Farm Equipment - Wartime WC's

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Wartime WC's

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Category: Allis Chalmers
Forum Name: Farm Equipment
Forum Description: everything about Allis-Chalmers farm equipment
URL: https://www.allischalmers.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=7848
Printed Date: 20 Jan 2025 at 10:51am
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Topic: Wartime WC's

Posted By: Unit3
Subject: Wartime WC's
Date Posted: 09 Feb 2010 at 12:00am

Were any records ever kept as to the S.N. of the wartime WC's? What year or years would they have been made? I have a very good standard arch frame wf of a WC, and I would like to find a WC with the squared rear end to put it on.

Replies:

Posted By: Calvin Schmidt
Date Posted: 09 Feb 2010 at 5:47am

I have all the parts to build a similiar tractor with all the aftermarket options. War time steel rear end, wide front, Sudenga x-tra clutch (live pto), Knoedler seat, and foot brake kit. My steel rear is a 1946 and the discussion here before has not come up with a serial number range.

Posted By: Brian Ahart
Date Posted: 09 Feb 2010 at 7:22am

Ed Mills has collected a wealth of SN data on the WC tractors, including wartime production. Some of his data is posted on Bryan Smith's website. I know of a late '46 WC with the wartime steel rear end (SN 150xxx). When I sent that data to Ed several years ago, that was the 2nd highest wartime WC he had on record (the highest SN was 153xxx). Having said that, there are no official company records that I know of.

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A-C Weight ID reference and other goodies at http://www.brianahart.net" rel="nofollow - brianahart.net

Posted By: norm [ind]
Date Posted: 09 Feb 2010 at 7:57pm

USE TO HAVE S/N # OF SOME 47'S #'S WERE LESS THAN 500 APART DO NOT THINK WE CAN FIND ANYMORE

Posted By: Dave(inMA)
Date Posted: 10 Feb 2010 at 6:53am

Fred Wilke in PA has 4-6 wartime WC's sitting in his museum - he might be a source of information. He occasionally posts on here.

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WC, CA, D14, WD45

Posted By: Bill Long
Date Posted: 10 Feb 2010 at 7:03am

During WWII we got an interesting assortment of things on the units we received. Yes, the steel rear on the WC but then there were things like a cast iron valve cover, cast iron oil pan, steel rear with rubber front, rubber all around, steel all around, etc. We never argued with what we got we were that glad to get it.

After WWII many of the steel wheeled units were converted to rubber when it became available.

Good Luck!

Bill Long

Posted By: Steve in NJ
Date Posted: 10 Feb 2010 at 11:12am

Ole' Herc my WC which is a 44' vintage has rubber tires mounted on cut-off's. Those old cutoff's look pretty neat lookin'. He has a cast rear out back though.......

mailto:Steve@B&B - Steve@B&B

Posted By: MLGoodwin82
Date Posted: 10 Mar 2010 at 11:05am

I just realized I have a late steel rearend WC. I acquired it last fall, but never really checked it out. Turns out it's #153387. Guess it's worth the $400 I got in it.

Posted By: Brian Ahart
Date Posted: 10 Mar 2010 at 1:31pm

Matt, I just saw your reply over on YT. Shoot me an e-mail or PM. Thanks.

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A-C Weight ID reference and other goodies at http://www.brianahart.net" rel="nofollow - brianahart.net

Posted By: Gerald J.
Date Posted: 10 Mar 2010 at 3:34pm

I wonder if maybe availability of castings varied month to month or even more often? E.g. they had castings when they could accumulate enough iron (scrap or new) and coal to make them. So they shipped castings when they had them and when they didn't, they pressed steel they did have into housings. So that production was mixed without distinct serial number or model year breaks? I'm presuming the gears, bearings, and shafts were the same whether cast or steel housing. And so the machining was the same, just sometimes stamped and welded raw materials and sometimes cast raw materials.

Then WW2 and its shortages ended more than 62 years ago and some of the remaining tractors surely have been reassembled from random parts using several tractor bits to make one and so the engines, transmissions, rear axles, and drop boxes have assorted ancestries these days. Since parts did interchange, it didn't make a lot of sense to identify each of those assemblies with matching serial numbers, besides engines were used on more than tractors so matching serial numbers didn't work out.

Gerald J.

Posted By: MLGoodwin82
Date Posted: 11 Mar 2010 at 7:07am

Oh I have no doubt you're right about tractors being taken apart and reassembled over the years. But with the serial number being on the rearend itself, there's at least a definite answer to when the rear axle was made. I'm sure there are ways to check other casting and serial numbers to verify the rest of the tractor's age.

Posted By: Gerald J.
Date Posted: 11 Mar 2010 at 9:01am

It helps a great deal if there are plant records that are available and if those records show those details. Production records for a closed plant are unlikely archival items. And even though the production record books are available for JD in the 60s, the first several years of the Power Shift transmission, the production records don't show which transmission was on which tractor.

I still think there was a good chance short runs of cast rear axles were mixed in with stamped steel axle production as the plant built up scraps from fabrication so that they could fire up the foundry and cast a few. Wouldn't the cast axles weigh more and so make a better performing tractor?

Gerald J.