The bed of the truck was completely rotted. Although the good news was that it was very dry… and crumbly, which makes me think the truck was stored inside all these years. This is supported by the lack of (major) rust in the cab. The bed sides were DEEPLY pitted though, so I bought a new bed from Mar-K.

Finally got the bed back on the truck….

The instrument panel from Mater had a chrome rim, Fred’s was rusty and painted. I’m thinking that the chrome was part of the “Deluxe” Cab upgrade. I took both panels apart, primarily so I could experiment on Fred’s without messing up Mater’s. I was able to reset both Odometers to Zero. I was surprised that the odometers were different, but did reset the same. Originally Mater had 84,079 miles. I had to paint the pointers on all the guages, but that was easy enough.
The chrome polished up pretty nicely, with only one small spot that is dull. I’m thinking that it won’t matter a whole lot once it’s installed. You can click on this (or any of the pictures) to see them closer.