One of the things I'd like to do this winter is touch up the paint chips in my cab. I'm not ready to do the whole exterior, but the inside is fine- aside from the chips and odd hole here and there.

I didn't suspect that this would be too tricky of a situation. I have an orange truck. It can't be difficult to match that, right? I mean, ho many shades of orange did Ford produce in 1976?

A few months ago I bought an ashtray off eBay. Seller said it was from an orange '76 (same as mine). Score! I thought. Until I put it in:



It's not the same color. Maybe the 'tray is out of a different year? The seller swears it was a '76.

So, I look at the code panel on my door and see this



The paint code info is blank. Huh?

Any suggestions on identifying the actual color I have? I've looked in a number of places and found information that often is contradictory.

Right now I only need about a 1/4 pint so I don't want to buy big and have it not even be the correct color.

 

in oklahoma Autozone had a machine that that did paint matching... just check out your local auto stores and see if they have a paint matcher... or try some body work shoppes, Cant be too hard to find somebody that can make up some paint for you...

 

I just got done repainting my interior. I brought a sample of my paint to the Napa Paint Store and they matched my paint. The only downside was the paint was a bit spendy. They also had all the books for factory ford truck paint. My paint code was blank too. I'm not sure if they ever put the paint code in these trucks.

 

My truck has the paint code on the door tag...

 

Yeah, that's the tag I took the picture of. It says Color Code on it and everything. Just no letter stamp.

This is a stupid sounding questions... but, how did you get a sample of the paint into the store?

 

I would bet your orange truck is called "chrome yellow" I had a 77 looked just like yours. May check out PPG's color chart for that year, there are two oranges. I have the Ford color chart, I just can't get to it right now.

 

I brought a piece of the dash in from my parts truck. Literally a piece someone pried apart the dash below the ash tray. You could take off your glovebox door if its the same color you want though.

 

One clue to your dilema could be in the DSO code. Its not the standard two digit code but six digits dso 74 + 4 digit special order code.
This truck was not a standard dealer stock order. It was special ordered by the customer. Commonly on trucks this was a fleet order and again, it was common for fleet purchasers to specify a special color (think DOT and the like).
A Marti report or Ford report might clarify this.
Another possibility is the usual shade variations between different plants using the same color code.

 

One of our paint suppliers has a special camera that will take a close up picture of what you have and match it, he will even put it into a spray can for you if you just want to touch up an area. I think it was about $50.00 bucks to do this. You may want to talk to an automotive paint supplier and check with them. Not a Checker Auto, Auto Zone or etc...

Good luck

Dan

 

How close to the original color did they get?

 

Headslap. I was hovering around that as a possibility (really hoping against it). There was a time a while back when I rolled past a DOT truck and swore it was the exact same color.

One interesting thing is that there are one or two visible runs in the paint inside the cab. Down along the kick panels. It looks like someone touched it up at some point and overdid it a bit. So, I know SOMEONE had a matching paint supply.

 

Is that a local guy or a chain? Sounds like the first option I'll check out.

 

There are actually a few visible paint runs on my original paint. Could be factory.

 

dogmantra,

Not sure if it's a chain, the name is Ed's Automotive in Loveland, Colorado

 

2x with a special orders or fleet sale. The same issue comes up with 65-73 Mustangs.

The ash tray looks like international orange (like the Coast Guard colors, not as in International Harvester).

AC