My Dad and I flew to Eastern Saskatchewan around June 2012 to check out this 1965 Ford Custom Cab, Paint Code UM, Wimbledon White / Twilight Turquoise. Notice that the stone deflector is painted body color, even though the front bumper was white.

The Tu-Tone paint color follows the body lines of the box, cab and door, and is not concealed under the side trim. Most of the trucks (Ford and Mercury) with this paint code that I have seen, were painted like this. Again, very difficult to know if this was original paint or not, although I would attempt to prove this later.

This truck has the speaker grille slots in the dash, whereas my dash is solid. It has the colored vinyl floor mat, even though this is the 5" hump and I would need the 8" hump for my 4 speed.

 

While I debated buying that Saskatchewan parts truck, I decided to grab some F250 parts just 2 hours from home. I got an 8 foot box with side trim, a decent floor and fenders. I also picked up 2 Custom Cab doors with trim, a heater unit, 5 rims (8 bolt) with tires, some Merc and Ford argent 3/4 ton innie hubcaps, a hood with trim and washer nozzles.

 

I decided that I didn't quite have enough parts, so my Dad and I pulled that F100 home in July 2012. We had to make a pit stop to fix some faulty trailer light wiring. I still wasn't sure if that front fender was repainted or just badly faded?




This was the first truck I had seen with the side tool box and this was the best grille that I had come across.




I figured I might score some points with the Family if I brought home a clean truck?

 

I started to take apart my F100 in August 2012, to see if this was a better cab than my Mercury. The headliner was complete, but not in perfect shape.




The firewall cover in the Custom Cab had thin black, cardboard over the insulation, my Standard Cab had a paper thin cover over the insulation. Maybe insulation is not the right word here, I'm sure you know what I mean.




The PO must have had long legs, the seat was blocked up with pieces of square tubing or is that original?




Do any of you have this type of vinyl seat cover in your Custom Cab? I don't believe that this has been reproduced, correct?




I found it interesting that the other M100 I looked at, with the same Trim Code 13, had this kind of seat cover.

 

My next project was to pull off the fenders to get a better look at the cab.




I wish that I was able to find a V8 parts truck, but it just didn't happen.




These inner aprons were actually in worse shape than the ones on my Mercury.




At this point, I had lots of peanut butter jars and baggies with bolts and clips from the tear down.




I probably should have researched how those fenders were attached to the cab. I'm sure I damaged the right fender just trying to pry it off.

 

Nothing like buying a "D O O D" at least that's what I noticed on the upper valance.
You do have some good parts now and If need be, you can use the bad parts as patch panels for your build.

 

Thanks for sharing all the great detailed photos, very interesting. The all vinyl seat upholstery appears to have originated from a standard cab truck, probably pirated from the same truck the front fenders came off of. The 16" 8 lug innie style wheels are a big score, usually not found on any old parts trucks.

 

I think the PO must have had a good sense of humor, for sure.

I did end up using the hood from this truck, the top lip of the tailgate and some of the dash sheet metal. I've got a guy coming to look at my grille and all of the anodized aluminum trim that I've collected, much of which came from the F100. I'm trying to resist the temptation of just buying a complete side trim set.

 

OK, so you figure that this seat was probably not original to my 1965 F100 Custom Cab at all then?




Well, this is starting to make sense to me now. I should have noticed this earlier, but the backrest of this seat does match the "Wicker Pattern" (US Trim Code 381) that I've seen decoded by "NumberDummy" and others before:
3 = Medium Green Crush Vinyl & Medium Green Wicker Pattern Vinyl / 81 = 81A Standard Cab.

I intend to strip this seat apart and get the padding redone and recovered with an "SMS Auto Fabrics" cover, based upon the "Ladder Pattern" (US Trim Code C81) that I've seen decoded by "NumberDummy" and others before:
C = Medium Green Crush Vinyl & Medium Green Ladder Pattern Woven Plastic / 81 = 81B Custom Cab.

Of course, my truck is Canadian, but its Trim Code 13 was already decoded by "NumberDummy":
13 = Medium Green Crush Vinyl & Medium Green Ladder Pattern Woven Plastic / Custom Cab.


These are the Medium Green sample pictures that "SMS Auto Fabrics" said were correct for a US truck and for my truck:




SMS said they would even give me a customized embossing on the backrest, by removing "FORD", so, with any luck, my seat cover will look like this:

 

So I've noticed that my M250 Standard Cab doesn't have the same hood bumpers as my F100 Custom Cab does? First off, the M250 doesn't seem to have any rubber bumpers at the back of the fenders.




The M250 has two square bumpers on the upper valance, on the outer edges by the front parking lights.




The third bumper on the M250 is in the middle of the upper valance, just by the "R".




The F100 has an oblong rubber bumper on each of the fenders, back near the hood hinges.




There are two round bumpers on each fender of the F100, in line with the rad support. There isn't much left of the front bumper on the driver's side fender.




The third round bumper on the F100 is in the middle of the upper valance, by the hood latch.

 

I snapped a few pics of the grille before it came off. The black paint job under the headlight doors was sloppy, but is it correct? There is some faint black paint on the tabs the connect the inner section of the grille to the outer top and bottom edges too.

 

Well, after the fenders were off, I could see that the cab and the front mounts were pretty rusty.




The rad support was in poor shape too, worse than my Mercury rad support.

 

I carefully pulled back the floor mat to see underneath. There was a bit of rust but didn't look all that bad.




The PO had patched up the cab underneath the fresh air vents.

 

The F100 roof was in much nicer shape than my M250 roof. I thought about maybe swapping out the roof but I decided against it. The inside was pretty rusty around the seams.

 

I snapped some pics of my trucks in Sept 2012, right before the project lost its momentum.