations while they were being built, some due to old and failing memories and some people, to be frank just plain dont know what they are talking about.

Owners manual for the D14 shows a shot of the temperature gauge poking through the hood (like a B/C/CA), clearly not a D14 photo. It also shows a strange transmission housing that has two bolts on either side of the shift pattern, must have been a prototype. I kind of wonder if any D14 ever had the car horn installed that's shown in the parts book.

Yes, it seems like striving for originality is like peeling an onion with ACs, it often has seemed like people on the assembly line had a lot of latitude, dealers too, and engineering changes came fast it would seem. On the two 57 D14s I have, one has a Snap Coupler release that is a floor pedal and the other the more normal arm you pull to the side. They aren't that far apart, but the pedal has to be factory, it's cast and fits perfectly. A lot of interesting variances from AC. I still like looking at the variances or similarities you find, it's one of my interests in restoration.

Chris: What I have found is that AC had issues over its life time in supply and distribution. They would have orders for X number of tractors and not have the correct parts to make X tractors. So they would have Y parts to use on X tractors to get them made. So minor things like the snap coupler release could be different in the same production run.

The colors of accessories could be hit or miss too. Location of decals where that way as well. A very good friend's family was staunch AC farmers. He has two D-15 tractors that are consecutive serial numbers and are all original. His father bought one and an Uncle bought the other. They are not exactly alike. The D-15 decals are in different places and the air cleaner stack is different colors. He has also ran into some internal issues too. One was in the brakes. They had slightly different parts in them. I know he scratched his head when working on them.

You are indeed correct about out sourced parts particularly electrical items and carburetors. The only D-15 brake changes I was aware of were an internal change at serial 9001 and later the park locking system was changed.
Allis didnt seem to care much about paint until the later D-series and into the 100 series. When farmer shelled out his money for a new tractor most didnt expect it to look like a used one. Equipment that came from the LaPort and Lacrosse plants was particularly bad. Dealers (at least our dealer) did a lot of touch ups and added their own details when they were touching them up such as painting starters, generators and stacks black, rims and centers etc and of course slapped the decals on in the same manner, to their own taste. Dad's new D-15 was yellow as it was ordered as an industrial, he told them he would take it as long as they painted it orange which they did and added their own detail work per their own taste. I always thought that it would be a good one to confuse a person that was trying to restore it to originality based upon what they found when cleaning it up, LOL.

My opinion on AC and originality, is tending toward trying to determine how the specific machine was configured and restore to that standard. Problem is that is often lost in tractors now because they have been "restored" one or more times.

My D14 is in process of going back to it's original state when I got it, as it had never been repainted and for example, aside from the hood, side panel and air cleaner decals, none of the modern decal sets extras apply. Both the D10 and D12 will be restored to their unique oddities, for example, one has a black stack, the other has a black shroud badge inner. For the D10, Kim even stressed she wants to preserve the property sticker on the side panels from U of Idaho where it spent it's life. Just saying that originality of the machine is starting to be a priority with us (and that even includes some owner additions like the ROPS on the 12).

Just gave my opinion to a fellow who contacted me wondering if the cab on his D12 was factory so he could determine if it should be included in his restoration. My opinion was that it will be a better restoration if it includes a well built perfectly fitting heated cab than without, and there is little importance as to whether it's "Factory". I might take something like that over a hi-crop or other "valuable" machines.

I still like digging through old AC stuff and looking for a standard of some sort, even if that is not something that will likely bubble to the surface.

Yessir, It's fun to research and make the effort to get it right as you can,, until that research collides head on with what is staring you in the face, the tractor. Then your in a situation where you must decide to either redo it as it was, or otherwise. I have to say that I side with Kim on this, make it like it was even if it doesn't fit the common mold.