I am rebuilding a fender light, the fenders, and the front wheels on my F-40; can you give me any advice before I proceed?
Glad to hear the parts arrived. There is everything there to rebuild the taillight including the socket assembly. The old socket assembly can be carefully pressed out of the shell and the new one pressed in. Do not attempt to do this anyway other than with a press and proper supports or you will damage the shell.
As for your fenders, it sounds like you know the braces were painted a different color than the fender skins. The braces were painted MF Flint Gray actually, which is different than MF Flint Metallic Gray which is the color used on the castings and engine. The color charts on the FENA website will tell you the other items painted MF Flint Gray.
You can approximate the look of the original rivets if you use rib necked bolts or carriage bolts that are modified by grinding down the flats slightly, as you may already know.
If you are going to install the headlight brackets on the front of the fenders, the bolt holes should be enlarged to fit the larger diameter carriage bolts that hold the brackets on. That should already be done since your tractor had these brackets on it already.
Regarding the front wheels on your F-40. The wheels are installed using the wrong holes. The wheels are currently bolted through the holes that are supposed to be used when the wheels are reverse mounted. Those holes are not tapered or countersunk to fit the taper on the lug nuts, though they may now have some taper because the lug nuts were tightened against them.
You may want to consider getting some new lug nuts for both the front and rear wheels. Exact duplicates of the originals, 1 1/16” wrench size, in the original yellow zinc finish are available from anyone selling TISCO Parts.
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