Washing my frame today and after getting about 2 tons of grease and dirt off of just the transfer case I see some remanence of Orange/ red paint on the back side of the case top yoke. What color did these leave the factory?

1973 F250 4x4, 205 transfer case.

 

That's a good question. I've seen them in 3 colors: grease, grime, and rust. Pretty sure none of those are factory.

 

Depends on who you ask.

 

aint that the truth!

OP if you want it to blend in, just paint it black like everything else down there. If you want it to stand out, color match it to the truck. Just my opinion

 

Mmmmm, no I want to know what the color from the factory was. That’s it. No more no less. Didn’t say I was having a problem picking a color just want to know the original color.

 

I steamed mine years ago when i got it from a Farmer,,right away....,,my t/c I believe was just nodular iron,,,no color and I painted it black eventually

 

Had a 76 F250 NP203 & a 78 F150 NP205. Bought both trucks brand new. No paint on either T/C.

 

Just barely a hint of orange/red with a white dot. Only in this one area.

 

I was assuming these came from the factory unpainted and this may be a dumb question but how did these keep from rusting out? Were they coated with a film of oil like Master cylinders? Or were they like old John deeres where they leaked from the beginning to prevent rust? I was going to paint mine since as soon as I cleaned mine off... it started to form a layer of surface rust.

Sorry for the hijack

 

Grease, grime, dried mud, and a thick cast iron case.

Mine ('77 with NP205) has never shown a sign of paint, I've scraped grime & stuff off it but that comes back ... it self heals I guess … so I just check level at oil changes.

 

The red/ orange just threw me for a loop. My Grandfather bought it new and I got it with 40,??? Miles on it back in 1996. Funny thing is I have owned it longer then he did, not buy much now but still longer. I must say I don’t remember the transfer case or rear axle ever being this clean since I got it, lol. Rarely left the farm so it was rust free when I got it but with this darn midway weather I have slowly watched it rust away. Family and the boy could not afford to redo the body when I did the first 428 in 1999. Then the front end and trans swap a few years later, then the front end again to the HD. Now the old truck is getting the works. New engine, transmission, front end along with body work and paint. Have the thread going for that.

 

Red Oxide Primer is what many have used or Chrysler Red since New Process was owned by them. My 205 and 435 had a very similar color on them.

CStoyer

 

That's what I was going to say too. Just a random spritz of Red Oxide and probably just on that output housing rather than the whole thing. Some Ford 9" center sections got the same treatment, mostly on the Hi-Po cars, but every once in awhile you saw it on Broncos as well. No consistency.

The ONLY color I ever saw new ones in was bare metal with rust already starting from their trip between the assembly line and dealer's lot. By the late seventies I was already calling the undercarriage of these things "pre-rusted from the factory" from the way they looked sitting on the dealer's lot.
Was kind of disappointing, even to my barely-caring-about-that-kind-of-thing brain.

And that was here in CA, where most of them it turns out did not have to travel very far!
Funny about that. I knew we had the plant right up the road in Milpitas (the "San Jose" plant), but it never occurred to me until much later that trucks were being built there. And seeing all the rusty chassis parts just firmed up the idea in my head of these trucks strapped to a train car making the trip from Michigan to CA during rain and snow storms.

Many of the components, such as axle assemblies, looked like they'd be partially sprayed black, but not completely, and not always. The one consistent thing about their color was that at least part of them had already converted to big huge splotches or reddish/orange rust.
My favorite restoration color for this type of thing, steering gearboxes, transmissions, transfer cases, is the "Cast Iron Look" spray paints. Whether from Eastwood, or just plain old Rust-o-Leum or Duplicolor or whoever, it looks really good and stays that way.

Paul

 

I think I will paint that piece the red color and the rest cast iron look like suggested.