"John Deere" on dash frt of fire series sleds

[luvzvintage]

I've noticed that on what seems every fire series Deere i see, the "John Deere" name appears on the sled's dash frt. (just behind the windshield) yet my 80 trailfire 440 doesn't have that. Anyone know what gives with that?


regardz!

Lloyd N.

[JD600]

Some of the dashes had stickers, some of them had the raised letters. My guess is this one must have had the sticker, and was either removed or never installed.

DE

[nick80lf]

Here's a picture of the early one with the sticker:

DSC_8874 by nick80lf, on Flickr

[WinnipegStPaul9]

I'm confident I have the reason. 79's and perhaps early 80's came with the small consoles which were unable to accept a speedo or tach. JD came out with a Console to replace the early ones that would accept guages. Those consoles did not have "John Deere" on them. I discovered that several years ago when buying out a dealer stock and he had four "replacement" consoles, none with the John Deere. Most likely if your console does not have it embossed or a decal your sled had the original console replaced. I think.....

DA

[JDT]

I concur with DA's explaination.

[Liquifire84]

Ok now I have a twist on this. I have my 83 sport that has no indent for the decal nor does it say john deere.

Brice

[Matt]

Ok now I have a twist on this. I have my 83 sport that has no indent for the decal nor does it say john deere.

Brice

My '83 Sport has the raised lettering. Maybe you have a replacement dash from an earlier parts stock.

[WinnipegStPaul9]

Well I have sold three of the four "no lettering" consoles I had so I know there's at least three of them out there most likely on sleds.

DA

[MARK S]

The earlier Series II fire sleds had a thin hard plastic pod with decal that broke very easily in the corners. I think in 82 they went to a thicker more hard rubber like material with the logo formed in...Not positive what year this was changed though..earlier plastic ones were like 1/8 thick later ones were much thicker..Mark.

[WinnipegStPaul9]

I've handled a lot of them but honestly never noted a thickness difference. There are of course differences for the model year, i.e limiter switch, mount to radiator support, or no radiator. My personal favorite are the ones with the decal, I think they're the nicest looking but seem to be hard to find.
DA

[JoeRainville]

Don is quite right, as I purchased one of his NOS dashes. They were originally for updating the 79 Trailfire as he said. These early units did not have a place for the "John Deere" sticker, nor raised lettering. The production 80-81 dashes had the stickers on the front, while the 82-84 had raised lettering.

The 79-81 vintage dashes appear to be vacuum formed ABS while the 82-84 dashes were injection molded, and are thicker and stronger than the more brittle early units.

I hope this helps,
-Joe Rainville