Who made the red oxide primed battery box?

[w30bob]

Hi Guys,

Anybody know who specifically made the repro Cub battery boxes that came painted red oxide primer? Reason I ask is I picked one up recently from a guy who didn't know what it fit and had no info on it other than it was a repro. I looked it over carefully and am amazed at what a good reproduction it is. I'd say it's perfect except for one small give-away. The person who made it drilled (not die stamped) the holes in the box floor AFTER that panel was pressed into shape. Doing so makes the side edges of the holes not perfectly straight, as the bit is going thru a complex shape and not a flat piece of metal. But other than that the shape, gauge of metal, floor stamping, spot welds, heavy gauge rear light bracket.......it's all spot on. I looked on Ebay for similar boxes and found some for other Farmalls that were in red oxide. All were said to be excellent, but no longer produced and made in the USA.....so I'm guessing were made by the same guy/company. So I'm just wondering who made these boxes. Anybody know?

thanks,
bob

[Barnyard]

Possibly Norm Quay.

[w30bob]

Hi Barnyard,

Certainly could be, but I found some differences though. I found the post entitled "Norm Quay battery box arrived today" and read thru it. Seems the Quay boxes came unpainted inside, but mine is primed both inside and out. It also said the Quay boxes were a bit taller than OEM, and mine is the same height as OEM. Maybe Norm painted the inside and got the height right toward the end of his production. I also pulled out an original box and did a side by side comparison......then took out my metal thickness gage and ruler. The panel that forms the 3 sides is spot on in thickness, height and corner bend radius. But what is wrong is the depth of the box, front to back. My repop is a tad shorter front to back than the original, 1/4" to be exact. Same goes for the floor panel, as it's also 1/4" shorter. That keeps the relationship between the sides and floor the same, so just looking at this box by itself you wouldn't notice it was shorter. Also, on the floor panel the metal gage is a little light compared to the original. Hard to find a nice clean edge to measure on either, but you can tell by eye the OEM box has a thicker gauge floor than the walls. On this repro they appear to be the same gage. Also, the 4 large holes in the floor of the repro are smaller than OEM. That's good, because I can stamp those the correct size, but they're wrong. The 4 smaller holes are the same size. The last wrong detail is the size of the hole in the bracket on the rear of the box for the lid retaining bolt. On the repro the hole is noticeably bigger than OEM. Seems odd they'd screw that one up.

These are certainly all niggling little details, as from a foot away it looks like an original box. But they are mistakes......and I never understand why when someone or some company puts forth the effort to reproduce something (and get it this close) they don't do it 100% right. I mean they took the time to put the spot welds in the exact same location as the OEM box.........but made the whole thing 1/4" shorter. Someone needs to be shot. (just kidding....please don't shoot the guy who made this, if you know who he is)

regards,
bob

[Bob McCarty]

There was a company called OEM (or close to that) that went out of business that made and sold high quality repro IH stuff.

[inairam]

The recent one I got from TM tractors was like that. Very heavy gauge. Post a picture of the hardware. The one I got from TM the hardware was much heavier gauage than I have been.