6M1 Body with Black Engine Bay? (1 Viewer)

[Irish Reiver]

Currently working on my '95 project and have just started work on the engine. This may sound strange having owned the truck for a year but I just noticed my engine bay is black. I initially thought that PO had painted it but the more I strip back the more I think it came like this from the factory. The radiator support panels are black, the slam panel is black but the vertical support bar for the hood latch and Tx cooler is green. This is driving my OCD crazy. The engine bay in my white cruiser is white which doesn't help me.
So my question is did Toyota release 6M1 bodies with black engine bays or are all engine bays the same color as the body?
Might be one for @OGBeno or @cruiserdan

 

[OGBeno]

John, post up a picture of the data tag on the LH door.

 

[Irish Reiver]

 

[Kernal]

From that one photo it appears that the door (around the VIN sticker) has been painted?? Can you post up a few more photos
of the paint next to a transition ie: near a door lock/latch including the screw (heads), engine bay showing the inner fender and top of the outer fender, a door handle including some of the door skin, another photo of the VIN but taken from a foot or so further back. You could remove say a rear door sill plate then take a photo of the paint underneath.

If the body was painted much depends on how far the painter went to prep the body ie: some shops just do the minimum and tape everything off, others will remove everything attached to the body, so to find out if it's been painted IME you sometimes have to go deeper ie: pull weatherstripping off a pinch weld around the lift gate/hatch opening for example, lift the carpet, etc.

The vertical bracket for the hood latch IME/IMO was painted satin black at the factory so the body color won't show through the grill when looking
at the vehicle, same for a few other sections behind the grill. IME when body work is done to the front the painters often paint that bracket and other areas behind the grill the same color as the body and skip the step to paint it the correct satin black.

The inner fenders and firewall from the factory, AFAIK, would have been painted the same as the body color but those areas in the engine bay did not get clear coated (on models that came with clear coat) so the original AM1 green may look dull/flat dark green depending on lighting. IME.

 

[Batameez]

The engine bay should be green. Your door jamb sticker looks off with the tape lines and green smudges, despite saying 6M1. I would look around the rest of the body for any conflicting VINs.

 

[cruiserdan]

Looks like a re-paint around the door tag.

 

[Kabanstva]

Looks like a re-paint around the door tag.

Yeah that’s the most sloppy masking job I’ve ever seen around a sticker.

 

[Irish Reiver]

Thanks guys. I know the truck has been repainted because I paid for it to be repainted earlier in the year. It was a full panel off and window out job but the masking around the door tags and all the security tags are really my only gripe. The rest of the paint is a solid 9/10
The more I remove from the engine bay the more I am convinced that @Batameez is right. When I clean the paint on the inner fenders I can still make out some of the metallic/pearl effect and it definitely has a green hue but it is oh so dark especially compared to the new paint.

 

[Kabanstva]

Here are a couple pics of a good customers car we did in early 2025. It’s a $15k full repaint with jambs. One of the best jobs I’ve ever seen. You can see there are sources to get reproduction vin tags and other stickers so you don’t need to mask off the original decals when painting the jambs. I wonder if someone offers that for Toyotas. It was a really clean job.

 

[Kabanstva]

The car was originally black. The engine bay was the only jamb they didn’t repaint as it’s not a show car and wasn’t worth the additional time and money to do. It’s a newer BMW paint code. Sadly 9/10 repaints we see look nothing like this, most shops will half ass door jambs. Even the shops with a good reputation rarely bother.

 

[cruiserdan]

Toyota does offer replacement labels. The original label needs to be surrendered to get the replacement label. This means cutting the label out of the door.