decoding Ford window bugs

46fatford

46fatford

Senior Member
I am in the process of trying to find out when my 46 business coupe was built and where it was built. Unfortunately the original engine was missing and the trans is actually out of a 41 merc. I know my car was the 159,760 to roll off the line. It is an early 46 Super Deluxe V8 with the tool box tray. It appears to have not been ordered with a factory heater as well as it had an arvin installed and the knock outs for the ford heater are still in place, having never been removed. I have looked at my door glass to try and decode what day , and month it was built, but only see letters no numbers. Does anyone know where I can find the table to decode these markings?
Thanks
Matt
 
Matt-

I don't think I can answer your question completely but on Pre-War cars the "bug" usually has a month and year only. As an example, my '35 glass had a "bug" of "3-35." However, the car wasn't built until June of '35. As I understand it (at least for Pre-War units), you really can't make any assumptions between the glass date and the vehicles' build date due to the lag time between the glass manufacture and vehicle build. I guess you can only assume that the vehicle build occurred "sometime" after the glass was made which is of marginal value in determining when your vehicle was actually produced.

Tom
 
Same on 33-34 cars with the addition of the letter beneath the FORD oval denoting the maker .
flatheadfan said:
Matt-

I don't think I can answer your question completely but on Pre-War cars the "bug" usually has a month and year only. As an example, my '35 glass had a "bug" of "3-35." However, the car wasn't built until June of '35. As I understand it (at least for Pre-War units), you really can't make any assumptions between the glass date and the vehicles' build date due to the lag time between the glass manufacture and vehicle build. I guess you can only assume that the vehicle build occurred "sometime" after the glass was made which is of marginal value in determining when your vehicle was actually produced.

Tom
Click to expand...
 
When you look at the Ford logo on your glass you'll get a letter on one side of the Ford logo and 2 letters on the other. Like my 48 Ford F1 has D Ford DH. To translate that D is the fourth letter and H the eighth, so my truck glass was made in April (the 4th month) and DH (48). I hope this helps.
 
I can attest to the glass codes on pre-war cars as being not very factual.. My car is a very late '36 5win cpe.. The serial number places it in the last few hundred made.. My car is pretty well unmolested as far as the body goes... The glass code runs from 3-36 to 8-36...
I guess that my car would not qualify as a 'Numbers Matching' car...
 
Bill, glass was produced in large batches of identical patterns. You'll see that the bugs on one side of the car are opposite those on the other? Identical pattern, just reversed. These large runs were separately packed and shipped to assembly plants in bulk. This means that there could be weeks and even months pass betweeen glass manufacture and car assembly. Five months does seem longer than usual, but could very well have happened, as Ford's inventory control system could be termed "First in-Last out".
 
My glass bugs say J D, and I believe the other character is a 5, unless it is an S. Also mine has the letteres AS-F-S under the ford oval. Any idea how to decode mine?
Thanks
Matt
 
Glass Bug code key is a s follows: the months are coded A thru L
(Jan is A, Feb is B, etc). The Year codes; 1 thru 8 are coded A thru H (1 = A, 2 = B, etc) so the year 1946 is DF, D= 4, F = 6)
the code under the oval should read ( month= 1 letter, year= 2 letters and type of glass=1 letter) A windshielded (or rear backlight) quality glass is WS, side windows, vents etc just have an S). Example a windshield J-DF-WS October, 1946. I Hope this helps....LouB.
 
Trivia for the window bug people. My 1941 sedan coupe was built early in the model year, October 1940. All glass was present but in poor shape. Authenticity books say 1941 was the switch over for Ford to use letters rather than numbers. All you can tell from the bug is month and year of glass manufacture and the type of glass ( windshield or plate). However my coupe had a mix of some pieces with letter code and some with number. Code 10 for October and 40 for 1940. Then "J" for 10th month and "DJ" for 4 and 10 equal to 40.
 
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