[PlainJane]

I pulled my 3-speed manual transmission today, and it looks like it was painted two different colors. Most of it's blue, but the cover looks like it was painted orange on top of the blue. Huh? We can tell that the transmission has had some work done, but we're stumped by the "two-tone" cover.

Another thing: my oil pan and valve covers are orange and my block and heads are blue. Again, huh?

Maybe my car isn't chock full of original parts as I was led to believe? Do I have a frankencar? Or was it normal for Ford to have multi-colored car parts? I know the '65 Mustangs used a lot of parts from other Ford cars, so is this a case of Ford using whatever was lying around? We suspect someone did some parts swapping after the fact.

If I ever decide to repaint parts, which color should my parts be?

Thanks!

[Jay H 237]

Being a 65 6 cyl your engine should be a reddish orange, more torwards the red side. The tranny should be a natural metal color. In 1966 and later all motors were painted blue.


It sounds like the original engine was replaced with a later model engine which would be blue and they put the original valve cover and oil pan (red) on the replacement blue motor. I have never heard of the trannys being painted motor colors so someone may have done that to make them match.

Your air cleaner should be red too.