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original aluminum grilles are rare. They often were susecptible to cracking and breaking and there was, at one point an exchange program offered by Ford to trade in your cast aluminum stuff for cast steel...once the steel factory was able to produce steel hoods and grilles. It took some time to stock steel components so Ford's son-in-law (or a business relation...story eludes me right now so I don't have it all straight) whom owned an aluminum foundry cast the first aluminum hoods and grilles to get the tractor out on the street and into the fields. Only 700-900 (depending on your source) of the 1939 9N's had cast aluminum hoods. Seems like there were more grilles made than hoods because they continued on into 1940...mated with steel hoods. Yes, horizontal bars. Check out my tractor on the Photo Section of this board... 1940 9N TM. I have since added the original rear hat rims and tires and large center disc. Ferguson TO's look similar to N types from a distance...and the horizontal bars on the grille are a telltale sign of a Ferguson or early 9N. But the differences become apparent upon closer inspection. When I see a TO, I usually stop to check it out, to see if by chance that it is an early 9N.
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