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I picked up my 1979 f150 yesterday form the body shop. I had the RED dash repainted. It took me 4hrs to strip out the the dash components and lightly sand her down. The truck is black exterior and interior with red dash, red dash pad, red door panels, red headliner, red visors and red seat. I wanted the dash red agian it had been drilled on and partly painted black by the previous owner. Stock color of dash was red. When I picked it up they had done a wonderful job, but the color was black, I'm taking it back on monday to have it sprayed red, my family says put the red dash pad onthe black dash with all the other red (door panel, headliner, visors) I think it looks odd, any one have a stock truck with black dash and red dash pad, when the truck is black.
I have seen that color variant on other trucks, but never owned one previously.
My 1973 was Light Blue, with dark blue interior. The Dash Pad was dark blue and the metal part of the dash was Light blue.
My Father's 1976 was White on Dark Yellow tu-tone, with brown interior. The dash pad on it was brown, and the metal part was Dark Yellow. Oddly enough the tailgate letters were purple.
Both trucks in question were customs however, if that makes a difference.
Thanks Mil1ion, you sound like my wife, who thinks I'm a nut with all the stuff I do to my trucks. I just rememer the 1979 f250 my grandfather bought new when I was in High school, I fell in love with that truck and still think 1978 and 1979 are great looking pickups. In college I finally bought a ford, have owned three of them and it become a hobby I love.
Definetly go with the original red color on your dash. If I remember correctly, the shade of red that Ford used on the dashes in 79 had a little bit of metallic to it.
How did you match the red in first place? My interior is green and i'd like to know what color is correct... an evergreen? VIN decoders still available from FTE?
maybe bit offtopic, but you must be the real millionairre here... i'm a ALMOSTOEM78 'cause i gave up on bidding on an original grille shell ... check this out... 8069671599 on bay... sure glad i got one intact... now I'm really worried about the tailgate i want, especially at these prices... why so high?
I painted my dash myself with touch up paint. Dark red and painted the pad black. Turned out real good. Changed it from brownish gold to dark read with gold flake.
Hey, thanks for the post. It answered a question whether the base color makes a difference as to how it will turn out... I don't have any experience with this so the only thing I could equate is a wall, and radical change in color there requires Kills or multiple layers to mask the bleed through.
You may get a shade difference by which primer, or color you have on as the base coat.
That's why they make Gray, black, white, and red primer.
My new tailgate was primered black, but I re-primered it gray to lighten the paint color a little bit, because of the sun fade on the original surrounding paint.
Depending on how many coats you use, and how thick the coats ar, the base or primer coat becomes unimportant however, except where you might have scratches etc...
A red primered car, with red paint, will hide scratches easier than a white primered car etc...
All something to think about I suppose.
Last edited by 81-F-150-Explorer; Jun 3, 2006 at 01:19 PM.