7600 ford

serial # c488501 on a 7600 ford is what year?

C488501 is a 1975 serial number.

can you find the unit number? That will tell the day and shift it was built. Should look something like 5J20B.

Sean- I dont' have a serial number list that goes
past the beginning s/n for 1975, so I'm not going to
argue if you say that's a 1975 number. But I am a
little surprised. Everything I have says x600
production started in '76, and the post about the
7200 shows a s/n of C468883 as May of '75. Less than
20,000 tractors from late May through the end of '75
production?

As far as I can tell, the 2000/3000/4000 series were made from 1965 until partway through 1975, and the 2600/3600/4600 series started partway through the year in 1975. The 5000 series was made a little longer than the 3 cylinder thousand series, and there was some strange overlap in the 7000/7200/7600 models as well.

When you search by model on the The New Holland parts site it claims the 3 cylinder 4000 was made from 1/65-12/74 and the 7000 and 7200 were made from 10/71-12/74 and the 4600 and 7600 were both made from 1/75-12/81, but I've seen tractors that definitely had thousand series model designators with serial numbers and unit numbers from 1975, so my best guess is that they didn't actually switch over until partway into 1975.

Here's the starting "C" serial numbers from tractordata for the years from 1965 through 1987, doesn't matter what model:

1965: C100000
1966: C124200
1967: C161300
1968: C190200
1969: C226000
1970: C257600
1971: C292100
1972: C327200
1973: C367300
1974: C405200
1975: C450700
1976: C490300
1977: C527300
1978: C560500
1979: C595800
1980: C635700
1981: C660700
1982: C681910
1983: C695880
1984: C713459
1985: C737800
1986: C754100
1987: C768000

Out of curiosity, I checked the numbers on my 7000.
C473685 5G02B
That falls in the middle of the 1975 s/n range, and
the unit number says it left the line on July 2,
1975...which doesn't mesh with the dates for 7000's
on the NH parts site.

Does the model number start with F10?

I'll have to scrape some paint and check. The foil
tag was partly destroyed when the battery blew up
and burned about 25 years ago. It is a 7000 (7100)
though - clockwise tach, exhaust closer to operator,
larger steering wheel, etc.

F1015M, although the 5 and M aren't real clear. 5 would be 540/1000 ind. PTO, and M would be Dual Power transmission, right?

Yup, 5 is dual speed 540/1000 independent PTO and M is listed in my reference as the 16x4 trans, which would be the 8 speed with dual power.