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#779330 Wed Jul 20 2022 03:24 PM
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Hi guys, I know should probably considered as going down the rabbit hole, but I’m doing a complete rebuild of a 1950 Tokheim 39 tall and would like to get it as close to factory original appearance as possible. I’ve been mulling over my findings and just wanted to see what everyone else thinks. I know that at the end of the day I can just pick a color and no one would care any different. However, I do enjoy the research and detective work of replicating factory finishes.

I’m starting with a mostly complete and solid pump, it still has a lot of paint inside and out. I’m just not sure if it has been rebuilt at some point in the past, and I don’t want to make incorrect assumptions about the colors I’ve found. I know parts are easily swapped out and that there were companies back in the day that bought and sold refurbished pumps. Just trying to determine how "original" this pump is to itself. The only actual history I know of this pump is that I bought it in SW Missouri and its last use was as an MFA pump.



BODY

The sides and top panel have paint in this order:

Grey/white primer (inside and out)
Red (exterior only, original factory color)
Blue (exterior only, MFA repaint)

Both doors are yellow inside and out (original color)
Grey primer (inside and out)
Blue (outside)
Green (outside)
Grey (outside, primer?)
Blue (outside, MFA repaint)

No holes for any pump plates. Just the factory holes for the caution plates.

Black painted base


With all that said, if the doors are original to the pump, that would make for red sides/top and yellow doors. I’ve seen several Tokheim 39's restored this way as Shell, but am not sure if that was an original paint scheme. The extra paint layers on the doors make me lean towards thinking they have been replaced. If they weren’t; then the pump would have been red/yellow - red/blue - red/green - blue. Seems like an unlikely history, but this is my first pump rebuild so I don't have anything else to base that on.

INTERIOR

Pretty much everything inside is finished in red primer. A few brackets and pieces have paint under the primer (I found black, orange, and white) but the majority is bare metal under the primer. Most pieces (including the frame pillars) have primer between the joints, meaning that they were primed before assembly and then the entire assembled frame was primed again. The exception being the nozzle hanger fork is painted black. (I did note that the entire bracket appeared to be cadmium plated, were the forks originally left bare plated? It wouldn't surprise me if the black was added at some later point.)

I've also thought that the excessive use of red primer on everything (even the veeder root, you can see where portions were masked off including the label) was from a refurbishment.

If anyone has found something similar, or know what is right/wrong for a factory finish, please chime in. I appreciate the help.

71C28943-861C-4284-AFF0-B4499502187C.jpeg C3AB8D1A-1E6C-403A-89A1-FA8D178EC5E7.jpeg E8EF1BCC-2DBA-4037-84E0-0D818220DA4F.jpeg 5BBD3927-82D9-49C5-90C1-3227A7E6F8A3.jpeg
Last edited by Myers B; Wed Jul 20 2022 04:00 PM.
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Myers B #779331 Wed Jul 20 2022 03:32 PM
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Myers B #779332 Wed Jul 20 2022 03:34 PM
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Myers B #779333 Wed Jul 20 2022 03:41 PM
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I believe the electric motor has been replaced. The mounting bracket (shadow) shows that the motor was in place when the bracket was painted with the red primer, but there is zero red primer on this motor.. just black paint. Also, just guessing by the tag plate, but is it dated October 1941? J-3-41.

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Myers B #779334 Wed Jul 20 2022 03:53 PM
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If anyone would chime in with anything they can add, I'd appreciate it. Especially if anyone has photos of unmolested late '40s or early '50s Tok 39 talls.

Myers B #779336 Wed Jul 20 2022 06:14 PM
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Interior red primer is original from the factory.

And what your trying to figure out is pretty difficult. The pump may have had doors replaced in its lifetime that were dinged up from cars…. The station was probably re-branded several times, which meant new paint or paint colors….

You have a pump that has black, orange, white, yellow, green, red and blue on it. Pretty tough to figure out it’s history??????

One thing that helps once in a great while is the bolt pattern of the pump plate. If it was a unique PPP, sometimes you can figure out the brand of gas.

The best thing to do is figure out what colors are on that that you like, and go with that brand of gas, if you like it.

Last edited by Speedracer; Wed Jul 20 2022 06:22 PM.

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Myers B #779337 Wed Jul 20 2022 06:38 PM
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Thanks speedracer. The interior color is interesting, wouldn’t have guessed they basically spray bombed the whole thing before putting the panels on.. but I guess it does work well for something that is going to be exposed to the elements.

The sides and top of the pump were painted red and then blue.

The doors were yellow then blue then green then blue. No pump plate holes at all.

If the doors were original, I would feel like there is a decent chance it was a Shell pump. The additional layers of paint on the doors does make me think they were replaced.

I color matched the original red paint from the side panels a while back and planned on painting the whole thing red as a D-X pump. The paint is just a touch darker, but it’s close enough for me.

Last edited by Myers B; Wed Jul 20 2022 09:17 PM.

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