The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Orange under front fenders?

I was scraping crud from under my 46 1/2 ton front end. Under the thick crud was shiny black paint. Under that appears to be very bright orange paint. This was exposed with just a putty knife, no sanding. The orange is on the frame, shocks and inner fenders. I'm assuming the factory never used orange primer - so it looks like sometime in the truck's history it was painted orange! The underside was always black wasn't it? Thanks.

I thought the underside was black, but it might have been a special fleet order, or??? Also, Omaha Orange was an available factory color. Someone else may have an idea.....

Maybe someone painted it with "red lead". It's a rust inhibitor that used to be used a lot on ships hulls. It was usually a dark orange color.

thanks for the replies. I suspect I'll never know unless I remove some paint from the outer body & it is in too good of condition to do that now.....some day! Thanks.