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My understanding, from many sources, is that the cast aluminum was used on the first several hundred (I've heard anywhere from 400 to 800) 9Ns simply in an attempt to get the machines off the assembly line as scheduled. Sheet metal dies weren't ready yet, and Charles Sorenson's son ran an aluminum foundry and could cast substitute parts on short notice. The intent was never to produce the aluminum parts long term (they were much more expensive and fragile than stamped sheet metal) but to get the assembly line rolling. The "mishmash" of sheet metal/aluminum usually happens because somebody has broken one of the aluminum castings somewhere along the line and, since Ford replacements were sheet metal, made them fit with the aluminum parts that were left. Tractors leaving the assembly line were, to the best of my knowledge, always either all sheet metal or all cast aluminum, so if there's a mixture, it happened post-production. By the way, how do they know that the 9N is all original and has only 50 hours on it? I hope they didn't get that information from the original 9N proofmeter! In any event, that's way under an hour a year, which is kind of hard to believe even if used for parades and shows only. Not saying it's not true, mind you, but it's still kind of hard to believe.
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