The light color trucks had red letters. The darker colored trucks had white letters. This truck I have seen since it was new. and copied it exact as it was built.

 

The hood latch and safety catch are a dark grey phosphate. not actually paint.

 

 

I’ve seen Ford trucks at car shows where the inner fenders and core support are painted body color.
I think it looks hideous. Plus, painting the core support body color basically makes the grille invisible.

 

I agree. If you notice the grill in my ford above. from the factory has a 1" satin black band around the perimeter of the grill and behind the headlight rim's. also a paint black bar behind the FORD letters to highlight them. It gives the grill a three D look. like it is floating in the opening. Ford did this from the factory on painted and shinny grill treatments.

 

I have often wondered if the bar behind the F O R D across the top of the grill would look better black. I have never seen one in the wild that had the black background.

 

Looks great 👍🏻

 

From the factory it was satin black, like that used on the grill. Most of it peeled off over the years, and the many resprays these trucks got the details was lost from the original. Mine was never repainted and still showed the treatment from the factory. It makes the FORD letters look like they are suspended in the opening. instead of attached to the surround.

 

stonewalljac,
Thanks for the great info! I could see faded blackout around headlights but wasn't sure whether I needed to blackout around the full perimeter and behind FORD lettering when I get to detailing on my '66 w/aluminum grill.

danny

 

 

Just like Swampratfords red and white above and my beige truck, it would have been all around the grill. Makes them look much better when painted properly.

 

Man oh man, these trucks look friggin great!

 

Where his says Cross Country yours says 5th Wheeling and mine says Lead Driver. It's just labels the web site gives based on the number of posts you've made. Has nothing to do with our trucks.

Since StoneWall posted pictures of his truck I'll use it as shark tank material to make some corrections we can all watch for. All trucks prior to about the beginning of calendar year 1966 used the metal block off plates on the cowl in 5 places. Those plates should all be black, although only one is seen at the top middle of the cowl. In mid-production 1966 they changed to rubber plugs to block off those holes instead of the metal plates. The accelerator cable bracket should also be black rather than body color. The accelerator cable itself shouldn't have any paint overspray on it. The emergency brake cable appears to be aftermarket - the original Ford cables all were steel jacketed. Overspray on the top end of the cable as well as the nuts/studs and clip hardware. Should also be a clip on the cable that holds it to the inner fender. The worm gear clamps used on these radiator, heater and fuel hoses weren't used on our trucks originally. PCV valve isn't the original style as well as the hose and clamp on the top of it - the clamp would have been a spring ring on both ends and the hose should be pre-formed. Battery has side posts and running side post cables in the picture - originally they would have only had the top posts and top post clamps. The tubing for the windshield washers shouldn't be routed through the bracket on the firewall and should have 2 olive drab green clips holding it to the cowl lip. I see one clip that looks correct shape but isn't olive green - holding the wiring above the master cylinder. Should be more clips for the wiring harness across the cowl lip - black tape wasn't used to hold the wiring harnesses together - but with only 3 wiring clips it would probably hang a bit more without the tape. I have seen those clips reproduced but I forget who had them. The hard line from fuel pump to carb looks like that easy bend green stuff - would have originally been like the distributor vacuum advance line but larger diameter like it is. The rag joint appears to be the nylon replacement style rather than the original rubber/fiber looking joint. Oil pressure sending unit doesn't look like a King-Seeley - they also made Thermos' back in the day that America used to take their beverage to work with them - just an interesting side note. Spark plug boots don't look original but a bit hard to see well.

The picture of the front looking at and across the hood - there's no coat hook inside that I can see. They put a coat hook behind the passengers head next to the rear window on all of the original trucks I've been able to look at. Mustangs and all the other cars used them as well so they are faithfully reproduced, although they originally used a straight slot screw rather than a Phillips head which some of the reproductions come with.

1964 1965 1966 Mustang Fastback Coupe GT Shelby ORIG L+R ROOF COAT HOOK HANGERS | eBay

 

You know your stuff. What you say is correct. I used many aftermarket pieces, Some because of availability, and some because of ridiculous prices for OEM pieces. And that after 56 years were no better than what I removed. LOL Mine is not a conquers build by far. it has many flaws. I will have to differ with you on the cowl plugs though. This truck had never been repainted. and the metal plugs were body colored not black. even those behind the fenders. the center cowl plug had a bonus, it had two. the line working didn't notice that two had stuck together, (the inside one was raw steel, no paint). he just screwed it on. This truck was a October 1965 delivery. so it was a early 66 model. Not sure if any changes were made after that. And the coat hook was left off intentionally LOL you forgot to mention that the hood hinges were not the gold cadmium color but a black / Dark grey phosphate instead.

 

I have 3 trucks and several NOS hood hinges, and they are all the gray phosphate like you mentioned, but some have insisted that their gold cad plated hinges were original, so I don't like to push that envelope too far. Same with the hood latch. The door latches were gold cad so I suppose they may have had some trucks where they used a supplier that did the hood stuff in gold cad, too. The tailgate handle would have been silver cad and I've noticed yours has the aftermarket Stainless Steel one. That's a sharp addition - the silver cad starts to look bad after just a few years at most.



For the cowl plugs I was only mentioning what I've noticed on other trucks that used the metal plates. My trucks are all newer than January 1966 or whenever they switched over around then so mine use the rubber plugs.



The 1975 edition Master Parts Catalog lists all 1966 F100 through F1100 as using this rubber plug but we know some of the early 1966 models did get the rectangular metal plates liked used in all previous years back to 1961, of course.

The few underhood factory photos I have all show that plate as being black as do many photos I've been looking at online, but not sure how many of them I'd hold out as an example. Might have been something different they did at different assembly plants.