Transmission Tunnel Cover

Would both top and bottom of the transmission cover (the large tunnel, not the smaller shift cane cover) be painted black or body color?

 

I'll take a stab at this one, as I recently repainted mine. I have a '62 CJ5 with an original T98. I'm thinking the T98 (because of its size) required some changes at the factory for the trans. tunnel. When I removed it to clean it up, I noticed traces of the semi-gloss black paint (60% chassis black is one of the recommendations I've heard around here). Careful sanding and scraping seemed to indicate this was the original color for the tunnel on my CJ. I don't know if the different trans tunnel shape for the T98 JEEPs would have also prompted the factory to change the color scheme, but mine did indeed appear to have originally been black. Your JEEP is several years younger than mine, so take this with a grain of salt; nonetheless, I hope it helps.

I painted both top and bottom black, as logic seems to dictate that would be the color on both sides. I think they were black so that it would be easier to assemble them at the factory. Even so, I was not able to determine whether the bottom also had the same black paint on it when I did mine; I just had to guess.