[sbestca]

40 years ago I started at a trade school 20 miles from home. I needed to save money where ever I could. I was driving a 1969 Half Ton Ford with the 302 and 3 on the tree Manual, 3.25 gears.

I was getting 16mpg(imp) out of it. Like yours, the bed was rusty. I ripped it off and built a spruce flatbed. I installed long tube headers and high flow mufflers and a taller paper element in the air cleaner. I pulled the heads and planed them (I was studying machinist) for 9.5:1 compression. Recurved the ignition and used my daily trips to experiment with jetting on the stock 2bbl.

I ran a 2 blade fan with large pulley clutch drive and a shroud to reduce cooling losses. No problems with overheating here, cool weather and country driving.

Also changed my driving style, didn't know about pulse and glide, used a coast down hills and barely make it up style. Keeping in high gear with speed down was a big savings too. I also ran tall but skinny radial tires instead of the fat bias meats so popular back then. End result was 24mpg(imp) over the week consistently.

For winter I had to go back to smaller filter and supply intake heat. I kept it year 'round after that.