Yellow 900

[richbug]

Did any 900s leave the factory in yellow paint? I picked one up recently at auction sold as a "DB 900 industrial".

It has red primer base coat, then fairly intact yellow enamel, with a poor top coat of spray can red. Wheels are orchid white or close to it.

Any thoughts?

AD4//30J, 905, J900D, 50869

1957?

My son wants to make it pretty, need direction on paint.

[ollek]

I have never heard of a yellow 900 tractor. DB made tractors they called Yellow and Industrial but I have never seen a 900 Industrial or Yellow tractor. Please look in the following link http://www.davidbrowntractor.com/photog ... 20Tractors The first yellow pained tractor off the assembly line I know of, was built in 1960 and the 900 was built from 1956 to 1958. The yellow tractor was a Implematic and that is a model series after the 900. This can also be seen on the colour code page http://dbtc.co.uk/index.php/information/colour-codes Yellow tractors had yellow wheels and the wheels were painted white in the Selectamatic tractors. The 900 model had blue wheels and the wheels on a Implematic were yellow.

[Scooby]

We are indebted to Mr. Alan Kellett for the following nugget of information about this situation.

"Yellow" or Highway tractors as they were latterly called were built on main assembly.Post 71 in R block and pre 71 on the old line adjacent to O block.
However Meltham management were always more than willing to cater for one off build/service / sales and parts requests from dealers and customers. Thus bespoke service ,sales and parts courses would be held for individual requirements.

Occasionally the same bespoke action would be taken on new build tractors.Spark arrester fitment being one such example.
All bespoke fitments were done at the Scarr Bottom fitting out shop. Whilst the main paint spraying was done halfway down main assembly there were occasions when only one Highway tractor was coming down the line amid hunting pink, and later orchid white.Rather than change the paint spray for one tractor the "highway "would receive the standard grey undercoat on line ,then be road tested and driven down to Scarr Bottom where a small spray booth was located at the west end of the fitting shop adjacent to field test.There it would receive the highway yellow topcoat.

Although no one can be sure ,it is therefore entirely possible that the 900 tractor mentioned in the post left the works in this bespoke manner dressed in highway yellow. Additionally ,such "one offs" rarely made it into any parts literature which could explain the lack of any documentation"

[cobbadog]

That way of producing explains why there is very little information on them but would there be a number in the serial number of tractor to make it stand out as being different?

[ollek]

Perhaps the following link to a page in the DBTC club information page will give some information. It tells us that the prefix letter "I" is for industrial. http://dbtc.co.uk/index.php/information/serial-numbers

[philedge]

The OPs serial number "J900D" shows as an agricultural tractor with an agricultural diesel engine, "AD4" in the list ollek linked to.

Not sure if the bespoke tractor build that Scooby describes would have entailed changing tractor and engine serial numbers if a single agricultural tractor was pulled off the line and factory painted yellow to convert to a highway spec??

[Scooby]

Not sure if the bespoke tractor build that Scooby describes would have entailed changing tractor and engine serial numbers if a single agricultural tractor was pulled off the line and factory painted yellow to convert to a highway spec??

They are not my words. As I said, it is text that Alan Kellet sent to me and asked me to post because he has forgotten his log-in details. What Alan doesn't know about what went on at Meltham isn't worth knowing !

[philedge]

Any chance you could ask Alan if they used the standard agricultural serial number format for the individual tractors, which would clarify the OPs question??

[Scooby]

Any chance you could ask Alan if they used the standard agricultural serial number format for the individual tractors, which would clarify the OPs question??

Almost certainly Alan will see your post but I will email the link to him anyway and if Admin. will issue a new password for him and advise him what it is as I have requested then he will be able to get back on here and contribute accordingly.

[Scooby]

Any chance you could ask Alan if they used the standard agricultural serial number format for the individual tractors, which would clarify the OPs question??

Alan has forwarded the following comment for me to post :

"The 900 s/ n is for an ag tractor which is what I think the 900 mentioned is and always was.Bespoke yellow paint does not convert ag to industrial.Hence no reason to change s/n connotation even if there was such a connotation for a 900 .
It would be interesting to see a pic of this tractor if poss."

[philedge]

Great. Seems the OPs tractor is an agricultural version with a hi vis paint job.

[SteveCollett]

possibly an order by the council from a local dealer , who painted it yellow themselves. It was not uncommon for highways departments to have tractors and I don't think specific highways models were available then. Possibly MF made the first and other makers took up the baton