Hi guys,

further to my 'project' thread in the IDI diesel section i have been doing some basic prep work and touching up to make the truck look more presentable for the short term while the long term work begins.

I have a 1985 Ford F250 6.9 diesel XLT Lariat 4x4 with the 2 tone Fall guy style paintwork. The rear tailgate, the roof and the hood require tidying up. Over the past few days i have ground off the surface rust, prepped the panels, treated them with rust remedy, acid etched primed where bare metal had come through and finally today i put some top coat on.

The question i have is that were the trucks clear coated in 1985? Having finished, the color match is darn good considering i did it with a few aerosols! haha.. as i say it is a temporary measure to seal the panels and make it look presentable until i sort the paint professionally. When contrasting the old paint and the new paint, obviously there is a slight difference due to age and weathering, however, it looks to me like the old paint has clear coat on it. Is this the case? If so i will prep the panels and clear them tomorrow.

paint code is 9N Desert Tan Poly / Metallic, according to the paint swatches i saw in Napa it is the 1986+ code, as prior to that 9N was associated with something else.

 

Can you post a pic after you painted the basecoat?

 

With older cars and trucks, you can't really be sure if there what's there is stock or not, clear coated or not just by looking. I mean, even if the car or truck came from the factory with clear coat, it's not uncommon for non-mettalic colors to get retouched with single stage paint to save time by a body shop. A quick and easy way to tell for sure is to wet a clean white rag (damp, not dripping) with good quality reducer (like what you'd thin clear with) and wipe an inconspicuos area and see what if the rag picks up any color. If your rag only picks up dirt, it's likely clear coated, if it picks up the color of the car, it's single stage. Hope this helps, Jim

 

85 Ford did not use clear coat. But that does not mean that the truck was not painted since then and clean was used

 

well you samded the parts was the dust brown or white? when you first sand it it would be white if there was clear.even in 80's they did use clearcoat not always tho..it was either acrylic enamel or polyexelene i believe not sure of the spelling ...it was an enamel clearcoat..