Tailgate Embossed Letters. Couple things

Here is an interesting topic.

What years had painted embossed letters and what year did they go to decals? I thought from 80 in they were decals. Dads 85 has always had decals. Factory decals are pretty thick compared to current aftermarket.

I was just scrolling Facebook and saw a truck that had faded painted letters. Very interesting.


Here is another topic of discussion that has raised interest in groups. I have only ever seen one other tailgate like this, they are out there.

The raised letters as factory were actually /recessed/ on this gate. This is a Ford OEM tailgate supplied by the local dealer, summer 1993 and I do beleive I have the invoice somewhere.



Now you could say oh, its paint dust and shadows.

Take a closer look at the shadowing. Light is being angled from the left hand side. Those are definitely recessed letters.

Angelo Voltura wrote

What years had painted embossed letters and what year did they go to decals? I thought from 80 in they were decals. Dads 85 has always had decals. Factory decals are pretty thick compared to current aftermarket.

I know you're probably only asking about Styleside gates, but my 1984 Flareside had decals for the gate letters, which I replaced with aftermarket 3M decals when I had the truck painted last year. The originals did seem like they were a little bit thicker, but I would argue that they probably didn't need to be, not by current standards at least. A lot of things have improved in 40 years, and Vinyl and adhesives would be included in that.

My originals were still intact when I bought the truck, but when you looked at them up close, they had a lot of little cracks in them.

Also for a flare side:
My truck did not come with a gate. My brother found one in CA. and sent it to me.
I don't know what year it was from but the letters were painted on.

Being Cory's is a 84 it must of been before that I guess?

I did look into repainting them back on but after painting the gate and then need to paint letters the way the factory did (roller) I did not have the balls if it did not go right and messed up the painted gate.
So I folded and went with decal letters but went white reflective.


Dave ----