Quote:
Originally Posted by Ptero
Charlie, no way can you get mileage like that.
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50 mpg from a B210? Bet he could
Ptero, I can tell you've been a car guy for a while. There's a lot of good ideas there. Oh, to check for vacuum leaks, spray the choke cleaner or starting fluid around the base of the carb, throttle shaft, vacuum lines, etc. but not IN the carb, nor toward anything that makes/uses electricity - and keep a fire extinguisher handy
Re-grease the wheel bearings with a good lithium grease, (back the axle nut off up to a 1/4 turn from snug to re-pin it) and keep the tires as close to the max printed on them as possible without making the ride rough - eventually suspension movement will start robbing mpgs.
If you want that fifty, you can do stuff like re-curve your distributor. You'll have to talk to an old car guy about how to "adjust" the weights, but it's fairly simple once you get the idea. You'd have to play some - on a hot day you can find out you went too far, and have to back off base timing, which defeats your purpose. I've seen guys clamp a bar to their distributor body, loosen the nut/bolt just a little that keeps it from turning, and attach a hand throttle cable to the other end, and adjust their timing on the fly to whatever temp/load is present at the time (old drag-racing trick).
Alternatively, you can just move up base timing about 2 degrees (more advanced) from stock and see if you get spark knocking under a load (BAD thing!). I've seen many a car with the distributor gears worn more than that after 100K miles. Try it on your truck too! There's something funny about what mileage you're getting there...my son's '95 GMC Sierra is at 4 degrees above stock right now...at 216K miles...
There's more mechanical stuff to do, but I don't want to overload you. Besides, there's a smell of homemade bread coming from the kitchen...