I rate the workmanship and paint quality fair. Like I stated above the paint on the low mileage fire truck was extremely poor and non existant in some areas. I don't know how it lasted all those years. Plus the doors fit horribly, I had to use a porta-power to spread the corners of the doors so the doors would shut properly.

Again, these were made for work, they didn't have to be pretty and I am sure all of the truck manufactures of the time didn't want there trucks to last forever. It wouldn't help profits if people didn't need to buy a new vehicle for twenty years. I would guess most companies would rotate vehicle every five years, maybe less.

 

My original tank was painted body color but not the fuel sender. It was built in San Jose Ca.

 

From the sounds of it, I think that there were only a couple of plants actually manufacturing the cabs as well as assembling the trucks and several other plants that just did the assembly process. My guess is that the plants that just did the assembly would get a shipment of primed cabs from the other plant, spray them with whatever color was required, and assemble them. The cabs probably came from the manufacturing plant with the tanks installed so they just sprayed over them.

Where as the plants that actually manufactured the cab and assembled the trucks would prime them and paint them before going over to the assembly line.

I have no idea if this is factual or not but it makes sense in my head. It might be kind of interesting to see if there was a correlation between painted/unpainted and what assembly plant the trucks came from.

My truck came from the Dallas assembly plant. As far as I remember the gas tank wasn't painted. I'll look this evening and see if the inside of the cab is painted or not.


Bobby

 

OK, I just got home from work and had a chance to go check my truck. I got rid of the original tank long ago, but it seems to me like it was a silvery color, or maybe galvanized...i don't recall. Looking inside my cab it looks like the cab interior was painted with the tank in place. The area where the tank was is coated in what appears to be red oxide primer and surface rust, to either side and above where the tank was is body color (Meadow Green)

Again, my truck is a 49, built on May 16 at the Dallas assembly plant

Bobby