My 73 Thunderbird.

[95badbird]

Now this car is far from getting any kind of gas mileage out of.....I'm lucky if I can get 10 mpg out of it.

Anyway, the car is a 1973 Ford Thunderbird.
It has a 460 V8, C6 tranny, and a 9" rear. It currently has 53,xxx original miles on it.
I picked the car up about 4 years ago, it was in pretty bad shape.
Everything was original....tires, wires, hoses, belts, brakes, etc. you get my point.
Well, after replacing everything on the car for a period of a little over a year(on a budget), I got the car up to daily driver status.
Which was great for me at the time. I had broke my left knee and tore every ligament excpet one. So, this car was much easier to get in and out of that my truck.
On to the pics....

Here is a before shot of the engine...




and here is an after shot..




and the rest of the car...















thanks for looking, and lemme know what you think.

[bikin' Ed]

Nice Job She looks very nice. I'll bet with better driving habits and a couple of minor tweaks you could double your MPG.

[95badbird]

I'm sure I could get more than 10....but have never really tried it with this car.

I've put only 1500 miles on it in the time I've owned it.
I think I've only put 50 miles on it this year.

[Red]

Nice job. Does look like you have a bit of rust on the bottom of the drivers side door. Any more plans for it?

[toyobug]

Gotta love them old t-birds...back in highschool when CB radios were popular (pre-cell phone era) my handle was "blue thunderbird"..sounds kinda cheesy now. but man I love those old t-birds. Nice lookin top on your truck to. Did you fab that yourself?

[95badbird]

Originally Posted by Red

Nice job. Does look like you have a bit of rust on the bottom of the drivers side door. Any more plans for it?

yeah, there is a few rust spots on the car, all of which have been dealt with.
I plan to repaint the car, and have a new vinyl top put on.

[95badbird]

Originally Posted by toyobug

Gotta love them old t-birds...back in highschool when CB radios were popular (pre-cell phone era) my handle was "blue thunderbird"..sounds kinda cheesy now. but man I love those old t-birds. Nice lookin top on your truck to. Did you fab that yourself?

Thanks.
The top for the truck was made by snugtop.
Its called the Top Gun.
They made very few, as they were very expensive.

[Will]

Beautiful T-bird. If it were me I think I would not worry about fuel mileage on that one. I would leave it in the garage and drive it every great once in awhile to "scratch the itch". That car is something special, so I certainly would not mod it. I think I would turn the Taurus into a MPG car, or look at a cheap subcompact.

[Brian03cav]

excellent looking car! my dad has told be stories of the same car he had back in highschool, a 73 t-bird with the 460. he joked and said on the highway you could see the fuel gauge moving haha. nice cleanup as well, i bet its a wonderful cruiser.

[95badbird]

Originally Posted by Brian03cav

excellent looking car! my dad has told be stories of the same car he had back in highschool, a 73 t-bird with the 460. he joked and said on the highway you could see the fuel gauge moving haha. nice cleanup as well, i bet its a wonderful cruiser.

hehe, tell your Dad, if he's looking for another, this ones for sale!

[bgd73]

Nice. Unique swaying heavy..lol
modern engine and its internals would be no regret. Even the carb cams and classic carbs would be nice...
That 460 was in my family for awhile in a 1976 ltd wagon. even the cylinder bores with full oil functions fed the bad fuel mileage ... a real drag (pun intended). That whole generation has bizarre bad engines. A modern smallblock would even outdo it. The tolerances could be guaged with width of fingernails (very very bad)

[Ford Man]

I know the 10 mpg feeling. I had a '76 Continental Mark IV with the 460. I got about 10-11 mpg on it on local trips of 20 miles or less and about 14 highway. There's just not much way to get much better mileage, but those cars were made for comfort not FE. There was no lack of power either. I too would make a restoration project out of it and garage it. They just don't make cars like that one anymore and with only 53,000 actual miles the drive train should be in like new condition and would make a great collector car. I remember in 1974 when I was 14 years old my dad was going to buy a new car and there was a new '74 T-Bird, white on white like yours that I tried to talk him into buying, but he wouldn't part with the extra $3000. that it cost over the price of a new LTD. The price on the '74 was under $8,000. new.

[Andyman]

I have something kind of similar that I bought more than 20 years ago. It's a Mercury Marquis with a 429 engine. The 429 is almost the same as a 460. The crankshaft and pistons are different. On long trips I could get about 17 MPG. My engine had about 10.25 compression ratio and I'm sure that helped. After 1971 they lowered the compression. After I stopped driving it I discovered that my distributor advance springs were pretty tight and it didn't get much spark advance until it was up to about 70 MPH. I loosened them to allow more spark advance at low speed but I can't report on what effect it had on fuel economy since I don't have that car registered.

An overdrive transmission with lockup torque converter would be a big help on the highway when you have a large displacement engine. Something from a Ford truck might fit.